January 24, 1907.
WITH physical and mental disorganization there must, of course, be
moral disintegration. Even the missionaries in an enlightened country
like Japan constantly complain of the depressing influences around them.
Such a complaint, to my mind, is preposterous when applied to Japan, but
it is easy to understand with reference to Central Africa. If there is
but one agent at the station, he rarely sees another white man. Day
after day, and all day long, his constant contact is with the black
folk. There is nothing to appeal to his better nature. He must pit
himself against the scheming and servile native. He must look out for
the interests of the company. He must scheme, browbeat, threaten.
Chances for immorality abound.
Constant sight of cruelty begets cruelty. Alone in a population so
unlike himself, his only safety rests in his commanding at once fear,
respect, obedience. He frequently possesses governmental power. The only
white man in a large area of country, he must insist upon the
fulfillment of the requirements which are passed down to him from his
superiors. There are no white men living who could pass unscathed
through such a trial.
The wonder is not that from time to time company agents and governmental
officials are encountered who are monsters of cruelty. The wonder is,
with the constant sapping of the physical, the mental, and the moral
nature, that any decent men are left to treat with natives.
Of course, there are almost no white women in the Congo Free State
outside the missions. The director-general at Leopoldville, the railroad
station agent at the same point, a commandant at Coquilhatville, and two
of the officers at Stanleyville have their wives with them. It is
possible that there are some of whom I am ignorant, but it is doubtful
if there are a dozen white women of respectability in all the
Congo—except, of course, the ladies in the missions. Almost without
exception, the other state officials and traders have black women.
These black women of the white man are to be seen wherever the white man
himself is seen. A man usually selects his black companion shortly after
reaching the Congo and supports her in his own house, where he treats
her on the whole with kindness. He considers her an inferior being, but
treats her like a doll or toy. She is dressed according to her own fancy
and frequently brilliantly and more or less expensively. She rarely
forces attention upon herself, but where he goes she goes. If he travels
on the steamer, she is there; if he makes a trip through the rubber
district, stopping night after night in native towns, she is ever one of
the caravan. She is true to him and on the whole, though there has been
no marriage, he is true to her.
Frequently, a strong affection appears to spring up between the couple,
and the hybrid children resulting from the relation are almost always
loved and petted by their white father. Not infrequently, the little
ones are taken home to Belgium for education, and are generally received
with kindness by their father’s parents.
On the steamer which brought us back from Congo were two Belgians, one
with a little girl, the other with a boy slightly older. The children
were well dressed, well behaved, pretty and attractive. And it was
interesting to see the affectionate greeting that was given them by
their grandparents on their landing at the dock in Antwerp.
At one post, where we were entertained for several days, the lieutenant
had his two little daughters, 3 and 5 years respectively, at the table
with him at all meal times, together with the other two white men of the
station and his two guests. The little ones were extremely pretty and
gentle. At the table it is their custom to sing between the courses.
Their father almost worships them. While the children are thus
constantly petted in public and appear on all sorts of occasions, the
black woman rarely if ever sits with her white man at the table or
enters the room where he is laboring or receiving guests.
We have described the condition of a single agent at a station. At many
stations there is more than one. At first sight, it would seem as if the
lot of the agent who with one or two others is at a station would be far
happier than that of the lonely man whom we have pictured.
There are, however, two results of the environment to which we have as
yet not alluded. On my return to Brussels, after my visit to the Congo,
a state official who has never been in Africa asked me with interest and
some evidence of concern whether in my judgment it was true that those
in Africa were always a little crazy. I told him that I believed such to
be the case, and quoted to him a statement made by an old Afrikander:
“We are all a little crazy here; it is the sun. You must not mind it.”
Men on the slightest provocation will fly into the most dreadful fits of
anger. A little cause may bring about catastrophe.
The second curious result suggested is the fact that everything appears
much larger, more important, and more serious than it really is. A
slight, neglect, or insult of the most trifling character becomes an
enormous injury. With this unsettled intellectual condition and this
constant tendency to magnify and enlarge an injury, we almost always
find where two men or more are associated in Congo stations frightful
hostilities and enmity. One would think that the common feeling of
loneliness would unite men and cement friendships. On the other hand,
every subordinate is plotting against his superior. Cabals are formed;
injuries planned and developed.
Of course, we understand that criticism, plotting, undermining occur
wherever human beings live. But the thing develops to an extreme among
the white men of the Congo. When a man has an outside visitor ready to
listen to his complaints he will spend hours in pouring out his woes.
The most innocent actions and words on the part of his fellows will be
warped and misconstrued; imaginary insults and neglects will be
magnified, brooded over, and reiterated.
It would be a mistake to think that the men who go to the Congo are bad.
Missionaries assert that the quality of those who come to-day is worse
than formerly, which may be true. When the Congo enterprise was first
launched, sons of good families, lured by the chance of adventure or
pining for novelty, enlisted in the service of the state. Probably the
number of such men going to the Congo is lessening.
To-day, when all the terrors of the Congo are well known, when the
hardships of that kind of life have been repeated in the hearing of
every one, rich men’s sons find little that is attractive in the Congo
proposition. But I was constantly surprised at the relatively high grade
of people in low positions in the Congo state. Most of them are men of
fair intelligence; some, of education. Not only Belgians, but
Scandinavians, Hollanders, Swiss, and Italians, go to the Congo in
numbers. They are not by nature brutal or bad; doubtless they were poor,
and it was poverty that led them to enter the Congo service. The term
for which they regularly enter is three years. No man from any country,
could stand three years of such surrounding influence without showing
the effect.
In passing, we may call attention to certain curious facts of
observation in connection with the strangers who come to Congo. We might
suppose that the Scandinavians would particularly suffer physically in
going from their northern latitudes into the tropics. On the contrary,
it is precisely the Scandinavians who seem most readily to adapt
themselves to their surroundings. Almost all the captains of steamers on
the Congo River are Norwegians or Swedes.
A record astonishing and presumably unparalleled is presented by the
Finns. On one occasion, I was sitting in a mess-room where it proved
that each member of the company spoke a different language—French,
Flemish, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Dutch, German, and English were all
represented. On my expressing interest in there being a Finn present,
the gentleman of that nationality stated that he and fifty-four of his
companions came to the Congo State six years ago; that they were now
ending their second term, and that fifty-one out of the original number
were still living. I presume the statement was true, and, if so, it is
as I have stated, unparalleled. Another member of the company told me
later that the case was far more interesting and striking than I
realized, as three out of the four who died were drowned, not meeting
their death from disease.
There is a tendency for the population of a nationality to flock into
the same line of work in the Congo State. Thus, a large proportion of
the Finns in question were engineers upon the steamers. The Italians are
largely doctors, and one meets with Italian physicians in every quarter
of the country.
I have already stated that those who go to the Congo insist that in
Nigeria the climatic conditions are still worse for health. If they are
no worse, but just as bad, we should find the same disintegration in
physical, mental, and moral ways. It is easy to criticise the lonely
white man in Central Africa; to stamp him as brutal, cruel, and wicked.
But the Englishman occupying a similar position in Nigeria, or even in
Uganda, must present the same dreadful results of his surroundings. I
suspect that our American young men, isolated in remote parts of the
Philippines, show the same kind of decay. Any nation that insists upon
bearing the black man’s burden must pay the price.
Belgium is the most densely populated land in Europe. It, if any
European country, needs room for expansion. Leopold II. claims that his
interest in the Congo from the first has been due to a desire to provide
an opportunity for Belgian overflow. I am loath to attribute to that
monarch so much sagacity. It is, however, true that as a colony of
Belgium, the Congo Free State will ever receive a large number of young
men who hope, by serving a term in Congo, to better their condition.
They realize the dangers and deprivations, but they expect at the end of
their three years to come home with a neat sum of money in their
possession; with this they think to establish themselves in business for
life. Unfortunately, these bright hopes are rarely realized. They start
for home in Europe with the neat little sum of money. For three years,
however, they have had no social pleasure, have spent no money.
Arrived in the home land, old friends must be entertained. The theater,
the saloon, the dance-hall present attractions. Before he knows it, the
man has spent his little hoard in foolish pleasures, and has naught to
show for his three years of labor. He hates to return to Congo, but the
fact that he has been in Congo stands in the way of his securing steady
and normal employment in Belgium. At last, without money and without
work, after a bitter struggle, he decides that there is nothing left but
another term in Congo. If he was a state employé, he decides that he
will better himself by entering into the service of a company; or, if he
were in the employ of a company, he thinks another company or the state
will better appreciate and pay for his services. It is a fatal
assumption. The moment that he presents himself before his would-be
employers and speaks proudly of his experience in Congo as a reason for
his hiring, suspicion is at once aroused that he must have left his
earlier employment under a cloud. He is told to call again, and
inquiries are set on foot with his old employer, who, irritated at his
employé’s desertion, gives as unfavorable report as the case will
warrant. On returning at the appointed date, the applicant is either
told that his services are not wanted, or is offered wages below what he
before received. Angered at this lack of appreciation, he goes back to
his old employer and offers his services at the old price. This is
refused. And the discouraged seeker for work is compelled frequently to
accept, in spite of an experience which would make him more valuable,
lower wages than he was accustomed to.