“The non-natives who, in the same regions, shall desire to occupy lands,
of which the area shall exceed the maximum referred to in the preceding
Article, may occupy them provisionally on such conditions as the
Governor-General shall determine. He shall further decide whether the
preferential right alluded to in the preceding Article shall be given to
them in regard to this larger extent of land.”[9]
“With a view to assist commercial enterprise in the regions of the
interior, the Government even exempted from export duty--the only
customs duties which they could at that time levy--all native produce
coming from the territories above Stanley Pool.
“From the 1st January, 1888,” so ran Article 1 of the Ordinance of the
19th October, 1887, “and till further orders, native produce coming from
the State territories on the left bank of Stanley Pool and above that
lake shall be exempted from export duty.”[10]
Later, by the Decree of the 17th October, 1889,[11] the Government
announced that applications might be presented for concessions to work
rubber and other vegetable produce in the State forests of the Upper
Congo where such produce was not already worked by the native
population.
By the Decree of the 9th July, 1890, the collection of ivory within the
State domains was entirely given up to private persons throughout such
parts of the Congo as were at that time visited by the steamers.
These Regulations were applicable to all foreign enterprise, without
distinction of nationality; they show that there was no such policy of
ostracism in regard to private enterprise such as is now attributed to
the State.
It has not been the fault of the Government that nationals of all
countries have not profited by this liberal system. They continued,
however, to confine themselves, with few exceptions, to the Lower Congo.
The Companies which decided to extend their operations in the central
districts of the Congo found every facility for the establishment of
agencies, and acquired the favourable position which they now enjoy.
The State can hardly be blamed because, in face of the almost universal
inaction on the part of private individuals, it endeavoured to turn its
territories to account by working its domain lands, either on its own
account or through others. It was, however, the only way to secure the
funds necessary for the Budget, the charges in which steadily increased
with the extension of the public service, and to give the country the
benefit of an economic system by imposing upon the concessionary
Companies the obligation to undertake works of public utility.
The Government, further, were careful not to abandon a policy of
moderation in the matter. When by the Decree of the 30th October, 1892,
they defined regions reserved for working by the domain (those, that is
to say, in which it had been ascertained, after inquiry, that the
natives had never engaged in the collection of rubber), they still left
vast zones at the disposal of the public, and allowed to private persons
the exclusive right to work the rubber on the Government properties
there. As a matter of fact, the zones in question comprised more than a
quarter of the vacant State lands, apart from the whole country below
Stanley Pool. Nevertheless, the Companies persisted for some years more
in not moving towards these regions; it has only been since 1897 that
there have been any signs of general activity. It was then that the
numerous factories which are still to be found there were started in the
Kassai, Ikelemba, and Lulonga districts, and on the banks of the Congo.
But it is to be noted that with one exception none but Belgian Companies
decided to put their capital into those enterprises, and to take the
consequent risks. Foreigners have held aloof, in spite of the fact that
they were at perfect liberty to establish themselves in these regions;
even the firms which had been long established in the Lower Congo, and
especially the English houses, did not consider the moment favourable
for establishing branches in the Upper Congo. The above remark is
generally applicable, in so far that, also in the territories for which
Concessions have been given, not one of the concessionary Companies has
found any foreign interests previously existing; indeed, certain
foreigners who were interested in one of the most important of them, the
Anglo-Belgian India-Rubber and Exploration Company, which was founded by
an English group, have parted with their interests.
The commercial field open to private persons in the Congo never has been
and is not limited; trade is free, so far as it is legitimate,
throughout the country, and in certain regions the State, far from
organizing any excessive working of its domain lands, has even renounced
the exercise of its rights of property. To give one instance only the
Dutch Company, the value of whose exports was 730,000 fr. in 1887,
exported in 1901 goods to the value of more than 3,000,000 fr.
Page 162.
The work of organization has since been going on over the whole country
by the more and more effective occupation of the territory; posts and
stations have been multiplied, and now number 215; the work of the
administrative, judicial, and sanitary authorities has expanded;
transport facilities have been introduced; two lines of railways have
been laid in the Lower Congo, and there are others either being
constructed or proposed in the Upper Congo; seventy-nine steamers and
boats have been put on the river and its affluents; 1,500 kilom. of
telegraph and telephone lines have been laid; carriage roads have been
built, on which the use of automobiles will put an end to the system of
carriers (“portage à dos d’homme”); vaccine institutes have been
established with a view to putting a stop, through the increased use of
lymph, to the ravages of small-pox; water-works have been built in
important centres, such as Boma and Matadi; hospitals for blacks and
whites have been founded at different posts, as also Red Cross stations
and a bacteriological institute; importation of spirituous liquors and
trade in them has been prohibited almost everywhere, while the
importation of alcoholic drinks made with absinthe, as also trade in
them, have been forbidden everywhere; the trade in improved fire-arms
and ammunition for them has been absolutely forbidden; cattle have been
introduced at all the stations, and model farms have been established;
Sanitary Commissions have been instituted whose duty it is to watch over
the requirements of the elements of public health.
This general development is necessarily accompanied by an improvement of
the conditions in which the native lives, wherever he comes into contact
with the European element. Materially, he is better housed, better clad,
and better fed; he is replacing his huts by better built and healthier
dwelling-places; thanks to existing transport facilities, he is able to
obtain the produce necessary to satisfy his new wants; workshops have
been opened for him, where he learns handicrafts, such as those of the
blacksmith, carpenter, mechanic, and mason; he extends his plantations,
and, taking example by the white man, learns rational modes of
agriculture; he is always able to obtain medical assistance; he sends
his children to the State school-colonies and to the missionary schools.
Steps have been taken to safeguard the individual liberty of the blacks,
and especially to prevent labour contracts between blacks and
non-natives degenerating into disguised slavery. It is on this point
that the Decree of the 8th November, 1888, enters into the most minute
details concerning the length of the engagement, the form of the
contract, and the payment of wages. Recent legislation in French Congo,
which has very properly been praised by the English organs, has been
dictated by the like solicitude for the natives.
The native is free to seek by work the remuneration which contributes to
the increase of his well-being. One of the objects, indeed, of the
general policy of the State is to aim at the regeneration of the race by
impressing them with the high idea of the necessity of work. It is
intelligible that Governments, conscious of their moral responsibility,
should not advocate the right of the inferior races to be idle, which
would entail the continuance of a social system opposed to civilization.
The Congo State aims at carrying out its educational mission by
requiring the native to contribute, by means of a tax in kind, for
which, however, payment is made to him, to the development of the State
forests; the amount of such payments was, in the Budget for 1903, nearly
3,000,000 fr. The legality of such a system of developing the State
property rests not only on the universal principle which attributes to
the State the possession of ownerless lands, but also on the cession
which the local Chiefs have made to the State, by peaceful methods and
Treaties, of such political and land rights as they may have possessed;
and on the fact that it is the State itself which has revealed to the
natives the existence of those natural riches of which they were
ignorant by showing them how to work; it is the State, too, which has
bound itself, equally with private persons, to plant and replant, and
thus to insure the preservation and perpetuity of those natural riches
which the carelessness of some and the lust of gain of others could not
have failed to destroy.
Page 165.
The system which the State has followed, while forwarding the economical
development of the country, has at the same time caused a considerable
commercial movement, inasmuch as the exports now amount to a value of
50,000,000, and 5,000 tons of rubber from the Congo forests are sold
every year at Antwerp to the highest bidder.
Whatever may have been said this prosperity has not been attained to the
detriment of the native. It has been asserted that the native
populations must of necessity be badly treated because they are
subjected on the one hand to military service, and on the other to the
payment of certain taxes.
Military service is no more slavery in the Congo than anywhere else
where the system of conscription is in force. The manner in which the
public forces are recruited and organized has formed the subject of the
most minute legislative provisions, with a view to the avoidance of
abuses. As a matter of fact military service is not a heavy burden to
the population, from whom it only takes one man in 10,000. To show the
errors which have been believed in regard to the public forces it is
necessary once more to point out that they are composed entirely of
regular troops, and there are no “irregular levies” composed of
undisciplined and barbarous elements. Care has been taken gradually to
get rid of posts of black soldiers, and at the present moment every
military post is commanded by a white officer. The increase in the
number of officials has allowed of giving European officers to all
detachments of these forces.
In regard to contributions in kind which are levied on the native by the
authorities, such taxes are as legitimate as any other. They do not
impose on the native burdens of a different or heavier kind than the
forms of impost enforced in the neighbouring Colonies, such as the hut
tax. The native thus bears his share of the public burden as a return
for the protection afforded him by the State, and this share is a light
one since on an average it means for the native no more than forty hours
of work a-month.
It is unfortunately true that acts of violence have been committed
against the natives in the Congo, as everywhere else in Africa: the
Congo State has never sought either to deny or to conceal them. The
detractors of the State show themselves to be prejudiced when they quote
these acts as the necessary consequence of a bad system of
administration, or when they assert that they are tolerated by the
higher authorities. Whenever any European official has been guilty of
such acts he has been punished by the Courts, and a certain number of
Europeans are at this moment in the prisons of the State expiating their
offences against the penal laws which protect the life and person of the
native. If the enormous extent of the Congo State is taken into account,
such cases are the exception, as is obvious from the fact that recent
publications attacking the Congo State have been obliged, in support of
their indictment, to take up incidents nearly ten years old, and even to
have recourse, amongst others, to the testimony of a commercial agent
actually condemned for his excesses against the blacks. It is worthy of
remark that the Catholic missionaries have never called attention to
this general system of cruelty which is imputed to the State, and if
judicial statistics demonstrate the stern measures that have been taken
by the Criminal Courts, it does not follow that there is more crime in
the Congo than in other Central African Colonies.
No. 3.
_Mr. Casement to the Marquess of Lansdowne._--(_Received December 12._)
My Lord,
_London, December 11, 1903._
I HAVE the honour to submit my Report on my recent journey on the Upper
Congo.
I left Matadi on the 5th June, and arriving at Léopoldville on the 6th,
remained in the neighbourhood of Stanley Pool until the 2nd July, when I
set out for the Upper Congo. My return to Léopoldville was on the 15th
September, so that the period spent in the Upper River was one of only
two and a-half months, during which time I visited several points on the
Congo River itself, up to the junction of the Lulongo River, ascended
that river and its principal feeder, the Lopori, as far as Bongandanga,
and went round Lake Mantumba.
Although my visit was of such brief duration, and the points touched at
nowhere lay far off the beaten tracks of communication, the region
visited was one of the most central in the Congo State, and the district
in which most of my time was spent, that of the Equator, is probably one
of the most productive. Moreover, I was enabled, by visiting this
district, to contrast its present day state with the condition in which
I had known it some sixteen years ago. Then (in 1887) I had visited most
of the places I now revisited, and I was thus able to institute a
comparison between a state of affairs I had myself seen when the natives
lived their own savage lives in anarchic and disorderly communities,
uncontrolled by Europeans, and that created by more than a decade of
very energetic European intervention. That very much of this
intervention has been called for no one who formerly knew the Upper
Congo could doubt, and there are to-day widespread proofs of the great
energy displayed by Belgian officials in introducing their methods of
rule over one of the most savage regions of Africa.
Admirably built and admirably kept stations greet the traveller at many
points; a fleet of river steamers, numbering, I believe, forty-eight,
the property of the Congo Government, navigate the main river and its
principal affluents at fixed intervals. Regular means of communication
are thus afforded to some of the most inaccessible parts of Central
Africa.
A railway, excellently constructed in view of the difficulties to be
encountered, now connects the ocean ports with Stanley Pool, over a
tract of difficult country, which formerly offered to the weary
traveller on foot many obstacles to be overcome and many days of great
bodily fatigue. To-day the railway works most efficiently, and I noticed
many improvements, both in the permanent way and in the general
management, since the date of my last visit to Stanley Pool in January
1901. The cataract region, through which the railway passes, is a
generally unproductive and even sterile tract of some 220 miles in
breadth. This region is, I believe, the home, or birthplace, of the
sleeping sickness--a terrible disease, which is, all too rapidly, eating
its way into the heart of Africa, and has even traversed the entire
continent to well-nigh the shores of the Indian Ocean. The population of
the Lower Congo has been gradually reduced by the unchecked ravages of
this, as yet, undiagnosed and incurable disease, and as one cause of the
seemingly wholesale diminution of human life which I everywhere observed
in the regions revisited, a prominent place must be assigned to this
malady. The natives certainly attribute their alarming death-rate to
this as one of the inducing causes, although they attribute, and I think
principally, their rapid decrease in numbers to other causes as well.
Perhaps the most striking change observed during my journey into the
interior was the great reduction observable everywhere in native life.
Communities I had formerly known as large and flourishing centres of
population are to-day entirely gone, or now exist in such diminished
numbers as to be no longer recognizable. The southern shores of Stanley
Pool had formerly a population of fully 5,000 Batekes, distributed
through the three towns of Ngaliema’s (Léopoldville), Kinchasa, and
Ndolo, lying within a few miles of each other. These people, some twelve
years ago, decided to abandon their homes, and in one night the great
majority of them crossed over into the French territory on the north
shores of Stanley Pool. Where formerly had stretched these populous
native African villages, I saw to-day only a few scattered European
houses, belonging either to Government officials or local traders. In
Léopoldville to-day there are not, I should estimate, 100 of the
original natives or their descendants now residing. At Kinchasa a few
more may be found dwelling around one of the European trading depôts,
while at Ndolo none remain, and there is nothing there but a station of
the Congo Railway Company and a Government post. These Bateke people
were not, perhaps, particularly desirable subjects for an energetic
Administration, which desired, above all things, progress and speedy
results. They were themselves interlopers from the northern shores of
the Congo River, and derived a very profitable existence as trading
middlemen, exploiting the less sophisticated population among whom they
had established themselves. Their loss to the southern shores of Stanley
Pool is none the less to be deplored, I think, for they formed, at any
rate, a connecting link between an incoming European commercial element
and the background of would-be native suppliers.
Léopoldville is sometimes spoken of as a Congo town, but it cannot
rightly be so termed. Apart from the Government station, which, in most
respects, is very well planned, there is nothing at all resembling a
town--barrack would be the correct term. The Government station of
Léopoldville numbers, I was informed by its Chief, some 130 Europeans,
and probably 3,000 native Government workmen, who all dwell in well
ordered lines of either very well-built European houses, or, for the
native staff, mud-built huts. Broad paths, which may be termed streets,
connect the various parts of this Government Settlement, and an
elementary effort at lighting by electricity has already evolved three
lights in front of the house of the Commissaire-Général. Outside the
Government staff, the general community, or public of Léopoldville,
numbers less than one dozen Europeans, and possibly not more than 200
native dependents of their households or trading stores. This general
public consists of two missionary establishments, numbering in all 4
Europeans; a railway station with, I think, 1 European; 4 trading
establishments--1 Portuguese, 1 Belgian, 1 English, and 1
German--numbering 7 Europeans, with, perhaps, 80 or 100 native
dependents; 2 British West African petty traders, and a couple of Loango
tailor boys, who make clothes for the general community. This, I think,
comprises almost all those not immediately dependent upon the
Government.
These shops and traders do scarcely any business in native produce, of
which there may be said to be none in the district, but rely upon a cash
trade in Congolese currency, carried on with the large staff of
Government employés, both European and native. Were this cash dealing to
cease, the four European shops would be forced to put up their shutters.
During the period of my stay at Léopoldville it did actually cease, and,
for reasons which were not known publicly, the large native staff of
Congo Government workmen, instead of receiving a part of their monthly
wages in cash to spend locally--as also those being paid off on the
expiry of their contracts--were remunerated by the Government in barter
goods, which were issued from a Government store. This method of payment
did not satisfy either the native Government employés or the local
traders, and I heard many complaints on this score. The traders
complained, some of them to myself, that as they had no other form of
trading open to them, save this with the Government staff against cash,
for the Government to itself now pay these men in goods was to end, at a
blow, all trade dealings in the district. The native workmen complained,
too, that they were paid in cloth which often they did not want in their
own homes, and in order to have the wherewithal to purchase what they
wanted, a practice at once arose amongst these men to sell for cash, at
a loss to themselves, the cloth they had been forced to receive in
payment from the Government store. The workmen lost on this transaction,
and so did the traders. Pieces of cloth which were charged by the
Government at 10 fr. each in paying off the workmen, these men would
readily part with for 7 fr., and even for 6 fr. in cash. I myself, one
day in June, bought for 7 fr. a-piece, from two just-discharged
Government workmen, two pieces of cloth which had been charged against
them at 10 fr. each. These men wished to buy salt at one of the local
stores, and to obtain the means of doing so, they readily sacrificed 3
fr. in each 10 fr. of their pay. The traders, too, complained that by
this extensive sale of cotton goods at reduced rates by the Government
employés, their own sales of cloth at current prices were rendered
well-nigh impossible throughout the district.
The 3,000 Government workpeople at Léopoldville are drawn from nearly
every part of the Congo State. Some, those from the cataract district
especially, go voluntarily seeking employment, but many--and I believe a
vast majority--are men, or lads, brought from districts of the Upper
Congo, and who serve the authorities not primarily at their own seeking.
On the 16th June last, five Government workpeople brought me their
contracts of engagement with a request that I might tell them how long a
period they still had to serve. They were all Upper Congo men, and had
already nearly completed the full term of their engagement. The
contracts, in each case, appeared as having been signed and drawn up at
Boma on behalf of the Governor-General of the Congo State, and were, in
each case, for a term of seven years. The men informed me that they had
never been to Boma, and that the whole of their period of service had
been spent either at Léopoldville or on the Upper Congo. In three of
these cases I observed that an alteration had been made in the period of
service, in the following terms:--
“Je réduis de sept à cinq ans le terme de service du....”
This entry was signed by the acting State Inspector of the district. It
seemingly had not been observed, for it was struck out by his successor,
and, as a matter of fact, the full period of seven years was, in each
case, within a few months of completion.
On the whole the Government workmen at Léopoldville struck me as being
well cared for, and they were certainly none of them idle. The chief
difficulty in dealing with so large a staff arises from the want of a
sufficiency of food supply in the surrounding country. The staple food
of the entire Upper Congo is a preparation of the root of the cassava
plant, steeped and boiled, and made up into loaves or puddings of
varying weight. The natives of the districts around Léopoldville are
forced to provide a fixed quantity each week of this form of food, which
is levied by requisitions on all the surrounding villages. The European
Government staff is also mainly dependent upon food supplies obtained
from the natives of the neighbourhood in a similar manner. This, however
necessary, is not a welcome task to the native suppliers who complain
that their numbers are yearly decreasing, while the demands made upon
them remain fixed, or tend even to increase.
The Government station at Léopoldville and its extensive staff, exist
almost solely in connection with the running of Government steamers upon
the Upper Congo.
A hospital for Europeans and an establishment designed as a native
hospital are in charge of a European doctor. Another doctor also resides
in the Government station whose bacteriological studies are unremitting
and worthy of much praise. The native hospital--not, I am given to
understand, through the fault of the local medical staff--is, however,
an unseemly place. When I visited the three mud huts which serve this
purpose, all of them dilapidated, and two with the thatched roofs almost
gone, I found seventeen sleeping sickness patients, male and female,
lying about in the utmost dirt. Most of them were lying on the bare
ground--several out on the pathway in front of the houses, and one, a
woman, had fallen into the fire just prior to my arrival (while in the
final, insensible stage of the disease), and had burned herself very
badly. She had since been well bandaged, but was still lying out on the
ground with her head almost in the fire, and while I sought to speak to
her, in turning, she upset a pot of scalding water over her shoulder.
All of the seventeen persons I saw were near their end, and on my second
visit, two days later, the 19th June, I found one of them lying dead out
in the open.
In somewhat striking contrast to the neglected state of these people, I
found, within a couple of hundred yards of them, the Government workshop
for repairing and fitting the steamers. Here all was brightness, care,
order, and activity, and it was impossible not to admire and commend the
industry which had created and maintained in constant working order this
useful establishment. In conjunction with a local missionary, some
effort was made during my stay at Léopoldville, to obtain an
amelioration of the condition of the sleeping-sickness people in the
native hospital, but it was stated, in answer to my friend’s
representations, that nothing could be done in the way of building a
proper hospital until plans now under consideration had been matured
elsewhere. The structures I had visited, which the local medical staff
greatly deplored, had endured for several years as the only form of
hospital accommodation provided for the numerous native staff of the
district.
The Government stores at Léopoldville are large and well built, and
contain not only the goods the Government itself sends up river in its
fleet of steamers, but also the goods of the various Concession
Companies. As a rule, the produce brought down river by the Government
steamers is transhipped direct into the railway trucks which run
alongside the wharf, and is carried thence by train to Matadi for
shipment to Europe. The various Companies carrying on operations on the
Upper Congo, and who hold Concessions from the Congo Government, are
bound, I was told, by Conventions to abstain from carrying, save within
the limits of their Concessions, either goods or passengers. This
interdiction extends to their own merchandise and to their own agents.
Should they carry, by reason of imperative need, outside these limits
any of their own goods or their own people, they are bound to pay to the
Congo Government either the freight or passage money according to the
Government tariff, just as though the goods or passengers had been
conveyed on one of the Government vessels. The tariff upon goods and
passengers carried along the interior waterways is a fairly high one,
not perhaps excessive under the circumstances, but still one that, by
reason of this virtual monopoly, can produce a yearly revenue which must
go far towards maintaining the Government flotilla. By the estimates for
1902, published in the “Bulletin Officiel” of January this year, the
transport service is credited with a production of 3,100,000 fr. of
public revenue for 1902, while the expenditure for the same year is put
at 2,023,376 fr. That this restriction of public conveyance to
Government vessels alone is not altogether a public gain my own
experience demonstrated. I had wished to leave Stanley Pool for the
Upper Congo at an early date after my arrival in Léopoldville, but as
the Government vessels were mostly crowded, I could not proceed with any
comfort by one of these. The steam-ship “Flandre,” one of the largest of
these vessels, which left Léopoldville for Stanley Falls on the 22nd
June, and by which I had, at first, intended to proceed, quitted port
with more than twenty European passengers over her complement, all of
whom, I was informed, would have to sleep on deck. I accordingly was
forced to seek other means of travelling, and through the kindness of
the Director of one of the large commercial Companies (the “Société
Anonyme Belge du Haut-Congo”) I found excellent accommodation, as a
guest, on one of his steamers. Although thus an invited guest and not
paying any passage money, special permission had to be sought from the
Congo Government before this act of courtesy could be shown me, and I
saw the telegram from the local authority, authorizing my conveyance to
Chumbiri.
This commercial Company has three other steamers, but the interdiction
referred to applies to the entire flotilla of trading vessels of
Congolese nationality on the Upper River. Despite the fact that these
vessels are not allowed to earn freight or passage, they are all, for
their tonnage, heavily taxed, while the Government vessels, which earn
considerable sums on transport of general goods and passengers, pay no
taxes. The four vessels of the Société Anonyme Belge du Haut-Congo
referred to, of which the largest is only, I believe, one of 30 tons,
pay annually, I was informed, the following taxes:--
Fr.
For permission to cut firewood 17,870
Licence for each steamer, according to her tonnage 400 to 600
The master of each vessel must be licensed, for which
a tax of 20 fr. per annum is levied.
Himself and each European member of the crew must then pay 30 fr. per
annum as “imposition personnelle,” whilst each native member of the crew
costs his employers 3 fr. per head for engagement licence annually, and
10 fr. per head per annum as “imposition personnelle.”
The “President Urban,” the largest steamer of the Company referred to,
under these various heads pays, I was informed, a sum of not less than
11,000 fr. in taxes per annum. Should she carry any of the agents of the
Company owning her, or any of its goods, save within the restricted area
of its Concession, her owners must pay to the Congo Government both
passage money and freight on these, just as though they had been sent by
one of the Government vessels.
No firewood may be cut by the public within half-an-hour’s steaming
distance of any of the Government wooding posts, which are naturally
chosen at the best wooding sites available along the various waterways,
so that the 10,000 fr. wood-cutting licence which the “President Urban”
pays entitles her only to cut up for fuel such suitable timber as her
crew may be able to find in the less accessible spots.
At F* I spent four days. I had visited this place in August 1887 when
the line of villages comprising the settlement contained from 4,000 to
5,000 people. Most of these villages to-day are entirely deserted, the
forest having grown over the abandoned sites, and the entire community
at the present date cannot number more than 500 souls. There is no
Government station at F*, but the Government telegraph line which
connects Léopoldville with Coquilhatville, the headquarters of the
Equator district, runs through the once townlands of the F* villages
close to the river bank. The people of the riverside towns, and from 20
miles inland, have to keep the line clear of undergrowth, and in many
places the telegraph road serves as a useful public path between
neighbouring villages. Some of the natives of the neighbourhood
complained that for this compulsory utilitarian service they had
received no remuneration of any kind; and those at a distance that they
found it hard to feed themselves when far from their homes they were
engaged on this task. Inquiry in the neighbourhood established that no
payment for this work had seemingly been made for fully a year.
Men are also required to work at the neighbouring wood-cutting post for
the Government steamers, which is in charge of a native Headman or
Kapita, who is under the surveillance of a European “Chef de Poste” at
Bolobo, the nearest Government station, which lies about 40 miles
up-stream. These wood-cutters, although required compulsorily to serve
and sometimes irregularly detained, are adequately paid for their
services.
The F* villages have to supply kwanga (the prepared cassava root already
referred to) for the neighbouring wood-cutting post, and the quantity
required of them is, they asserted, in excess of their means of supply
and out of proportion to the value received in exchange. The supply
required of them was fixed, I found, at 380 kwanga (or boiled cassava
puddings) every six days, each pudding weighing from 4-1/2 lb. to 6 lb.,
or a total of from 1,700 lb. to 1 ton weight of carefully prepared
food-stuffs per week. For this a payment of one brass rod per kwanga is
made, giving a sum of 19 fr. in all for the several villages whose task
it is to keep the wood post victualled. These villages by careful
computation I reckoned contained 240 persons all told--men, women, and
children. In addition to preparing and carrying this food a considerable
distance to the Government post, these people have to take their share
in keeping the telegraph line clear and in supplying Government workmen.
One elderly man was arrested at the period of my visit to serve as a
soldier and was taken to Bolobo, 40 miles away, but was subsequently
released upon representations made by a missionary who knew him. The
number of wood-cutters at the local post is about thirty I was informed,
so that the amount of food levied is beyond their requirements, and the
excess is said to be sold by them at a profit to the crews of passing
steamers. At one of the smallest of these F* villages, where there are
not more than ten persons all told, and only three of these women able
to prepare and cook the food, 40 kwanga (180 lb. to 270 lb. weight of
food) had to be supplied every week at a payment of 40 rods (2 fr.).
These people said: “How can we possibly plant and weed our gardens, seek
and prepare and boil the cassava, make it into portable shape, and then
carry it nearly a day’s journey to the post? Moreover, if the kwanga we
make are a little small or not well-cooked, or if we complain that the
rods given us in settlement are too short, as they sometimes are, then
we are beaten by the wood-cutters, and sometimes we are detained several
days to cut firewood as a punishment.”
Statements of this kind might be tediously multiplied.
The local mission station at F* requires much smaller kwanga than the
Government size, getting from 1-1/2 lb. to 2 lb. weight of food at the
same price--viz., 1 rod. The kwanga made up for general consumption, as
sold in local markets, weigh only about 1 lb. each. The Government
requires, delivered free, even at considerable distances, from four and
a-half to six times the weight of prepared food to that sold publicly
for 1/2_d._
In most parts of the Upper Congo the recognized currency consists of
lengths of brass wire; these lengths varying according to the district.
At one period the recognized length of a brass rod was 18 inches, but
to-day the average length of a rod cannot be more than 8 or 9 inches.
The nominal value of one of these rods is 1/2_d._, twenty of them being
reckoned to the franc; but the intrinsic value, or actual cost of a rod
to any importer of the brass wire direct from Europe, would come to less
than a 1/4_d._, I should say. Such as it is, clumsy and dirty, this is
the principal form of currency known on the Upper Congo where, saving
some parts of the French Congo I visited, European money is still quite
unknown.
The reasons for the decrease of population at F* given me, both by the
natives and by others, point to sleeping sickness as probably one of the
principal factors. There has also been emigration to the opposite side
of the river, to the French shore, but this course has never, I gather,
been popular. The people have not easily accommodated themselves to the
altered condition of life brought about by European Government in their
midst. Where formerly they were accustomed to take long voyages down to
Stanley Pool to sell slaves, ivory, dried fish, or other local products
against such European merchandise as the Bateke middlemen around the
Pool had to offer in exchange, they find themselves to-day debarred from
all such form of activity.
The open selling of slaves and the canoe convoys, which once navigated
the Upper Congo, have everywhere disappeared. No act of the Congo State
Government has perhaps produced more laudable results than the vigorous
suppression of this widespread evil. In the 160 miles’ journey from
Léopoldville to F* I did not see one large native canoe in mid-stream,
and only a few small canoes creeping along the shore near to native
villages. While the suppression of an open form of slave dealing has
been an undoubted gain, much that was not reprehensible in native life
has disappeared along with it. The trade in ivory has to-day entirely
passed from the hands of the natives of the Upper Congo, and neither
fish nor any other outcome of local industry now changes hands on an
extensive scale or at any distance from home.
So far as I could observe in the limited time at my disposal, the people
of F* now rarely leave their homes save when required by the local
Government official at Bolobo to serve as soldiers, or woodcutters at
one of the Government posts, or to convey the weekly supplies of food
required of them to the nearest Government station. These demands for
food-stuffs comprise fowls and goats for consumption by the European
members of the Government staff at Léopoldville, or for passengers on
the Government steamers. They emanate from the Chief of the post at
Bolobo who, I understand, is required in so far as he can, to keep up
this supply. In order to obtain this provision he is forced to exercise
continuous pressure on the local population, and within recent times
that pressure has not always taken the form of mere requisition. Armed
expeditions have been necessary and a more forcible method of levying
supplies adopted than the law either contemplated or justifies. Very
specific statements as to the harm one of these recent expeditions
worked in the country around F* were made to me during my stay there.
The officer in command of the G* district, at the head of a band of
soldiers passed through a portion of the district wherein the natives,
unaccustomed to the duties expected of them, had been backward in
sending in both goats and fowls.
The result of this expedition, which took place towards the end of 1900,
was that in fourteen small villages traversed seventeen persons
disappeared. Sixteen of these whose names were given to me were killed
by the soldiers, and their bodies recovered by their friends, and one
was reported as missing. Of those killed eleven were men, three women,
and one a boy child of 5 years. Ten persons were tied up and taken away
as prisoners, but were released on payment of sixteen goats by their
friends, except one, a child, who died at Bolobo. In addition 48 goats
were taken away and 225 fowls; several houses were burned, and a
quantity of their owners’ property either pillaged or destroyed.
Representations on behalf of the injured villages were made to the
Inspecteur d’État at Léopoldville, who greatly deplored the excesses of
his subordinate, and sent to hold an inquiry and to pay compensation to
the relatives of those killed and for the live-stock or goods destroyed
or taken away. The local estimate of the damage done amounted to 71,730
brass rods (3,586 fr.), which included 20,500 brass rods (1,025 fr.),
assessed as compensation for the seventeen people. Three of these were
Chiefs, and the amount asked for would have worked out at about 1,000
brass rods (50 fr.) per head, not probably an extravagant estimate for
human life, seeing that the goats were valued at 400 rods each (20 fr.).
A total sum, I was told, of 18,000 brass rods (950 fr.) was actually
paid to the injured villages by the Government Commissioner, who came
from Stanley Pool; and this sum, it was said, was levied as a fine for
his misconduct on the official responsible for the raid. I could not
learn what other form of punishment, if any, was inflicted on this
officer. He remained as the Government Representative for some time
afterwards, was then transferred to another post in the immediate
neighbourhood, and finally went home at the expiration of his period of
service.
At Bolobo, where I spent ten days waiting for a steamer to continue my
journey, a somewhat similar state of affairs prevails to that existing
at F*. Bolobo used to be one of the most important native Settlements
along the south bank of the Upper Congo, and the population in the early
days of civilized rule numbered fully 40,000 people, chiefly of the
Bobangi tribe. To-day the population is believed to be not more than
7,000 or 8,000 souls. The Bolobo men were famous in former days for
their voyages to Stanley Pool and their keen trading ability. All of
their large canoes have to-day disappeared, and while some of them still
hunt hippopotami--which are still numerous in the adjacent waters--I did
not observe anything like industry among them.
Indeed, it would be hard to say how the people now live or how they
occupy their own time. They did not complain so much of the weekly
enforced food supplies required of them, which would, indeed, seem to be
an unavoidable necessity of the situation, as to the unexpected calls
frequently made upon them. Neither rubber nor ivory is obtained in this
neighbourhood. The food supply and a certain amount of local labour is
all that is enforced. As woodcutters, station hands in the Government
post, canoe paddlers, workers on the telegraph route or in some other
public capacity, they are liable to frequent requisition.
The labour required did not seem to be excessive, but it would seem to
be irregularly called for, unequally distributed, and only poorly
remunerated, or sometimes not remunerated at all.
Complaints as to the manner of exacting service are much more frequent
than complaints as to the fact of service being required. If the local
official has to go on a sudden journey men are summoned on the instant
to paddle his canoe, and a refusal entails imprisonment or a beating. If
the Government plantation or the kitchen garden require weeding, a
soldier will be sent to call in the women from some of the neighbouring
towns. To the official this is a necessary public duty which he cannot
but impose, but to the women suddenly forced to leave their household
tasks and to tramp off, hoe in hand, baby on back, with possibly a
hungry and angry husband at home, the task is not a welcome one.
One of the weightier tasks imposed upon the neighbourhood during my stay
at Bolobo was the construction of a wooden pier at the Government beach
whereat Government vessels might come alongside.
I visited this incompleted structure several times, and estimated that
from 1,500 to 2,000 trees and saplings had already been used in its
partial construction. All of these were cut down and carried in by the
men of some of the neighbouring towns, and for this compulsory service
no remuneration had, up to that date, I was on all sides informed, been
made to any one of them. They were ordered, they said, to do it as a
public duty. The timber needed had to be sought at a considerable
distance, most of the trees had been carried some miles, and the task
was not altogether an agreeable one. The chief complaint I heard
directed against this work, however, was that the pier was being so
badly put up that when finished it would be quite useless, and all their
work would thus be thrown away. My own opinion of the structure was that
this criticism was well founded, and that the first annual rise of the
river would sweep most of the ill-laid timbers away.
The Bolobo people do not object so much to the regular food tax, just
because this is regular, and they can prepare and regularly meet it, as
to the sudden and unexpected labour tasks, such as canoe journeys, or
this more onerous pier building. They could, I perceived, trace no
connection between this hastily-conceived exaction on their time and
labour and a system of general contribution in the public interest,
which, to be readily admitted, should be clearly defined. Were a regular
annual tax levied in money, or some medium of barter exchange serving as
a legal currency, the people would in time be brought to see that a
payment of this kind evenly distributed and enforced was, indeed, a
public duty they were bound to acquit themselves of, and one their
Government was justified in strictly enforcing; but they do not assign
any such value to the unsystematic calls upon them which prevail to-day.
To be hastily summoned from their usual home avocations, or even from
their possibly habitual idleness, to perform one or other of the tasks
indicated above, and to get neither food nor pay for their exertions, as
is often the case, seems to these unprogressive people not a public
service they are called upon to perform in the public interest, but a
purely personal burden laid upon their bodies and their time by the
local agent of an organization which, to them, would seem to exist
chiefly for its own profit.
The weight of the kwanga required at Bolobo seemed to be less than that
enforced at F*, and I found that this variance existed throughout the
Upper Congo. At Bolobo the kwanga loaves supplied to the Government
post weighed each a little over 3 lb. That made for ordinary sale in the
public market just over 1 lb.: one of each that I weighed myself gave 3
lb. 2 oz. to the Government loaf, and 13 oz. to that made for general
consumption. The price paid in each case was the same--viz., one brass
rod.
At the village of H*, some 4 or 5 miles from the Government post, which
I visited, I found the village to number some forty adult males with
their families. This village has to supply weekly to the Government post
400 of these loaves (say 1,250 lb. weight of food) for which a payment
of 20 fr. (400 rods) is made. The people of H* told me that when short
of cassava from their own fields for the preparation of this supply,
they bought the root in the local market and had to pay for it in the
raw state just twice what they received for the prepared and cooked
product they delivered at the post. I had no means of verifying this
statement, but I was assured by many persons that it was strictly true.
In addition to supplying this food weekly, H* is liable to the usual
calls for canoe paddlers, day labourers at the Government station (male
and female), timber gatherers for the pier, and woodcutters at the local
wood-post of the Government steamers.
There was a good deal of sickness in this town, and in that beyond it at
the date of my visit. Sleeping sickness and, still more, small-pox. Both
diseases have done much to reduce the population. Emigration to the
French shore, once active, would seem now to have ceased. Efforts are
made locally, to improve the physical and sanitary condition of the
people, and improvements due to these efforts are becoming apparent, but
I was given to understand that progress is very slow.
The insufficiency of food generally observable in this part of the Congo
would seem to account for much sickness, and probably for the mental
depression of the natives I so often observed, itself a frequent cause
of disease. The Chief of the Government post at G* during a part of my
stay there told me that he thought the district was quite exhausted, and
that it must be ever increasingly difficult to obtain food from it for
the public requirements of the local administration.
Some 40 miles above Bolobo a large “camp d’instruction,” with from 600
to 800 native recruits and a staff of several European officers is
established at a place called Yumbi. I had, to my regret, no opportunity
of visiting this camp, although I met one of its officers who very
kindly invited me there, promising a hearty welcome. He informed me that
native food supplies were fairly plentiful in the neighbourhood of this
camp, and that the principal rations of the soldiers consisted of
hippopotamus meat, the Congo in that neighbourhood affording a seemingly
inexhaustible supply of these creatures.
In front of the house of one of the natives in a village, I saw some
seventy hippopotamus skulls. The animals, I was told, had all been
killed by one man. Many are speared, and some are shot by the native
hunters with cap-guns. A somewhat considerable trade in these weapons
appears to have been done until recently by the Government Agents in the
district, and I found several of the Bolobo young men with guns of this
description which they had bought at different times from the local
official, generally paying for them with ivory tusks. The sale of these
arms by Representatives of the Congo Government would seem to have
ceased somewhat more than a year ago, since which date the holders of
the guns have been exposed to some trouble in order to obtain licences.
Dealing in or holding guns of this description would seem to be
regulated by clearly drawn up Regulations, which, however, do not seem
to have been observed until last year. A tax of 20 fr. is now levied on
the issue of a licence to bear arms, which the law renders obligatory on
every gun holder, but this tax is also collected in an irregular manner.
I learned while at Bolobo that a large influx from the I* district
(which comprises the “Domaine de la Couronne”) had lately taken place
into the country behind G*. The nearest Settlement of these emigrants
was said to be about 20 to 25 miles from G*, and I determined to visit
this place. I spent three days on this journey, visited two large
villages in the interior belonging to the K* tribe, wherein I found that
fully half the population now consisted of refugees belonging to the L*
tribe who had formerly dwelt near I*. I saw and questioned several
groups of these people, whom I found to be industrious blacksmiths and
brass-workers. These people consisted of old and young men, women, and
children. They had fled from their country and sought an asylum with
their friends the K* during the last four years. The distance they had
travelled in their flight they put at about six or seven days’
march--which I should estimate at from 120 to 150 miles of walking.
They went on to declare, when asked why they had fled, that they had
endured such ill-treatment at the hands of the Government officials and
the Government soldiers in their own country that life had become
intolerable, that nothing had remained for them at home but to be killed
for failure to bring in a certain amount of rubber or to die from
starvation or exposure in their attempts to satisfy the demands made
upon them. The statements made to me by these people were of such a
nature that I could not believe them to be true. The fact remained,
however, that they had certainly abandoned their homes and all that they
possessed, had travelled a long distance, and now preferred a species of
mild servitude among the K* to remaining in their own country. I took
careful note of the statements made to me by these people, which will be
found in the transcript attached (Inclosure 1).[12] I subsequently found
when at M* some days later, other L*, who confirmed the truth of the
statements made to me at N*.
On reaching Bolobo in September I obtained information amply confirming
the statements made to me. My own further inquiries at M* are embodied
in the accompanying document (Inclosure 1).[13]
Leaving Bolobo on the 23rd July, I passed on up river in a small
steam-launch I had been fortunate enough to secure for my private use.
We touched at several points on the French shore, and on the 25th July
reached Lukolela, where I spent two days. This district had, when I
visited it in 1887, numbered fully 5,000 people; to-day the population
is given, after a careful enumeration, at less than 600. The reasons
given me for their decline in numbers were similar to those furnished
elsewhere, viz., sleeping-sickness, general ill-health, insufficiency of
food, and the methods employed to obtain labour from them by local
officials and the exactions levied on them. The Lukolela district
furnishes a small supply of rubber, which is required by the Local
Government posts to be brought in at fixed periods as a general
contribution. Food--“kwanga” and fish--are also required of the
riverside dwellers. The towns I visited were very ill-kept and
tumble-down, and bore no comparison, either in the class of
dwelling-houses now adopted or in the extent of cultivated ground around
them, to the condition in which these people formerly dwelt.
Several reasons for the increase of sickness and the great falling-off
in the population of the district were stated by the local missionary,
who has resided for many years at Lukolela, in two letters which he
recently addressed to the Governor-General of the Congo State. A copy of
these letters was handed to me by the writer--the Rev. John
Whitehead--on my calling in at Lukolela on my way down river on the 12th
September. I had no opportunity of verifying, by personal observation,
the statements made by Mr. Whitehead in his letter, for my stay at
Lukolela was only one of a few hours. I have, however, no right to doubt
Mr. Whitehead’s veracity, and he declared himself prepared to accept
full responsibility for the statements his letter contained. A copy of
these letters is appended (Inclosure 2).[14]
The Government post at Lukolela I did not visit, but viewed from the
river it presents a charming aspect; well-built houses, surrounded by
plantations of coffee-trees, extend for some distance along the shore.
From Lukolela I proceeded to O*, which I purposed visiting. O*, with its
two adjoining villages, when I had last seen them in the autumn of 1887,
had presented a scene of the greatest animation. The population of the
three towns then numbered some 4,000 to 5,000 people--O* alone, it was
estimated, containing at least 3,000. Scores of men had put off in
canoes to greet us with invitations that we should spend the night in
their village. On steaming into O*, I found that this village had
entirely disappeared, and that its place was occupied by a large “camp
d’instruction,” where some 800 native recruits, brought from various
parts of the Congo State, are drilled into soldierhood by a Commandant
and a staff of seven or eight European officers and non-commissioned
officers.
There is also a large plantation of coffee-trees, a telegraph office,
and a trading store, but I could see no indications of native life
beyond those dependent on these establishments. The once villages and
their fields had been converted into a very well-laid-out and
admirably-maintained military station. From the Commandant and his
officers a cordial welcome was received. The camp as a military centre
is excellently chosen, the situation of Irebu commanding not only the
Lake Mantumba waterway, but one of the chief navigable channels of the
Congo; and it is, moreover, situated opposite the estuary of the great
Ubangi River, which is probably the most important Congo affluent. The
Commandant informed me that a very large supply of native food, amply
sufficient for the soldiers under his command, was supplied weekly by
the natives of the surrounding district.
It is difficult to exactly estimate the number of soldiers enrolled and
maintained by the Congo Government. There are, I think, four separate
“camps d’instruction” upon the Upper Congo, each of which should have an
effective of 700 men. The effective strengths of the companies of
Manyuema, Lake Léopold II, Lualaba-Kasai, Aruwimi, and Ruzizi-Kivu were
fixed respectively by Circular of the Governor-General, dated the 25th
June, 1902, at 750, 475, 850, 450, and 875 men. There are many other
companies of the “Force Publique” in the Congo State, and I think it
might safely be estimated that the number of men with the colours does
not amount to less than 18,000. By a Circular addressed to the local
authorities, dated the 26th May last, the Governor-General stated that
it was necessary to add 200 men to each of the camps in the Upper Congo.
In the same Circular a proposed increase of the general strength of the
army was indicated in the following terms:--
“Notre programme militaire est très vaste et sa réalisation exige
une attention soutenue et de grands efforts, mais sans son
exécution intégrale notre situation demeurera précaire.
“S’il le fallait, mais je ne pense pas même que ce soit nécessaire,
le Gouvernement se montrerait disposé à augmenter dans une certaine
mesure le contingent pour 1903.”