The need to import this resource motivated an unsuccessful Nazi German research program into producing it with specially bred dandelions. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this resource. E. D. Morel exposed a system for extracting this resource from Landolphia owariensis that included use of the chicotte (“shee-KUT”) hippopotamus hide whip on the local population.
ANSWER: natural rubber
[10h] The rubber supplies in this region, at the time part of Bolivia, led to Brazilian settlers declaring it an “independent state” in 1899. After a war named for this region, Brazil annexed it in the 1903 Treaty of Petrópolis.
ANSWER: Acre (“AH-kree”)
[10e] In 1926, Firestone received a 99-year lease in this country to create what is today the world’s largest rubber plantation. The US aided in negotiations due to this country’s historic founding by American ex-slaves.
ANSWER: Liberia [or Republic of Liberia]
<Chicago A, World History>