Talk:Carlos Fitzcarrald/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 09:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I always wanted to know more about the real history behind Fitzcarraldo. Review to follow within the next few days. —Kusma (talk) 09:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, thank you for taking the time to review this article! The photograph of Fitzcarrald does appear in Reyna’s book however he does not clarify who the photographer was, or what year the photograph was taken. The file for the photo states it’s from an archive in Peru or something along those lines but it’s the same photograph that’s in Reyna’s book, and of the same quality. Arawoke (talk) 23:36, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I want to apologise for the slow progress. It is a long article and I have been fairly busy IRL, but these are poor excuses. I will finish the review eventually, though :) —Kusma (talk) 22:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No rush on your end! Thank you for taking the time to review the article at all, if you would like any further clarifications just let me know, I am also busy but very fascinated with this subject. I have a photograph of Antonio de Vaca Diez, Fitzcarrald's business partner, however the copyright information has prevented me from uploading it to this article. The photograph was taken the same year Vaca Diez drowned on the Urubamba with Fitzcarrald!
 * I feel that this article would benefit from another photograph or two, but I don't have many pictures from 1880-1897 in the Upper Amazon. However, I have organized the wikicommons category for the Rubber boom if you would like to take a look and potentially add a photo to the article.
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rubber_boom
 * i.e. This photograph may be a great fit for the article
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_portage_of_a_canoe_in_the_Upper_Amazon.jpg
 * There are several portrait photographs of native peoples taken around 1880 including Ashaninka and Piro natives. Arawoke (talk) 15:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Content and prose review
Stopping here for now. A lot of the text is difficult to understand and confusingly written. —Kusma (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Lead section: seems a bit short (MOS:LEADLENGTH), with nothing on the early life, nothing on his family, rather little on his life as rubber baron, and nothing about his legacy. Will look at this again at the end.
 * Early life: I think Isaís Fermín Fitzgerald could be in bold, as an alternative name of the subject.
 * There he met Fermín Lopez, as well as his daughter, Esmeralda Lopez, who Fitzgerald fell in love with and married try to simplify. I think "There he met Fermín Lopez and fell in love with his daughter Esmeralda Lopez. They married and had seven children". The names seem to be of little relevance here, unless they appear later in the article.
 * ensuring that his son went to well-known schools in the country. Why not mention them? Colegio La Libertad de Huaraz and Liceo Peruano de Lima.
 * Names are generally a bit confusing, and might be worth their own section. When does Fitzgerald becomes Fitzcarrald? Williams being both the father and gradfather is a bit annoying.
 * Isaís was a distinguished student,[5] and he was guided by his father's desire that he would become a sailor, specializing in naval engineering. Williams planned to send his firstborn to a nautical school in the United States to further his education around 1878. try to simplify. Isaís was a distinguished student who specialized in naval engineering. Around 1878, his father, who desired that his son would become a sailor, planned to send him to the United Stated to attend a nautical school. (This assumes that he did indeed specialize in naval engineering -- or was this just his father's plan? In that case, go for something like "his father planned to send him to a nautical school in the US to study naval engineering".
 * Before this, Williams encouraged his son to take a trip along the Marañon to sell merchandise. "Before the planned departure to the United States, his father encouraged him to go on a sales trip along the Marañon river". Do we know what mechandise he sold?
 * The trip allowed Isaís to make a strong profit off of the cargo, and familiarize himself with the unexplored region of Peru. "strong profit" should be "large profit" or "substantial profit". Was all of Peru unexplored or are you talking about a specific region of Peru?
 * The trip allowed Isaís to make a strong profit off of the cargo, and familiarize himself with the unexplored region of Peru. During the business venture, he was stabbed after confronting someone in a bar. The wound was so bad that local newspapers reported that he had died. His father paid for the medical expenses but suffered from grief. After Isaís recovered, he travelled to find better treatment, and on the way back, he found out his father had passed away. this story does not seem fully justified by the source, Roux 1994 p. 264. In any case, try to tighten. "On this trip, he was severely wounded during a bar fight, and local newspapers even reported his death. When he returned (to where?), his father had passed away."
 * After gathering blessings from the family, Isaís moved away from his hometown with his father's maps Drop the blessings. This is the first time the maps are mentioned; perhaps describe them a bit? What is special about them?
 * I was wondering "which war with Chile"? Piping Chile is a bit MOS:EASTEREGG and should be avoided.
 * explain what Fray means?
 * Carlos didn't recognize Isaís at first on account of sickness and weakness whose sickness? Also, better to use "Fray Carlos", as Fray is a title?
 * Carlos was able to verify that he was "he" is slightly ambiguous here
 * Isaís later added Carlos to his name he took the (additional) name "Carlos", he did not add a person to his name.
 * his last name was Hispanicized from Fitzgerald to Fiscarrald not totally clear who "his" is. Is it "Fiscarrald" or "Fitzcarrald"? Ref is broken.
 * "the happiness that the civilized had denied him." what does this refer to?
 * The white figure claimed that the "Sun Father" had sent him with a message that the tribes were to work together. who is this white figure?
 * The man to obey on earth and representative of the sun was said to be Carlos Fitzcarrald. is this the same as the "Sun Father"? Earth and Sun should be uppercase.
 * He threatened that if they did not listen, the rivers would dry up and the game would be chased away. Is "he" the white figure or the Sun Father or Fitzcarrald? Who are "they"? Does "listen" mean more than just hear what the other person has to say?
 * A missionary named Gabriel Sala described one method of entrapping the natives. This white figure Who is entrapping natives? What is "this white figure", is it Sala?
 * The Sala quote has the Son of the Sun. Who is that and how is he related to the "Sun Father"?
 * Rubber baron: By 1888, Fitzcarrald was already the richest rubber entrepreneur on the Ucayali River. that is in the year that he returns from being away for ten years without a trace?
 * Link Asháninka.
 * Carlos already had knowledge and links with the Asháninkas, Humaguacas, Cashivos and other tribes they could exploit to tap rubber. Is this Fitzcarrald or Fray Carlos? MOS:SURNAME applies.
 * He made fun and jokes out of the rumors that the natives of the Ucayali were savage cannibals: stating someone wise made up the tale. This new coalition dominated trade and the rubber industry in the Atalaya area what does "this new coalition" refer to?

More later! —Kusma (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Roux, who gets his info from Reyna, claimed that Fitzcarrald disappeared and reappeared in 1888. Clayton Lawrence corroborates this claim, while Andrew Gray asserted that between 1880-1893 Fitzcarrald was building up his enterprise on the Ucayali River and he became the most successful rubber baron during that time. The first sighting of Fitzcarrald between 1880-1893 that I am aware of is the 1888 account detailing the son of the sun. Also, I'll have to investigate the sources on their choice of words for Father of the sun and son of the sun, I believe it's referring to the same mythological figure and possibly two different sources used one term over the other.
 * Also, I have absolutely no clue when Fiscarrald became Fitzcarrald. Gabriel Sala's book from 1897 spells Fitzcarrald's name as Fiscarrald and the name on his grave is also spelt as Fiscarrald. A few spanish sources from his time period refer to him as Fitzcarrald, but it is primarily the English sources that use Fitzcarrald, and that is the most common spelling of his name. as far as I am aware.
 * I have made several changes to the article based on your bullet points, thank you for the feedback! Also, going back on one of your previous bullet points, I do not know what merchandise Fitzcarrald sold on the Maranon on the advice of his father and I believe that Roux and Reyna neglected to mention what he was trading. Arawoke (talk) 15:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * For the name, I would suggest to have a dedicated paragraph (or even subsection) somewhere explaining the different spellings and what we know about their uses, but perhaps to try to just use "Fitzcarrald" instead of "Isaís" throughout per MOS:SURNAME unless you really need a different name in a specific place. It doesn't really matter when the change is; this probably better not in chronological order anyway. —Kusma (talk) 15:28, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I will stop doing a line by line review until the article is organised in a more readable way, but will have a look at sourcing so I can comment on that. —Kusma (talk) 12:24, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The entire "rubber baron" section is too long and needs splitting up and better organisation by theme. We have Fitzcarrald's relationship to natives, the background to the rubber boom, Fitzcarrald as explorer, his travels and dealings with other rubber barons, modern day interpretations, and his death. The whole section is a mess; at least five or so subsections would be needed that do not jump around as much (as an example, the paragraph Fitzcarrald became established as a rubber baron in the late 19th century.[57][58][m] Determined to find a way to transport rubber out of the Madre de Dios region, he exploited native workers.[59] Some of the indigenous groups exploited by Fitzcarrald include Asháninka,[60] Piro, and Harakmbut natives.[61][n] In 1893 he began looking for a route across land which he had heard about from information relayed by natives.[64][65][o] This was a short and direct route that led from the Urubamba River, to a river which was believed to be the Purus at the time.[64][66][p] The flotilla of the first expedition was commanded by the Asháninka chief Amaringo, and consisted of around one hundred canoes.[67] In 1894, he forced natives under the threat of death to dismantle and transport a ship over a mountain during the turn-of-the-20th-century rubber boom in the Amazon Basin.[59] Carlos Fitzcarrald became known as the "King of Caucho" rubber.[3][68] Caucho refers to latex extracted from the Castilloa elastica tree.[39][69] Castilloa trees are not suitable for long-term exploitation, and the most effective way of extracting rubber from this tree is to cut it down,[70] and then create deep incisions into the tree with the intention of collecting as much rubber at one time as possible.[71][q] This incentivized and necessitated constant movement for new sources of rubber trees.[39] The method for extracting latex from Castilloa trees also required a large work force.[73] is rather disordered, and partially duplicates information found elsewhere.


 * I believe I have dealt with the duplicated information in the paragraph you pointed out. Initially, I avoided deleting / editing the information that was on the article when I started to contribute since I was not using the few sources provided.
 * "Most sources are reliable, but there are a few autobiographies (Sala, Hessel) that are not clearly RS for factual content about others. Best to have these only with attribution."
 * Sala's source, while it contains his name, I do not believe that to be a biography for Sala, or Fitzcarrald. The book focuses on his journey through the Ucayali and Gran Pajonal area, and focuses on the characters in the region as well as the conditions in the region he was travelling through. A decent portion of this journey was through Fitzcarrald's territory. Anthropologist Søren Hvalkof describes Sala's body of work as a "report" which details "how the local patrons, as Fitzcarraldo’s subcontractors, organised correrías from Unini within Gran Pajonal, and how he saw houses completely burnt down and he met small groups of indigenous Slave hunters and their white foremen" - Page 138 of "Liberation through land rights"
 * There is also this bit of information to consider, and maybe it should be included in the article if Sala's information remains in the article with proper attribution. Many of the sources that focus on Fitzcarrald either include some information from Sala or they rely on what Sala wrote about Fitzcarrald and his enterprise.
 * "Curiously, Sala never denounces the rubber baron by name. His discretion makes sense when we recall that Fitzcarrald was at the time the most powerful man in the region and someone who had assisted Sala in various ways during his expedition." - War Of Shadows The Struggle For Utopia In The Peruvian Amazon page 60
 * Hessel's information is included in the "Death section" and this line could probably be removed "Lizzie believed that a chain on the Adolfito broke, and afterwards the ship lost control of the current." It is an assumption on her part, however Reyna's information claimed that a rudder chain which broke and I am not sure if Albert Perl's memoir / biography (I don't exactly know the nature of that source be it memoir or the other.) corroborates this information. Perl did state that the ship lost control, I'll have to examine the source and see if he clarifies this happened after a rudder chain broke. Beyond Hessel and Perl, who may be questionable as a source for wikipedia, I do not know of any other eyewitness accounts of the shipwreck.
 * I am able to provide further clarifications and attribution towards sources if necessary Arawoke (talk) 16:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi @Arawoke, it is very difficult for me to tell which of my comments you have addressed. Some, like using "Isais" instead of "Fitzcarrald" or citing the autobiography to "Hessel" instead of "Lizzie Hessel", seem to remain unaddressed. I can try another read through of "Rubber baron" once you are done with my previous comments. —Kusma (talk) 10:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Arawoke, are you still working on this? —Kusma (talk) 10:33, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I have made several changes today, and I may attempt to write a larger introduction section later. I would like your current opinion on the "Death section" as most / just about all of that information comes from Lizzie Hessel or Albert Perl. I believe I have attributed their claims well onto the prose. Contemporary sources seems to rely on the eye witness accounts of those two I mentioned. You may want to check the contributions I've made today in the history widget for this article so you can see which points I have addressed. Arawoke (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Arawoke: About the death, it would be best to figure out what modern biographies (especially "Fitzcarrald, pionero y depredador de la Amazonía" by Rafael Otero Mutín) say about Fitzcarrald's death (this is what the Russian Wikipedia article does), but I think from a WP:RS point of view it is basically acceptable with the attribution. It is a lot of detail, perhaps too much, but that is true for most of the article.
 * Can you state on this page (inline between my remarks) which points you have addressed? It is too much work to follow otherwise. I can see that you are still using "Isais" despite my recommendation to just use "Fitzcarrald" outside of some paragraph explaining all the names. —Kusma (talk) 21:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Arawoke, are you still working on this? It seems to me we should just close this now. —Kusma (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You may close the nomination, I do not have access to Rafael Otero’s biography of Fitzcarrald, and I don’t know how to cite the “lines” of prose to point out what I edited earlier. Arawoke (talk) 12:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * OK. I will fail this, but thank you for working on Fitzcarrald. I think the article is getting better, but it is not at GA level yet. —Kusma (talk) 16:42, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Arawoke (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Arawoke:Thank you for your work and feedback on this article as well!

General comments and GA criteria
Let's start with images:
 * File:Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald.jpg has no proper source information. I do expect it has been published long ago enough to be PD in the US though. Do you happen to know better information where this image comes from or where it has been published (is there a photo in Reyna's book?)
 * If it is in Reyna's book, that is fine.
 * Other images are fine.
 * The article is not well organised and the prose needs work. The "rubber baron" section especially needs to be broken down and organised more logically. This makes is at least appear not to be focussed properly.
 * The lead section is too short.
 * Ref layout is fine, but don't use "Lizzie Hessel" for the sfn unless you use first names everywhere.
 * Most sources are reliable, but there are a few autobiographies (Sala, Hessel) that are not clearly RS for factual content about others. Best to have these only with attribution.

GOCE copy-edit
Hi reviewers, I'm just about to start a requested GOCE copy-edit of this article, which looks like it needs a lot of clean-up and reorganizing. Content may significantly change during the c/e so you may wish to wait until I'm done before continuing to review the article. If there are any problems, feel free to contact me at my talk page. Cheers,  Baffle☿gab  21:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Courtesy-pinging, the main reviewer here, in case you're not watching this page. Cheers,  Baffle☿gab  23:30, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Baffle gab1978, that is great. I am happy to restart my review after your copyedit. I am watching this page, but please do ping me when you are done or when you need my attention. —Kusma (talk) 11:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for proceeding with the copy edit! If you have any questions or would like any clarification let me know! Arawoke (talk) 16:46, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks and, I've now finished my copy-edit. A couple of points to note:
 * The lede section needs expanding; this should summarize the main points of the article. I've added a template to that effect.
 * I'm not sure which variety of English this article is supposed to be in; there are familial ties to both Ireland and the US. I found both US and British spellings in the article. I've standardized on US English for now but I've no objection if you wish to change that. Changes should be consistent throughout the article.
 * I've retitled a couple of sections. I've also removed some off-topic text, with references, to the talk page; see my edit summaries for details. The removal appears not to have broken any named references.
 * Anyway, good luck with the article, hopefully the review will now be a little easier. Cheers,  Baffle☿gab  02:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)