men, women, and children; then murders and outrages, including
cannibalism. From this I passed on to the imprisonment of men, women
and children. Following this I called attention to the destruction of
the Baringa towns and the partial famine among the people in
consequence. Also the large gangs of prisoners--men, women and
children--imprisoned to carry out this work; the murder of two men
whilst it was being done. Next followed the irregularities during
1903. The expedition conducted by an A.B.I.R. agent against
Samb'ekota, and the arming continually of A.B.I.R. sentries with
Albini rifles. Following this I drew attention to the administration
of Mons. Forcie, whose _regime_ was a terrible one, including the
murder of Isekifasu, the principal Chief of Bolima; the killing,
cutting up and eating of his wives, son and children; the decorating
of the chief houses with the intestines, liver and heart of some of
the killed, as stated by 'Veritas' in the _West African Mail_.
"I confirmed in general the letter published in the _West African
Mail_ by 'Veritas.'
"Following this I came to Mons. Tagner's time, and stated that no
village in this district had escaped murders under this man's
_regime_.
"Next we dealt with irregularities common to all agents, calling
attention to and proving by specific instances the public floggings of
practically any and every one; quoting, for instance, seeing with my
own eyes six Ngombe men receive one hundred strokes each, delivered
simultaneously by two sentries.
"Next, the normal condition has always been the imprisoning of men,
women and children, all herded together in one shed, with no
arrangement for the demands of nature. Further, that very many,
including even chiefs, had died either in prison or immediately on
their release.
"Next, the mutilation of the woman Boaji, because she wished to remain
faithful to her husband, and refused to subject herself to the
passions of the sentries. The woman's footless leg and hernia testify
to the truth of her statement. She appeared before the Commission and
doctor.
"Next, the fact that natives are imprisoned for visiting friends and
relatives in other villages, and the refusal to allow native canoes to
pass up and down river without carrying a permit signed by the rubber
agent; pointing out that even missionaries are subject to these
restrictions, and publicly insulted, in an unprintable manner, when
they do so.
"Next point dealt with was responsibility--maintaining that
responsibility lay not so much in the individual as in the system. The
sentry blames the agent, he in turn the director, and so on.
"I next called attention to the difficulties to be faced by natives in
reporting irregularities. The number of civil officials is too small;
the practical impossibility of reaching those that do exist--the
native having first to ask permission of the rubber agent.
"The relations that are at present necessary between the A.B.I.R. and
the State render it highly improbable that the natives will ever
report irregularities. I then pointed out that we firmly believe that
but for us these irregularities would never have come to light.
"Following on this the difficulties to be faced by missionaries were
dealt with, pointing out that the A.B.I.R. can and do impose on us all
sorts of restrictions if we dare to speak a word about their
irregularities. I then quoted a few of the many instances which found
their climax in Mrs. Harris and I almost losing our lives for daring
to oppose the massacres by Van Caelcken. It was also stated that we
could not disconnect the attitude of the State in refusing us fresh
sites with our action in condemning the administration. I then
mentioned that the forests are exhausted of rubber, pointing out that
during a five days' tour through the forests I did not see a single
vine of any size. This is solely because the vines have been worked in
such a manner that all the rubber roots need many years' rest, whereas
the natives now are actually reduced to digging up those roots in
order to get rubber.
"The next subject dealt with was the clear violation both of the
spirit and letter of the Berlin Act. In the first place we are not
allowed to extend the Mission, and, further, we are forbidden to trade
even for food.
"Next the statement was made that, so far as we are aware, no single
sentry had ever been punished by the State till 1904 for the many
murders committed in this district.
"I next pointed out that one reason why the natives object to paddle
for the A.B.I.R. is because of the sentries who travel in the A.B.I.R.
canoes, and whose only business is to flog the paddlers in order to
keep them going.
"After Mr. Stannard had been heard, sixteen Esanga witnesses were
questioned one by one. They gave clearly the details of how father,
mother, brother, sister, son or daughter were killed in cold blood for
rubber. These sixteen represented over twenty murders in Esanga alone.
Then followed the big chief of all Bolima, who succeeded Isekifasu
(murdered by the A.B.I.R.). What a sight for those who prate about
lying missionaries! He stood boldly before all, pointed to his twenty
witnesses, placed on the table his one hundred and ten twigs, each
twig representing a life for rubber. 'These are chiefs' twigs, these
are men's, these shorter are women's, these smaller still are
children's.' He gives the names of scores, but begs for permission to
call his son as a reminder. The Commission, though, is satisfied with
him, that he is telling the truth, and therefore say that it is
unnecessary. He tells how his beard of many years' growth, and which
nearly reached his feet, was cut off by a rubber agent, merely because
he visited a friend in another town. Asked if he had not killed
A.B.I.R. sentries, he denied it, but owned to his people spearing
three of the sentry's boys. He tells how the white man fought him, and
when the fight was over handed him his corpses, and said: 'Now you
will bring rubber, won't you?' To which he replied: 'Yes.' The corpses
were cut up and eaten by Mons. Forcie's fighters. He also told how he
had been chicotted and imprisoned by the A.B.I.R. agent, and further
put to the most menial labour by the agent.
"Here Bonkoko came forward and told how he accompanied the A.B.I.R.
sentries when they went to murder Isekifasu and his wives and little
ones; of finding them peacefully sitting at their evening meal; of the
killing as many as they could, also the cutting up and eating of the
bodies of Isekifasu's son and his father's wives; of how they dashed
the baby's brains out, cut the body in half, and impaled the halves.
"Again he tells how, on their return, Mons. Forcie had the sentries
chicotted because they had not killed enough of the Bolima people.
"Next came Bongwalanga, and confirmed Bonkoko's story; this youth went
to 'look on.' After this the mutilated wife of Lomboto, of Ekerongo,
was carried by a chief, who showed her footless leg and hernia. This
was the price she had to pay for remaining faithful to her husband.
The husband told how he was chicotted because he was angry about his
wife's mutilation.
"Then Longoi, of Lotoko, placed eighteen twigs on the table,
representing eighteen men, women and children murdered for rubber.
Next, Inunga laid thirty-four twigs on the table and told how
thirty-four of his men, women and children had been murdered at
Ekerongo. He admits that they had speared one sentry, Iloko, but that,
as in every other such instance, was because Iloko had first killed
their people. Lomboto shows his mutilated wrist and useless hand,
done by the sentry. Isekansu shows his stump of a forearm, telling the
same pitiful story. Every witness tells of floggings, rape,
mutilations, murders, and of imprisonments of men, women and children,
and of illegal fines and irregular taxes, etc., etc. The Commission
endeavours to get through this slough of iniquity and river of blood,
but finding it hopeless, asks how much longer I can go on. I tell them
I can go on until they are satisfied that hundreds of murders have
been committed by the A.B.I.R. in this district alone; murders of
chiefs, men, women and little children, and that multitudes of
witnesses only await my signal to appear by the thousand.
"I further point out that we have only considered about two hundred
murders from the villages of Bolima, Esanga, Ekerongo, Lotoko; that by
far the greater majority still remain. The following districts are as
yet untouched: Bokri, Nson-go, Boru-ga, Ekala, Baringa, Linza,
Lifindu, Nsongo-Mboyo, Livoku, Boendo, the Lomako river, the Ngombe
country, and many others, all of whom have the same tale to tell.
Every one saw the hopelessness of trying to investigate things fully.
To do so, the Commission would have to stay here for months."
What comment can be added to such evidence as this! It stands in its naked
horror, and it is futile to try to make it more vivid. What can any of
those English apologists of the Congo who have thrown a doubt upon the
accounts of outrages because in passing through a section of this huge
country upon a flying visit they had not happened to see them--what can
Lord Mountmorris, Captain Boyd Alexander, or Mrs. French Sheldon say in
the face of a mass of evidence with the actual mutilated limbs and
excoriated backs to enforce it? Can they say more than the man actually
incriminated, M. Le Jeune, the chief agent at the spot? "What have you to
say?" asked the President. M. Le Jeune shrugged his shoulders. He had
nothing to say. The President, who had listened, to his honour be it
spoken, with tears running down his cheeks to some of the evidence, cried
out in amazement and disgust. "There is one document I would put in," said
the agent. "It is to show that 142 of my sentinels were slain by the
villagers in the course of seven months." "Surely that makes the matter
worse!" cried the sagacious judge. "If these well-armed men were slain by
the defenceless villagers, how terrible must the wrongs have been which
called for such desperate reprisals!"
You will ask what was done with this criminal agent, a man whose deeds
merited the heaviest punishment that human law could bestow. Nothing
whatever was done to him. He was allowed to slip out of the country
exactly as Captain Lothaire, in similar circumstances, was allowed to slip
from the country. An insignificant agent may be occasionally made an
example of, but to punish the local manager of a great company would be to
lessen the output of rubber, and what are morality and justice compared to
that?
Why should one continue with the testimony given before the Commission?
Their wanderings covered a little space of the country and were confined
to the main river, but everywhere they elicited the same tale of slavery,
mutilation, and murder. What Scrivener and Grenfell said at Bolobo was
what Harris and Stannard said at Baringa, what Gilchrist said at Lulanga,
what Rushin and Gamman said at Bongadanga, what Mr. and Mrs. Lower said at
Ikan, what Padfield said at Bonginda, what Weeks said at Monscombe. The
place varied, but the results of the system were ever the same. Here and
there were human touches which lingered in the memory; here and there also
episodes of horror which stood out even in that universal Golgotha. One
lad testified that he had lost every relative in the world, male or
female, all murdered for rubber. As his father lay dying he had given him
the charge of two infant brothers and enjoined him to guard them tenderly.
He had cared for them until he had been compelled at last to go himself
into the forest to gather the rubber. One week their quantity had been
short. When he returned from the wood the village had been raided in his
absence, and he found his two little brothers lying disembowelled across a
log. The company, however, paid 200 per cent.
Four natives had been tortured until they cried out for some one to bring
a gun and shoot them.
The chiefs died because their hearts were broken.
Mr. Gamman knew no village where it took them less than ten days out of
fifteen to satisfy the demands of the A.B.I.R. As a rule, the people had
four days in a month to themselves. By law the maximum of forced labour
was forty hours in a month. But, as I have said, there is no relation at
all between law and practice in the Congo.
One witness appeared with a string knotted in forty-two places, and with a
packet of fifty leaves. Each knot represented a murder and each leaf a
rope in his native village.
The son of a murdered chief took the body of his father (all names, dates
and place specified) to show it to the white agent, in the hope of
justice. The agent called his dog and set it on him, the dog biting the
son on the leg as he carried the corpse of his father.
The villagers brought their murdered men to M. Spelier, director of the La
Lulanga Company. He accused them of lying and ordered them off.
One chief was seized by two white agents, one of whom held him while the
other beat him. When they had finished they kicked him to make him get up,
but the man was dead. The Commission examined ten witnesses in their
investigation of this story. The chief was Jonghi, the village Bogeka, the
date October, 1904.
Such is a fractional sample of the evidence which was laid before the
Commission, corroborated by every detail of name, place and date which
could enforce conviction. There is no doubt that it did enforce thorough
conviction. The judges travelled down the river sadder and wiser men. When
they reached Boma, they had an interview with Governor-General
Constermann. What passed at that interview has not been published, but the
Governor-General went forth from it and cut his own throat. The fact may,
perhaps, give some indication of how the judges felt when the stories were
still fresh in their minds, and their nerves wincing under the horror of
the evidence.
A whole year elapsed between the starting of the Commission and the
presentation of their Report, which was published upon October 31st, 1905.
The evidence which would have stirred Europe to its foundations was never
published at all, in spite of an informal assurance to Lord Lansdowne that
nothing would be held back. Only the conclusions saw the light, without
the document upon which they were founded.
The effect of that Report, when stripped of its courtly phrases, was an
absolute confirmation of all that had been said by so many witnesses
during so many years. It is easy to blame the Commissioners for not having
the full courage of their convictions, but their position was full of
difficulty. The Report was really a personal one. The State was, as no one
knew better than themselves, a fiction. It was the King who had sent them,
and it was to the King himself that they were reporting upon a matter
which deeply affected his personal honour as well as his material
interests. Had they been, as had been suggested, an international body,
the matter would have been simple. But of the three good care had been
taken that two should be men who would have to answer for what was said.
Mr. Janssens was a more or less independent man, but a Belgian, and a
subject all the same. Baron Nisco was in the actual employ of the King,
and his future was at stake. On the whole, I think that the Commissioners
acted like brave and honest men.
Naturally they laid all stress upon what could be said in favour of the
King and his creation. They would have been more than human had they not
done so. They enlarged upon the size and the traffic of the cities at the
mouth of the Congo--as if the whole loot of a nation could pass down a
river without causing commerce and riches at its mouth. Very early in the
Report they indicated that the question of the State appropriation of the
land had forced itself upon their notice. "If the State wishes to avoid
the principle of the State appropriation of vacant lands resulting in
abuse," says the Report, "it should place its agents and officials on
their guard against too restrictive interpretation and too rigorous
applications." Weak and trimming, it is true, but it was the cornerstone
of all that the King had built, and how were they to knock it rudely out?
Their attitude was not heroic. But it was natural. They go on:
"As the greater portion of the land in the Congo is not under
cultivation, this interpretation concedes to the State A RIGHT OF
ABSOLUTE AND EXCLUSIVE OWNERSHIP OVER VIRTUALLY THE WHOLE OF THE LAND,
WITH THIS CONSEQUENCE: THAT IT CAN DISPOSE--ITSELF AND SOLELY--OF ALL
THE PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL; PROSECUTE AS A POACHER ANY ONE WHO TAKES
FROM THAT LAND THE LEAST OF ITS FRUITS, OR AS A RECEIVER OF STOLEN
GOODS ANY ONE WHO RECEIVES SUCH FRUIT: FORBID ANY ONE TO ESTABLISH
HIMSELF ON THE GREATER PART OF THE TERRITORY. THE ACTIVITY OF THE
NATIVES IS THUS LIMITED TO VERY RESTRICTED AREAS, AND THEIR ECONOMIC
CONDITION IS IMMOBILIZED. THUS ABUSIVELY APPLIED, SUCH LEGISLATION
WOULD PREVENT ANY DEVELOPMENT OF NATIVE LIFE. IN THIS MANNER, NOT ONLY
HAS THE NATIVE BEEN OFTEN FORBIDDEN TO SHIFT HIS VILLAGE, BUT HE HAS
EVEN BEEN FORBIDDEN TO VISIT, EVEN TEMPORARILY, A NEIGHBOURING VILLAGE
WITHOUT SPECIAL PERMIT. A NATIVE DISPLACING HIMSELF WITHOUT BEING THE
BEARER OF SUCH AN AUTHORIZATION, WOULD LEAVE HIMSELF OPEN TO ARREST,
TO BE TAKEN BACK AND EVEN PUNISHED."
Who could possibly deny, after reading this passage, that the Congo native
has been reduced from freedom into slavery? There follows a curious
sentence:
"Let us hasten," says the Report, "to say that in actual fact so great
a rigour has not been shown. Almost everywhere certain PRODUCTS OF THE
DOMAIN have been abandoned to the natives, notably palm kernels, which
form the object of an important export trade in the Lower Congo."
This palm kernel trade is an old-established one, affecting only the mouth
of the river, which could not be disturbed without obvious international
complications, and which bears no relation to the great Upper Congo
populations, whose inhuman treatment was the question at issue.
The Report then proceeds to point out very clearly, the all-important fact
which arises from the expropriation of the native from the land. "Apart
from the rough plantations," it says, "which barely suffice, to feed the
natives themselves and to supply the stations, all the fruits of the soil
are considered as the property of the State or of the Concessionnaire
societies." This being so, there is an end forever of free trade, or,
indeed, of any trade, save an export by the Government itself, or by a
handful of companies which really represent the Government, of the whole
wealth of the country to Europe for the benefit of a ring of millionaires.
Having dealt with the taking of the land and the taking of its products,
the Commission handles with kid gloves the third great root proposition,
the forcing of the natives, for nothing, under the name of taxes, for
trifles under the absurd name of trade, to work for the sake of their
oppressors. It expends many words in showing that natives do not like
work, and that, therefore, compulsion is necessary. It is sad to see just
and learned men driven to such straits in defending what is indefensible.
Do the blacks of the Rand gold mines like work? Do the Kimberley diamond
hunters like work? Do the carriers of an East German caravan like work? No
more than the Congolese. Why, then, do they work? Because they are paid a
fair wage to do so. Because the money earned by their work can bring them
more pleasure than the work does pain. That is the law of work the whole
world over. Notably it is the law on the Congo itself, where the
missionaries, who pay honestly for work, have no difficulty in getting it.
Of course, the Congolese, like the Englishman, or the Belgian, does not
like work when it is work which brings a benefit to others and none to
himself.
But in spite of this preamble, the Commission cannot escape the actual
facts.
"Numbers of agents only thought of one thing: to obtain as MUCH AS
POSSIBLE IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME, and their demands were often
excessive. This IS NOT AT ALL ASTONISHING, AT ANY RATE AS REGARDS THE
GATHERING OF THE PRODUCE OF THE DOMAIN....
that is to say, the revenues for Government;
FOR THE AGENTS THEMSELVES WHO REGULATED THE TAX AND SAW TO ITS
COLLECTION, HAD A DIRECT INTEREST IN INCREASING ITS AMOUNT, SINCE THEY
RECEIVED PROPORTIONAL BONUSES ON THE PRODUCE THUS COLLECTED."
No more definite statement could be made of the system which had been
attacked by the Reformers and denied by the Congo officials for so many
years. The Report then goes on to tell that when the State, in one of
those pretended reforms which were meant for European, not for Congolese,
use, allotted forty hours of forced labour per month as the amount which
the native owed the State, the announcement was accompanied by a private
intimation from the Governor-General to the District Commissioners, dated
February 23rd, 1904, that this new law must have the effect, not of
lessening, but "of bringing about a constant increase in the resources of
the Treasury." Could they be told in plainer terms that they were to
disregard it?
The land is taken, the produce is taken, the labour is taken. In old days
the African slave was exported, but we progress with the ages and now a
higher intelligence has shown the folly of the old-fashioned methods when
it is to easy to enslave him in his own home.
We may pass the Report of the Commission in so far as it deals with the
taxation of the natives, food taxes, porterage taxes and other imposts. It
brings out very clearly the curse of the parasitic army, with their
families, which have to be fed by the natives, and the difficulty which it
causes them with their limited plantations to find the means for feeding
themselves. Even the wood to the State steamers is not paid for, but is
taken as a tax. Such demands "force the natives in the neighbourhood of
the stations in certain cases to an almost continuous labour"--a fresh
admission of slave conditions. The Report describes the result of the
rubber tax in the following terms:
"This circumstance [exhaustion of the rubber] explains the repugnance
of the native for rubber work, which in itself is not particularly
painful. In THE MAJORITY OF CASES the native must go one or two days'
march EVERY FORTNIGHT, until he arrives at that part of the forest
where the rubber vines can be met with in a certain degree of
abundance. There the collector passes a number of days IN A MISERABLE
EXISTENCE. HE HAS TO BUILD HIMSELF AN IMPROVISED SHELTER, WHICH
CANNOT, OBVIOUSLY, REPLACE HIS HUT. HE HAS NOT THE FOOD TO WHICH HE IS
ACCUSTOMED. HE IS DEPRIVED OF HIS WIFE, EXPOSED TO THE INCLEMENCIES OF
THE WEATHER AND THE ATTACKS OF WILD BEASTS. WHEN ONCE HE HAS COLLECTED
THE RUBBER HE MUST BRING IT TO THE STATE STATION OR TO THAT OF THE
COMPANY, AND ONLY THEN CAN HE RETURN TO HIS VILLAGE, WHERE HE CAN
SOJOURN FOR BARELY MORE THAN TWO OR THREE DAYS, BECAUSE THE NEXT
DEMAND IS UPON HIM.... It is hardly necessary to add that this state
of affairs is A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE FORTY HOURS' LAW."
The Report deals finally with the question of the punishments meted out by
the State. These it enumerates as "the taking of hostages, the
imprisonment of the chiefs, the institution of sentries or capitas, fines
and military expeditions," the latter being a euphemism for cold-blooded
massacres. It continues:
"Whatever one may think of native ideas, acts such as taking women as
hostages outrage too much our ideas of justice to be tolerated. The
State has prohibited this practice long ago, but without being able to
suppress it."
The State prohibits, but the State not only condones, but actually
commands it by private circular. Again the gap which lies betwixt law and
fact where the interest of gain is concerned.
"It was barely denied," the Report continues, "that in the various
posts of the A.B.I.R. which we visited, the imprisonment of women
hostages, the subjection of the chiefs to servile labour, the
humiliations meted out to them, the flogging of rubber collectors, the
brutality of the black employes set over the prisoners, were the rule
commonly followed."
Then follows an illuminative passage about the sentries, capitas or
"forest guards," or messengers, as they are alternatively called. It is a
wonder that they were not called hospital orderlies in the efforts to make
them seem inoffensive. What they actually were was, as we have seen, some
twenty thousand cannibals armed with Albini repeating rifles. The Report
says: