In the year 1495, long before the German Chemist, Fritz Hofmann, in 1909 had his first success with the manufacture of synthetic rubber Christopher Columbus was watching indigenous people of Haiti playing with an elastic ball, something no European had, allegedly, ever seen before. Columbus is said to have been much amused by this sport with a bouncing ball. This was the beginning of Soon after this wondrous stuff became the subject of myths and speculation around the world.

The Amerindians had been quite familiar with the properties of this natural product. Possibly more than 2000 years ago they learned to tap rubber trees and lianas growing within a few degrees of latitude north and south of the equator, developed methods to collect the white, sticky tap, and to dry and cure it by smoking to win a substance that could be used to make bouncing balls, elastic bottles, waterproof clothing, footwear, and cult figures.

However, it was not Christopher Columbus who first wrote about natural rubber, but the Italian historian, Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, who called the substance “gummi optima” and also described how it was collected by the native Americans.

The other name for India rubber, “caoutchouc”, is derived from the native word “cau-utchu”, meaning “weeping tree”. It was probably the French explorer, Charles de la Condamine, who in 1735/6 described the collecting of “latex” (from French “lait” for milk) and gave the name “caoutchouc” to the cured substance. After him many scientists studied the collecting and processing of rubber and its possible applications, thus establishing the basis for its exploitation during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century when inventors and industrialists finally began to discover the potentials of this versatile stuff. The American entrepreneur, Charles Goodyear, is considered to be one of these pioneers. In Part 2 of this series, you can learn more about the “Father of Gum Elastic”.