Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Olmec culture used natural latex from the Hevea tree to make balls for their ballgame as early as 1600 BC. Archaeological evidence confirms these indigenous people utilized rubber for containers and waterproofed textiles by impregnating them with sap.
Henry Wickham smuggled 70,000 Amazonian rubber tree seeds from Brazil in 1876 and delivered them to Kew Gardens in England. Only 2,400 of these seeds germinated successfully into seedlings.
W.E. Hardenburg, Benjamin Saldaña Rocca, and Roger Casement exposed these atrocities to the world. The Putumayo genocide between the 1880s and 1913 was controlled by Julio César Arana and his Peruvian Amazon Company.
Charles Goodyear redeveloped vulcanization in 1839 after Mesoamericans had used stabilized rubber for balls since 1600 BC. Vulcanization heats rubber while adding sulfur, peroxide, or bisphenol to improve resistance and elasticity with an optimal percentage of approximately 10%.
More than 29 million metric tonnes of rubber were produced in 2022 with over 50% being natural at 15.1 million tonnes. Asia accounted for about 90% of output in 2021 with Thailand Indonesia and Vietnam together producing around 61%.