THE SUPPRESSION OF SLAVERY
[Sidenote: The World Conservative.]
It is an old world-truth, supported by countless historical
instances, that the way of the reformer is hard. When his progress
is not opposed by vested interests, his enthusiasm is regarded
with chilling indifference. However just his cause, he may safely
count upon numerous opponents, every one a giant. Even when he has
succeeded in establishing a clear case for reform, he is merely set
free from one set of difficulties in order to confront other, and
generally more formidable, obstacles.
When it first became known to the world that his Majesty Leopold II.,
King of the Belgians, had seriously determined to suppress the slave
trade in Central Africa, the news provoked but little comment. “Is
there any slave trade carried on in Central Africa?” people asked
one another—for notwithstanding the wide dissemination of records
of travel by Livingstone and Stanley, and the numerous reports from
missionaries belonging to every religious sect, all affirming it,
the great bulk of civilised mankind, too busy to regard them, rested
content in the delusion that the iniquitous traffic was a thing of
the past.
This apathy, if apathy it may be called to be indifferent where the
facts are not properly known, had to be fought and overcome by King
Leopold, first among his own countrymen, and afterwards in the other
countries of Europe and in America. By many the King’s enterprise
was regarded as quixotic, impossible of achievement; some continued
indifferent, and yet others commended the King warmly, and lent their
moral support in furtherance of his scheme. The material support,
however, which was proffered to amplify his Majesty’s own huge outlay
came almost entirely from Belgians. On the whole, it was an uphill
fight; but King Leopold won all along the line. As we have seen,
his Majesty, by his wise initiative, patient labour, and lavish
expenditure, first created the Congo State, and afterwards obtained
from the great powers their recognition of the State so created, and
of his own sovereignty of that State, accompanied by their hearty
approval of what had from the first been King Leopold’s main object
in the founding of the Congo State, viz., the suppression of slavery.
[Sidenote: King Leopold’s Mandate.]
It will be noted that an important epoch had now been reached.
King Leopold’s mandate was clear and irrevocable. If it had been
an arduous struggle to win that mandate, the effort counted for
little when compared with what was needed for the accomplishment
of the task now opening out before him. The King of a small State,
and with a depleted fortune, Leopold II. had, as materials for his
task, his own natural ability, the righteousness of his cause, and
the unswerving loyalty of his people—three grand factors, it is
true, but hardly commensurate with its magnitude. The suppression of
slavery in a region a third as large as the United States, populated
by diverse and hostile tribes, among whom slavery and cannibalism had
prevailed from time immemorial, would have been no light undertaking
for a missionary Crœsus with a huge army at his back. King Leopold
was no such Crœsus, and his pioneers were few in number. But what
they lacked in numbers they made up in geographical knowledge, in
bravery, and in tact in their dealings both with the Negro and his
oppressor, the Arab. Being human, some few mistakes were made; but
they were very few—fewer than has frequently marked the establishment
of a European colony in countries where there has been no question of
slavery awaiting solution, no cannibalism to stamp out, no climatic
dangers to encounter. When the time comes for King Leopold to be
assigned his place in history as an empire builder, the future
historian will probably designate as his Majesty’s most brilliant
work his solution of the problem of the suppression of the slave
trade in Central Africa.
A wrong may be persevered in until its perpetrator comes to
believe it is right. The Arab had for so many centuries harried
the Negro race—and, taking advantage of their tribal disputes,
plundered, enslaved, and sold them, under circumstances of revolting
cruelty—that he had long ago grown to regard the Negro as his natural
prey, and was seriously alarmed at the appearance in Congoland of the
white-faced strangers with their unwelcome creed of liberty for all
men, which they dreaded even more than their weapons of precision. To
the Arabs this was a strange doctrine, inimical, they conceived, to
their vital interests, and it behoved them to resist it to the death.
That their alarm was well founded the sequel will show.
[Sidenote: Congo Free State Laws.]
One of the first acts of the newly recognised Congo Free State was to
forbid trade in firearms, gunpowder, and other explosives. Another
act defined contracts of service between natives and foreigners,
affording the former special protection. A third act created a
volunteer corps whose chief business it was to protect individual
liberty. Before any aggressive action, however, could be taken by
this corps, the consent of the sovereign’s delegate was necessary.
[Illustration: Various Mounts, Lusambo. (Lualaba-Kassai).]
[Illustration: Cattle, Luvungy (Kivu).]
Concurrent with these three acts, the Belgian Anti-Slavery Society
raised another, and quite distinct, volunteer corps for similar
work, but restricted to the neighbourhood of Lake Tanganyika.
In addition, about this period the same Society despatched to
Congoland, in rapid succession, three expeditions of a missionary
and civilising character. In such circumstances, collisions between
the Belgians and Arabs were inevitable. During the first few years
of the existence of the Congo Free State these collisions occurred
chiefly on the Upper Congo and its tributaries, the currents of
the interior slave trade, particularly those from the eastern and
southern provinces, being checked by fixed military posts and flying
columns. For two years—from 1892 to 1894—a continuous campaign
was in progress, having for its object the interception of the
slave caravans accustomed to come from the south and east, which
was entirely successful. In the vast territory known by the name
of Lualuba-Kassai, at a time when the resources of the State were
unequal to the expense of maintaining a line of posts, it was
usual, up to so recently as 1902, on the appearance of a gang of
slave-dealers to despatch a detachment of troops from Lusambo or
Luluabourg to intercept them. Many engagements were thus brought
about between the State volunteers and the slave-dealers. Now
military posts are established on all the principal roads formerly
used by the slave-traders, and the barrier is complete.
In the north, Commandant Chaltin struck a damaging blow to the
Dervishes in February, 1897. After traversing with his force the
whole of the Uelle territory, he encountered the Dervishes at Redjaf
on the Nile. The place was strongly held by four thousand soldiers,
more than half of whom were armed with modern rifles. A severe battle
ensued, lasting nearly all day. Victory lay with the Belgians, the
Dervishes being forced to evacuate Redjaf. They accepted their
beating badly, making several attempts to retake the place, but
without success.
Thus we have seen that it was in the districts of the Lower Congo
that the slave trade was first stamped out; that it was next
eradicated from the Middle Congo; and finally extinguished on the
Upper Congo, where Belgian bravery and military skill succeeded in
effectually crushing the last vestige of Arab power.
[Sidenote: Negro Advancement.]
The Negro was quick to respond to the revivifying influence
of security for life and property, and his rapid progress in
civilisation may be said to date from the day when this essential
primary condition was established. From a report to King Leopold made
by Baron Van Eetvelde, Secretary of State for the Independent State
of the Congo, the following passage is extracted:
Slowly but surely the black is being transformed, his intellectual
horizon is being enlarged, his sentiments are being refined. A
thousand facts, in appearance insignificant, mark the halting-place
left behind. The black to-day has his place marked out where ten
years ago no one thought of using him. He is to be seen, according
to his aptitude, as a clerk in the Administration, as a postman,
as a warehouseman, as a pilot or sailor on the river boats; also
as a smith, mechanic, sawyer, or brickmaker. Porter in the region
of the Cataracts, navvy on the railway, he offers his arms and his
labour when the remuneration satisfies the new needs that have
taken birth in him. Trader above all, he becomes of a more delicate
taste in the acceptance of merchandise in exchange; the stuffs, the
tissues of striking colours but mediocre quality, formerly sought
for, have to-day no demand, and must give place to articles of a
superior kind. He accepts money; he is even acquainted with paper
money, for many purchases are effected by means of bonds, which
are then cashed at the European revenue offices. He is conscious
of his own personality—claims loudly the redress of any wrong
which he conceives himself to have suffered. Grown more sociable,
he receives, without distrust in his house, the stranger and the
traveller. He begins to repudiate his old primitive customs, such
as the _casque_, or the proof of poison. He sends his children
to the missionary schools; and, to encourage him in this, the
State has started a system of colonies of schools, the pupils
of which are rapidly increasing. Fetishism is beginning to lose
adherents, and religious proselytism proceeds not without
success. The legend of the Negro opposed to all improvement can no
longer be maintained in face of this experience. We may consider
it as certain that the native, well conducted and well directed,
is fit to be assimilated with civilisation. Guarding ourselves
against optimism, we do not disguise that there remains much to be
done in order to introduce by successive stages that civilisation
to the farthest frontiers of the State. But the facts warrant our
believing in the possibility of such a result, which is the final
object of the enterprise of your Majesty. The Congo State in the
few years which have elapsed since its creation, has not failed in
its task. Time and perseverance will crown the work, and it will be
to Belgium, if she wishes it, that its accomplishment will belong.
[Illustration: Grand Hotel, Boma.]
In a later report—the last from which it will be necessary to
quote—Baron Van Eetvelde reviews the complete work of the Congo Free
State from its creation to the date of his writing (1897), and very
ably sums up the situation then existing:
The Congo State [says Baron Van Eetvelde] inherited from its birth
the heaviest and most perilous task in the anti-slavery work. The
territories which fell to it had the sad privilege of being in
their greater part handed over to the razzias, and of including the
principal slave centres and the most important markets of human
flesh. However willing were the Powers, who in the Berlin Act
solemnly condemned the slave trade, the most optimistic only dared
to hope for the disappearance of the abominable practices, like
those Stanley had witnessed on the banks of the Upper Congo, in a
distant future.
In truth, the crusade against the slave trade, in some measure
ordered by the Berlin Conference, remained in the following years
in the condition of a mere vow; and the Congo Government, which
on its own account had then already organised a chain of posts of
defence against the invasions of the slave-hunters, was condemned
to deplore that, despite some partial successes, a great part of
its provinces still remained in their power. Such were at that
epoch the horrors and cruelties denounced to the civilised world,
such was the deplorable situation in which the people of Central
Africa, decimated and massacred by their oppressors, passed an
agonising existence, that, struck by a sentiment of legitimate
indignation, the Powers again decided by the Act of Brussels (1890)
to deal a decisive blow at the slave trade.
The Brussels Conference characterised the part reserved to the
Congo State in the anti-slavery campaign, the importance of the
undertakings which devolved upon it, the difficulties of the task
which assigned it the perilous honour of being the advance guard
on the battle-field. The number of enemies to be fought, the
organisation of their bands, their installation from a remote date
in the regions which they terrorised, their supply in firearms and
munitions, the subjection even of the natives, were so many grounds
of apprehension and disquietude as to the final issue of the
struggle undertaken, and as to the fate ultimately reserved for the
African populations. It really seemed, in that encounter between
civilisation and slavery, of which the stake was the life and
liberty of millions of human beings, as if failure would dispel for
ever the hope of a better future. Thus it was that circumstances
had placed in the hands of the Congo State the destiny of Central
Africa and its tribes, and the situation was tersely defined by
an English missionary when, with the experience acquired during a
long residence in Africa, he wrote in 1893, during the progress of
the military campaign: “I am convinced that, unless the Arabs be
annihilated, a general massacre will ensue. This is the moment for
the Europeans to play their last card against the Arabs. Whether
they will carry the day or not, I cannot say.”
Civilisation did carry the day. And has not history to register
that this victory for the Congo State, due to the bravery of
Belgian officers, entitled it to merit well of those interested
in the fate of the native populations? If to-day there opens for
them a new era of liberty and regeneration, if the amelioration of
their material and moral condition can now be pursued, they owe it
to the annihilation of the promoters of slavery.
Elsewhere has been told at the price of what sacrifices of men
and money, at the price of what valour in every case, these
results have been attained. The facts are there to attest that
these sacrifices have not been in vain. The men-hunters reduced
to impotence, their bands dispersed, their chiefs disappeared,
the fortresses of slavery laid level with the ground, the natives
rebuilding their villages under the shadow of the posts of the
State, giving themselves up to the peaceful pursuits of cultivation
of the soil—an era of tranquillity succeeding the sombre and
sanguinary episodes of the old _régime_. Every mail from Africa
brings proof of the progress of this period of pacification, and
shows the natives, delivered from an odious yoke, recovering
confidence, and living peaceably in their own abodes.
[Sidenote: A Gratifying Retrospect.]
That the problem of the suppression of slavery in Central Africa had
now been solved, we have had abundant incontrovertible evidence.
That its solution was effected with a minimum of bloodshed, and in
a marvellously short period of time for the accomplishment of so
gigantic a task, we have also seen. The first and greatest of the
objects for which King Leopold had so long laboured was at length
realised. The applause of all civilised peoples had been justly
earned, and was ungrudgingly given, and substantial reward was soon
to follow.