AN APPEAL TO BELGIUM TO SUPPRESS THE SLAVE TRADE
Slavery is as ancient as war, and war as old as human nature. Upon
this premise Voltaire philosophised when his thought reverted to
the early inequity of human life. Christian nations were deep in
the slave trade in the sixteenth century. A black cloud of human
flesh, aggregating sixteen million souls, was imported into America
upon Western slave dhows in three centuries, exclusive of the
twenty-odd million Negroes who perished in transit. More atrocious
than the pestilential slave dhow was the slaughter of blacks by the
slave-raider, that fiend incarnate who until a few years ago carried
on his inhuman traffic under the very gaze of Christian Europe.
Indeed, Europe herself was a slave-dealer for centuries. Some of her
Governments sanctioned it in terms unspeakably callous. There was
little pity and less mercy in officially lading “tons of niggers” for
American ports.
[Illustration: Bridge Made of Cement, Boma.]
Late in the eighteenth century, Great Britain had championed the
cause of humanity and sought a remedy for the horrible conditions
which slavery entailed. The movement which, assuming definite
shape about the time of the Declaration of Independence, had found
able and eloquent advocacy in such men as Granville Sharpe, Clarkson,
Wilberforce, and William Pitt. These staunch humanitarians, after
what seemed the hopeless labour of many years, finally triumphed so
far as to impel the Vienna Congress of 1815 and the Verona Congress
of 1822 to forbid any civilised nation to carry on the slave trade.
The next steps, also furthered by the British Government, sought to
abolish the legal status of slavery and to suppress slave markets
and slave dhows. The Western world began to awaken to a sense of
duty. In all directions the noble initiative taken by Great Britain
found earnest agency. The Christian nations, now thoroughly aroused
to the iniquity of the slave trade, exchanged treaties in 1841,
the operation of which was designed to clear the ocean of slave
transports. When shut out of the American market, it was believed
that the infamous slave traffic would subside. But the scourge
continued almost unabated. Driven out of the West, it flourished
the more in the East, where large markets still remained open.
The northern and eastern coasts of Africa continued to supply the
Oriental markets, the Soudan, Upper Nile, and Congo Basin being the
slave-hunter’s Elysium. The Sultans of the Soudan, whose avarice
knew no limit, strove in the cruellest manner to increase their
spoil in this man-hunting chase. Khartoum slavers pressed into the
Bhar-el-Ghazal, while the Arabs from Zanzibar devastated the Manyema
and Tanganyika regions. West-coast raiders had even penetrated as
far inland as the Upper Kassai, and created that wretched condition
of native life in the interior of the Congo Basin which impressed
Livingstone, Stanley, Kirk, Bartle Frere, Nachtigal, Wissmann, Serpa
Pinto, Massaia, and that great exemplar of Christianising work,
Cardinal Lavigerie.
In 1876, nearly ten years before the Berlin Conference, the King of
the Belgians called upon Europe to join in a concerted movement to
suppress the slave traffic in Central Africa. In the same year the
British Government published its _Report of the Royal Commission
on Fugitive Slaves_. The words of Prince Bismarck at the Berlin
Conference of 1885 were an intimation of the legislation which was
thereafter effected by clauses 6 and 9 of the General Act. By clause
6, the Powers agreed “to watch over the preservation of the native
tribes and to care for the improvement of the conditions of their
moral and material well-being, and to help in suppressing slavery and
especially the slave trade.” Baron Lambermont stated the distinction
between slavery and the slave trade: “The slave trade,” said the
Baron, “has another character; it is the very denial of every law,
of all social order. Man-hunting constitutes a crime of high treason
against humanity. It ought to be repressed wherever it can be
reached, on land as well as by sea.”
It was with characteristic activity that the Sovereign of the Congo
Free State had taken the initiative in making the suppression of the
slave traffic an essential aim in the civilisation of an African
State which had not only been the source of slave supply for many
markets, but whose territory touched closely upon a number of
slave-dealing countries. In the eighteenth century, the nations of
Europe had partitioned the coast of Africa to the French between
Senegal and Gambia, to the British on the Gold and Ivory coasts, and
to the Portuguese in the Angola and Benguela regions. The object of
this territorial apportionment was to facilitate the slave trade and
render it more profitable! Now, in the nineteenth century, these same
Governments were dividing African territory with the much loftier
purpose of extirpating the slave trade. The march of a hundred years
had raised European morality and justified the Christian influence of
the age.
Undaunted by the material difficulty of realising the excellent
theories which European nations were now offering to carry out in
the very nest of the slave trade, the Congo Free State formally
tackled the problem by promulgating three decrees in November,
1888. The first provided practical means for suppressing the slave
trade, amongst which were measures prohibiting trade in firearms,
gunpowder, and explosives; the second, seeking to protect and
improve the natives, dealt with contracts of service between natives
and foreigners, and enacted laws which guaranteed the former from
imposition. The third decree established a body of volunteer police
to suppress crimes and offences against public order and individual
liberty. Then followed the organisation of the Belgian Anti-Slavery
Society which, creating a special volunteer corps, operated against
the slave-raiders in the Tanganyika district. Reference has elsewhere
been made to the vigorous manner in which these and similar decrees
were enforced, and how the slave-raider was driven from one lair to
another, until, almost unaided and alone, the indomitable energy of
Belgian officers succeeded in uprooting the institution of slave
traffic and opening an immense river basin to the pursuits of
civilisation.
A great wave of sympathy for all enslaved races had spread throughout
the civilised world. Nations heretofore indifferent to the weal of
the black man in the brutal toils of the slave-raider, were actuated
by a desire to co-operate with the practical forces already at work
for emancipating the Dark Continent. All religions combined in
the motherhood of the human race and, now thoroughly alive to the
principle of human liberty, lent their support to the great cause of
African civilisation. The movement, now become general throughout
Europe, gained impetus in 1888 by the abolition of slavery in Brazil.
In that year, Pope Leo XIII. reiterated the appeal made by Leopold
II. in 1876, and besought all nations to unite in purging the page of
history of a further record of the abominable crime of slave-hunting.
In addressing that wonderful engine of missionary work, Cardinal
Lavigerie, His Holiness pointed out the misery of “that disinherited
land,” and urged all who are moved by human impulse to devote their
lives to “this sublime work of redemption.”
[Illustration: Types of Turumbus (Stanley Falls).]
The self-sacrificing work which Cardinal Lavigerie has done for the
salvation of Africa will for ever be a white monument in a black
wilderness. It was his appeal to the peoples of the Christian world
which witnessed the first organised work of Leopold II., and it is
this prelate’s indefatigable industry, and his love for these savage
souls of Africa, which has largely carried that work to its present
fruition.
The world-wide adhesion to the cause of Christianising the Dark
Continent took diplomatic shape soon after a meeting held in London
on July 31, 1888, at which Lord Granville presided. On motion of
Cardinal Manning, the following resolution was adopted:
The time has now fully arrived when the several nations of
Europe who, at the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, and again at the
Conference of Verona, in 1822, issued a series of resolutions
strongly denouncing the slave trade, should take the needful steps
for giving them a full and practical effect. And, inasmuch as the
Arab marauders (whose murderous devastations are now depopulating
Africa) are subject to no law, and under no responsible rule,
it devolves on the Powers of Europe to secure their suppression
throughout all territories over which they have any control. This
meeting would, therefore, urge upon Her Majesty’s Government,
in concert with those Powers who now claim either territorial
possession or territorial influence in Africa, to adopt such
measures as shall secure the extinction of the devastating slave
trade which is now carried on by those enemies of the human
race.[12]
On October 27th, an anti-slavery convention was held at Cologne, at
which the following resolutions were passed and sent to the Reichstag:
1—The suppression of slave-hunting with its attendant horrors,
devolves upon Christian States and constitutes the primary
condition of the abolition of the slave trade. 2—While the
Congo Conference obliges all the Signatory Powers to help in the
suppression of slavery and the improvement of the lot of the
natives, at the same time the Congo State, Portugal, Great Britain,
and Germany, as being directly threatened by Arab slave-traders,
are expected to take the initiative in, and to bring to a
successful issue, the struggle against the slave trade.
3—The meeting expresses the conviction that the honour of the
German flag and German interests, which have been violated by Arab
slave-traders in East Africa, will be avenged by the Imperial
Government.
4—It also expresses the hope that the Reichstag will support these
resolutions, as a proof of the perfect agreement of the German
nation without distinction of party or creed.
On November 13, the Cabinets of Berlin, London and Lisbon had agreed
upon coercive measures against slave-traders on the East Coast of
Africa. Meantime, on September 17, 1888, the British Government had
appealed, through the Belgian Foreign Office, to King Leopold to take
the initiative in assembling a Conference at Brussels to consider the
subject. In conveying this invitation to the King of the Belgians,
the British Minister to the Belgian Court stated that:
The change which has occurred in the political condition of the
African Coast to-day calls for common action on the part of the
Powers responsible for the control of that Coast. That action
should tend to close all foreign slave-markets, and should also
result in putting down slave-hunting in the interior.
[Illustration: Government Waggons.]
The great work undertaken by the King of the Belgians, in the
constitution of the Congo State, and the lively interest taken by
His Majesty in all questions affecting the welfare of the African
races, lead Her Majesty’s Government to hope that Belgium will
be disposed to take the initiative in inviting the Powers to meet
in Conference at Brussels, in order to consider the best means
of attaining the gradual suppression of the slave trade on the
Continent of Africa and the immediate closing of all the outside
markets which the slave trade daily continues to supply.
On August 24, 1889, King Leopold deferred to this wish and called a
Conference of the Powers for November 18, 1889, to determine upon
a course of action for the _gradual_ suppression of slave-hunting
on the African Continent and the _immediate_ closing of all markets
supplied from that source, and “to put an end to the crimes and
devastation wrought by the slave trade, and effectively to protect
the native populations in Africa.”
Thus, after thirteen years of arduous labour, and the vicissitudes
which attend the progressive pioneer in savage lands, where the
mission and the plough follow the white man’s trail, the Belgians
were again called upon to lead in a war against the most degrading of
human conditions.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] _Times_, London, August 1, 1888.