In the hot, disease infested Amazon, the emigrants held up the “Amazon elite” and transformed what “would have never been an industry” into an extremely profitable one.[74] According to the Economic History Association, “Brazil sold almost ninety percent of the total rubber commercialized in the world” during the decades following the Great Drought.[75] Though some of this success may be credited to the natural abundance of Hevea trees, the tapping costs became substantially lower as thousands of wretched Cearenses entered the labor force.[74]