“Ces peines seront appliquées par les Tribunaux de l’État
conformément aux lois en vigueur.”
It would be manifestly impossible to say that either in form or mode of
procedure this law had been applied to the failure of the community at
W* to meet the demands made upon them.
Neither the summary arrest and taking away from their homes of the men
whose names were given to me nor the imposition of the very heavy fine
of brass rods find any warrant in this page of the Congo Statute Book.
If a legal warrant exists for the action of the authorities in this
case--as in the numerous other cases brought to my notice--that action
would still call for much adverse comment.
The amount of the fine levied on W* was not only out of all proportion
to the gravity of the offence committed, but was of so crushing a
character as to preclude the possibility of its being acquitted by any
reasonable or legitimate means that community disposed of.
Among the earliest enactments of civilized administrations, recognition
has invariably been given to the pronouncement that no fine or
imposition, or exaction, shall exceed the powers of the person on whom
it is imposed to meet it.
But if, as I venture to presume, no Congolese law or judicial
pronouncement exists, or could exist, for the levying, in this manner,
of these fines, very explicit Regulations for the treatment of the
natives on general lines and their right to judicial protection do
exist.
In the “texte coordonné des diverses instructions relatives aux rapports
des Agents de l’État avec les indigènes,” which are to be found in the
“Bulletin Officiel” of 1896 (p. 255), these Regulations are published at
length and would seem, textually, to leave little room for criticism.
Were their application enforced it is abundantly clear that a situation
such as that I found in existence at W* could not arise, and much of the
general unhappiness and distress of the natives I witnessed on all sides
would disappear along with the fines and much also of the “prestations,”
within the first month of the translation into action of these
Regulations.
One paragraph only need here be cited to emphasize the bearing and
import of these remarks:--
“Les agents doivent se souvenir que les peines disciplinaires
prévues par le règlement de discipline militaire ne sont
applicables qu’aux recrutés militaires, uniquement pour des
infractions contre la discipline, et dans les conditions
spécialement prévues par le dit règlement.
“Elles ne sont applicables, sous aucune prétexte, aux serviteurs de
l’État non militaire ni aux indigènes, que ceux-ci soient ou non en
rébellion vis-à-vis de l’Etat.
“Ceux d’entre eux qui sont prévenus de délits ou crimes doivent
être déférés aux Tribunaux compétents et jugés conformément aux
lois.”
At neither W* nor Y* is any rubber worked. With my arrival in the
Lulongo River, I was entering one of the most productive rubber
districts of the Congo State, where the industry is said to be in a very
flourishing condition. The Lulongo is formed by two great feeders--the
Lopori and Maringa Rivers--which, after each a course of some 350 miles
through a rich, forested country, well peopled by a tribe named Mongos,
unite at Bassankusu, some 120 miles above where the Lulongo enters the
Congo. The basins of these two rivers form the Concession known as the
A.B.I.R., which has numerous stations, and a staff of fifty-eight
Europeans engaged in exploiting the india-rubber industry, with
head-quarters at Bassankusu. Two steamers belonging to the A.B.I.R.
Company navigate the waterways of the Concession, taking up European
goods and bringing down to Bassankusu the india-rubber, which is there
transhipped on board a Government steamer which plies for this purpose
between Coquilhatville and Bassankusu, a distance of probably 160 miles.
The transport of all goods and agents of the A. B. I. R. Company,
immediately these quit the Concession, is carried on exclusively by the
steamers of the Congo Government, the freight and passage-money obtained
being reckoned as part of the public revenue. I have no actual figures
giving the annual output of india-rubber from the A.B.I.R. Concession,
but it is unquestionably large, and may, in the case of a prosperous
year, reach from 600 to 800 tons. The quality of the A.B.I.R. rubber is
excellent, and it commands generally a high price on the European
market, so that the value of its annual yield may probably be estimated
at not less than 150,000_l._ The merchandise used by the Company
consists of the usual class of Central African barter goods--cotton
cloths of different quality, Sheffield cutlery, matchets, beads, and
salt. The latter is keenly sought by the natives of all the interior of
Africa. There is also a considerable import by the A.B.I.R. Company, I
believe, of cap-guns, which are chiefly used in arming the
sentinels--termed “forest guards”--who, in considerable numbers, are
quartered on the native villages throughout the Concession to see that
the picked men of each town bring in, with regularity, the fixed
quantity of pure rubber required of them every fortnight. I have no
means of ascertaining the number of this class of armed men employed by
the A.B.I.R. Company, but I saw many of them when up the Lopori River,
and the gun of one of these sentries--himself an Ngombe savage--had
branded on the stock “Depôt 2210.” In addition to its numerous forest
guards, armed with cap-guns, which, at close quarters, can be a very
effective weapon, the A. B. I. R. Company has a fairly strong armament
of rifles. These are limited to twenty-five rifles for the use of each
factory. The two steamers, I believe, have also a similar armament.
The Secteur of Bongandanga, which was the only district of the A.B.I.R.
Concession I visited, has three “factories,” so that the number of
rifles permitted in that one district would be seventy-five. I do not
know if any limits or what limits are imposed on the number of
cartridges which are permitted for the defence of these factories. One
of the largest Congo Concession Companies had, when I was on the Upper
River, addressed a request to its Directors in Europe for a further
supply of ball-cartridge. The Directors had met this demand by asking
what had become of the 72,000 cartridges shipped some three years ago,
to which a reply was sent to the effect that these had all been used in
the production of india-rubber. I did not see this correspondence, and
cannot vouch for the truth of the statement; but the officer who
informed me that it had passed before his own eyes was one of the
highest standing in the interior.
When at Stanley Pool in June I had seen in one of the Government stores
at Léopoldville a number of cases of rifles marked A. B. I. R. awaiting
transport up river in one of the Government vessels; and upon my return
to that neighbourhood, I was told by a local functionary that 200 rifles
had, in July, been so shipped for the needs of the Lomami Company.
The right of the various Concession Companies operating within the Congo
State to employ armed men--whether these bear rifles or cap-guns--is
regulated by Government enactments, which confer on these commercial
Societies what are termed officially “rights of police” (“droits de
police”). A Circular of the Governor-General dealing with this question,
dated the 20th October, 1900, points out the limits within which this
right may be exercised. Prior to the issue of this Circular (copy of
which is attached--Inclosure 5),[17] the various Concession Companies
would appear to have engaged in military operations on a somewhat
extensive scale, and to have made war upon the natives on their own
account. The Regulations this Circular provides, to insure the licensing
of all arms, rifles, and cap-guns, do not seem to be strictly observed,
for in several cases the sentries or forest guards I encountered on my
journey up the Lulongo had no licence (Modèle C) of the kind required by
the Circular; and in two cases I found them provided with arms of
precision. That the extensive use of armed men in the pay of the
so-called Trading Societies, or in the service of the Government, as a
means to enforce the compliance with demands for india-rubber, had been
very general up to a recent date, is not denied by any one I met on the
Upper Congo.
In a conversation with a gentleman of experience on this question, our
remarks turned upon the condition of the natives. He produced a disused
diary, and in it, I found and copied the following entry:--
M. P. called on us to get out of the rain, and in conversation with
M. Q. in presence of myself and R., said: ‘The only way to get
rubber is to fight for it. The natives are paid 35 centimes per
kilog., it is claimed, but that includes a large profit on the
cloth; the amount of rubber is controlled by the number of guns,
and not the number of bales of cloth. The S. A. B. on the Bussira,
with 150 guns, get only 10 tons (rubber) a-month; we, the State, at
Momboyo, with 130 guns, get 13 tons per month.’ ‘So you count by
guns?’ I asked him. ‘Partout,’ M. P. said, ‘Each time the corporal
goes out to get rubber cartridges are given to him. He must bring
back all not used; and for every one used, he must bring back a
right hand.’ M. P. told me that sometimes they shot a cartridge at
an animal in hunting; they then cut off a hand from a living man.
As to the extent to which this is carried on, he informed me that
in six months they, the State, on the Momboyo River, had used 6,000
cartridges, which means that 6,000 people are killed or mutilated.
It means more than 6,000, for the people have told me repeatedly
that the soldiers kill children with the butt of their guns.
In conversation upon this entry, I was told that the M. P. referred to
was an officer in the Government service, who, at the date in question,
had come down from the Momboyo River (a tributary of the great Ruki
River, and forming a part, I believe, of the “Domaine de la Couronne”)
invalided, on his way home. He had come down in very bad health. He
stated then that he was going home, not to return to the Congo, but he
died, only a little way further down the river, very soon afterwards.
The same gentleman stated that he had reported this conversation orally
at Boma, as instancing the methods of exaction then in force. It is
probable that the issue of the circular quoted was not unconnected with
these remarks.
The region drained by the Lulongo being of great fertility has, in the
past, maintained a large population. In the days prior to the
establishment of civilized rule in the interior of Africa, this river
offered a constant source of supply to the slave markets of the Upper
Congo. The towns around the lower Lulongo River raided the interior
tribes, whose prolific humanity provided not only servitors, but human
meat for those stronger than themselves. Cannibalism had gone hand in
hand with slave raiding, and it was no uncommon spectacle to see gangs
of human beings being conveyed for exposure and sale in the local
markets. I had in the past, when travelling on the Lulongo River, more
than once viewed such a scene. On one occasion a woman was killed in the
village I was passing through, and her head and other portions of her
were brought and offered for sale to some of the crew of the steamer I
was on. Sights of this description are to-day impossible in any part of
the country I traversed, and the full credit for their suppression must
be given to the authorities of the Congo Government. It is, perhaps, to
be regretted that in its efforts to suppress such barbarous practices
the Congo Government should have had to rely upon, often, very savage
agencies wherewith to combat savagery. The troops employed in punitive
measures were--and often are--themselves savages, only removed by
outward garb from those they are sent to punish. Moreover, the measures
employed to obtain recruits for the public service were themselves often
but little removed from the malpractices that service was designed to
suppress. The following copy of an order for Government workmen drawn up
by a former Commissaire of the Equator District, and having reference to
the Maringa affluent of the Lulongo River indicates that the Congo
Government itself did not hesitate some years ago to purchase slaves
(required as soldiers or workmen), who could only be obtained for sale
by the most deplorable means:--
“Le Chef Ngulu de Wangata est envoyé dans la Maringa, pour m’y
acheter des esclaves. Prière à M.M. les agents de l’A.B.I.R. de
bien vouloir me signaler les méfaits que celui-ci pourrait
commettre en route.
“Le Capitaine-Commandant,
(Signé) “SARRAZZYN.”
“_Colquilhatville, le 1er Mai, 1896._”
This document was shown to me during the course of my journey. The
officer who issued this direction was, I was informed, for a
considerable period chief executive authority of the district; and I
heard him frequently spoken of by the natives who referred to him by the
sobriquet he had earned in the district, “Widjima,” or “Darkness.”
The course of the Lulongo River below Bassakanusu to its junction with
the Congo lies outside the limits of the A.B.I.R. Concession, and the
region is, I believe, regarded as one of the free-trading districts
wherein no exclusive right to the products of the soil is recognized.
The only trading-house in this district is one termed the La Lulanga,
which has three depôts, or factories, along the river bank, the
principal of which is at Mampoko. This Company has a small steamer in
which its native produce is collected, but the general transport of all
its goods, as in the case of the Concession Societies, is performed by
Government craft. The La Lulanga does not, I understand, enjoy the
rights of police as defined by the Governor-General’s Circular of the
20th October, 1900, but it employs a considerable number of armed men
equally termed “forest guards.” These men are quartered throughout the
lower course of the Lulongo River, and I found that, as with the
A.B.I.R., the sole duty they performed was to compel by force the
collection of india-rubber or the supplies which each factory needed. As
the district in which the La Lulanga Society carries on these operations
is one that had already been subjected to still more comprehensive
handling by two of the large Concession Companies, who only abandoned it
when, as one of their agents informed me, it was nearly exhausted, the
stock of rubber vines in it to-day is drawing to an end, and it is only
with great difficulty that the natives are able to produce the quantity
sufficient to satisfy their local masters. In the course of my dealings
with the natives I found that several of the sentries of this Company
had quite recently committed gross offences which, until my arrival,
appeared to have gone undetected--certainly unpunished. Murder and
mutilation were charged against several of them by name by the natives
of certain townships close to the head-quarters of this Company, who
sought me in the hope that I might help them. These people in several
cases said that they had not complained elsewhere because they had felt
that it was useless. As long as the rubber tax imposed upon them endured
in its present compulsory form with the sanction of the authorities,
they said it was idle to draw attention to acts which were but
incidental to its collection. The La Lulanga Company, not any more than
the A.B.I.R., would seem to have a legal right to levy taxes, but the
fact remains that from the natives who supply these two trading
Companies with all that they export as well as with their local supplies
of food and material, the Congo Government itself requires no
contribution to the public revenue. These people, therefore, must be
either legally exempted from supporting the Government of their country,
or else a portion of the contributions they make to the A.B.I.R. and
Lulanga Companies must be claimed by that Government in lieu of the
taxes it is justified in imposing on these districts.
In the case of the A.B.I.R. Society, it is said that a portion of the
profits are paid into the public revenues of the Congo Government (who
hold certain shares in the undertaking), and that these figure annually
in the Budget as “produit de porte-feuille.” In making this explanation
to me, an agent of one of the Upper Congo trading Companies said the
term should more correctly be “produit de porte-fusil,” and to judge
from the large numbers of armed men I saw employed, the correction was
not inapposite.
The Concession Companies, I believe, account for the armed men in their
service on the ground that their factories and agents must be protected
against the possible violence of the rude forest dwellers with whom they
deal; but this legitimate need for safeguarding European establishments
does not suffice to account for the presence, far from those
establishments, of large numbers of armed men quartered throughout the
native villages, and who exercise upon their surroundings an influence
far from protective. The explanation offered me of this state of things
was that, as the “impositions” laid upon the natives were regulated by
law, and were calculated on the scale of public labour the Government
had a right to require of the people, the collection of these
“impositions” had to be strictly enforced. When I pointed out that the
profit of this system was not reaped by the Government, but by a
commercial Company, and figured in the public returns of that Company’s
affairs, as well as in the official Government statistics, as the
outcome of commercial dealings with the natives, I was informed that the
“impositions” were in reality trade, “for, as you observe, we pay the
natives for the produce they bring in.” “But,” I observed, “you told me
just now that these products did not belong to the natives, but to you,
the Concessionnaire, who owned the soil; how, then, do you buy from them
what is already yours?” “We do not buy the india-rubber. What we pay to
the native is a remuneration for his labour in collecting our produce on
our land, and bringing it to us.”
Since it was thus to the labour of the native alone that the profits of
the Company were attributed, I inquired whether he was not protected by
contract with his employer; but I was here referred back to the
statement that the native performed these services as a public duty
required of him by his Government. He was not a contracted labourer at
all, but a free man, dwelling in his own home, and was simply acquitting
himself of an “imposition” laid upon him by the Government, “of which we
are but the collectors by right of our Concession.” “Your Concession,
then, implies,” I said, “that you have been conceded not only a certain
area of land, but also the people dwelling on that land?” This, however,
was not accepted either, and I was assured that the people were
absolutely free, and owed no service to any one but to the Government of
the country. But there was no explanation offered to me that was not at
once contradicted by the next. One said it was a tax, an obligatory
burden laid upon the people, such as all Governments have the undoubted
right of imposing; but this failed to explain how, if a tax, it came to
be collected by the agents of a trading firm, and figured as the outcome
of their trade dealings with the people, still less, how, if it were a
tax, it could be justly imposed every week or fortnight in the year,
instead of once, or at most, twice a year.
Another asserted that it was clearly legitimate commerce with the
natives because these were well paid and very happy. He could not then
explain the presence of so many armed men in their midst, or the reason
for tying up men, women, and children, and of maintaining in each
trading establishment a local prison, termed a “maison des otages,”
wherein recalcitrant native traders endured long periods of confinement.
A third admitted that there was no law on the Congo Statute Book
constituting his trading establishment a Government taxing station, and
that since the product of his dealings with the natives figured in his
Company’s balance-sheets as trade, and paid customs duty to the
Government on export, and a dividend to the shareholders, and as he
himself drew a commission of 2 per cent. on his turnover, it must be
trade; but this exponent could not explain how, if these operations were
purely commercial, they rested on a privilege denied to others, for
since, as he asserted, the products of his district could neither be
worked nor bought by any one but himself, it was clear they were not
merchandise, which, to be merchandise, must be marketable. The summing
up of the situation by the majority of those with whom I sought to
discuss it was that, in fact, it was forced labour conceived in the true
interest of the native, who, if not controlled in this way, would spend
his days in idleness, unprofitable to himself and the general community.
The collection of the products of the soil by the more benevolent
methods adopted by the Trading Companies was, in any case, preferable to
those the Congo Government would itself employ to compel obedience to
this law, and therefore if I saw women and children seized as hostages
and kept in detention until rubber or other things were brought in, it
was better that this should be done by the cap-gun of the “forest guard”
than by the Albini armed soldiers of the Government who, if once
impelled into a district, would overturn the entire country side.
No more satisfactory explanation than this outline was anywhere offered
me of what I saw in the A.B.I.R. and Lulanga districts. It is true
alternatives of excuse with differing interpretations of what I saw were
offered me in several quarters, but these were so obviously untrue, that
they could not be admitted as having any real relation to the things
which came before me.
At a village I touched at up the Lulonga River, a small collection of
dwellings named Z*, the people complained that there was no rubber left
in their district, and yet that the La Lulanga Company required of them
each fortnight a fixed quantity they could not supply. Three forest
guards of that Company were quartered, it was said, in this village, one
of whom I found on duty, the two others, he informed me, having gone to
Mampoko to convoy the fortnight’s rubber. No live-stock of any kind
could be seen or purchased in this town, which had only a few years ago
been a large and populous community, filled with people and well stocked
with sheep, goats, ducks, and fowls. Although I walked through most of
it, I could only count ten men with their families. There were said to
be others in the part of the town I did not visit, but the entire
community I saw were living in wretched houses and in most visible
distress. Three months previously (in May, I believe), they said a
Government force, commanded by a white man, had occupied their town
owing to their failure to send in to the Mampoko head-quarters of the La
Lulanga Company a regular supply of india-rubber, and two men, whose
names were given, had been killed by the soldiers at that time.
As Z* lies upon the main stream of the Lulongo River, and is often
touched at by passing steamers, I chose for the next inspection a town
lying somewhat off this beaten track, where my coming would be quite
unexpected. Steaming up a small tributary of the Lulongo, I arrived,
unpreceded by any rumour of my coming, at the village of A**. In an open
shed I found two sentries of the La Lulanga Company guarding fifteen
native women, five of whom had infants at the breast, and three of whom
were about to become mothers. The chief of these sentries, a man called
S--who was bearing a double-barrelled shot-gun, for which he had a belt
of cartridges--at once volunteered an explanation of the reason for
these women’s detention. Four of them, he said, were hostages who were
being held to insure the peaceful settlement of a dispute between two
neighbouring towns, which had already cost the life of a man. His
employer, the agent of the La Lulanga Company at B** near by, he said,
had ordered these women to be seized and kept until the Chief of the
offending town to which they belonged should come in to talk over the
palaver. The sentry pointed out that this was evidently a much better
way to settle such troubles between native towns than to leave them to
be fought out among the people themselves.
The remaining eleven women, whom he indicated, he said he had caught and
was detaining as prisoners to compel their husbands to bring in the
right amount of india-rubber required of them on next market day. When I
asked if it was a woman’s work to collect india-rubber, he said, “No;
that, of course, it was man’s work.” “Then why do you catch the women
and not the men?” I asked. “Don’t you see,” was the answer, “if I caught
and kept the men, who would work the rubber? But if I catch their wives,
the husbands are anxious to have them home again, and so the rubber is
brought in quickly and quite up to the mark.” When I asked what would
become of these women if their husbands failed to bring in the right
quantity of rubber on the next market day, he said at once that then
they would be kept there until their husbands had redeemed them. Their
food, he explained, he made the Chief of A** provide, and he himself saw
it given to them daily. They came from more than one village of the
neighbourhood, he said, mostly from the Ngombi or inland country, where
he often had to catch women to insure the rubber being brought in in
sufficient quantity. It was an institution, he explained, that served
well and saved much trouble. When his master came each fortnight to A**
to take away the rubber so collected, if it was found to be sufficient,
the women were released and allowed to return with their husbands, but
if not sufficient they would undergo continued detention. The sentry’s
statements were clear and explicit, as were equally those of several of
the villagers with whom I spoke. The sentry further explained, in answer
to my inquiry, that he caught women in this way by direction of his
employers. That it was a custom generally adopted and found to work
well; that the people were very lazy, and that this was much the
simplest way of making them do what was required of them. When asked if
he had any use for his shot-gun, he answered that it had been given him
by the white man “to frighten people and make them bring in rubber,” but
that he had never otherwise used it. I found that the two sentries at
A** were complete masters of the town. Everything I needed in the way of
food or firewood they at once ordered the men of the town to bring me.
One of them, gun over shoulder, marched a procession of men--the Chief
of the village at their head--down to the water side, each carrying a
bundle of firewood for my steamer. A few chickens which were brought
were only purchased through their intermediary, the native owner in each
case handing the fowl over to the sentry, who then brought it on board,
bargained for it, and took the price agreed upon. When, in the evening,
the Chief of the village was invited to come and talk to me, he came in
evident fear of the sentries seeing him or overhearing his remarks, and
the leader, S, finding him talking to me, peremptorily broke into the
conversation and himself answered each question put to the Chief. When I
asked this latter if he and his townsmen did not catch fish in the C**
River, in which we learned there was much, the sentry, intervening, said
it was not the business of these people to catch fish--“they have no
time for that, they have got to get the rubber I tell them to.”
At nightfall the fifteen women in the shed were tied together, either
neck to neck or ankle to ankle, to secure them for the night, and in
this posture I saw them twice during the evening. They were then trying
to huddle around a fire. In the morning the leading sentry, before
leaving the village, ordered his companion in my hearing to “keep close
guard on the prisoners.” I subsequently discovered that this sentry,
learning that I was not, as he had at first thought, a missionary, had
gone or sent to inform his employer at C** that a strange white man was
in the town.
An explanation of what I had witnessed at A** was later preferred by the
representative of this Company for my information, but was in such
direct conflict with what I had myself observed that it could not be
accepted either as explaining the detention of the women I had seen tied
neck to neck, or as a refutation of the statements of the sentry, made
to me at a time when he had no thought that his avowals had any bearing
on his employer’s interests.
From A** I proceeded to Bongandanga, a station of the A.B.I.R. Company
which lies some 120 or 130 miles up the Lopori, a tributary of the
Lulongo, and only halted for very brief periods _en route_. I arrived at
Bongandanga on the 29th August when what was locally termed the rubber
market was in full swing. The natives of the surrounding country are, on
these market days, which are held at intervals of a fortnight, marched
in under a number of armed guards, each native carrying his fortnight’s
supply of india-rubber for delivery to the agent of the Company. During
my stay at Bongandanga I had frequent occasion to meet the two agents of
this Society, who received me with every kindness and hospitality.
The A.B.I.R. station was well built and well cared for, and gave
evidence of unremitting industry on the part of those in charge of it.
There were two good houses for the European staff and a number of large
well-built bamboo stores for the storing and drying of india-rubber. All
the houses were constructed of native materials, indeed, with the
exception of a small stock of barter goods in one of the stores and the
European provisions required for the white men, everything I saw came
from the surrounding district, provided in one form or another by its
native inhabitants. This applies to practically every European
establishment in the interior of the country, the only differences being
as to the manner in which the help of the natives may be sought and
recompensed. Building material of all kinds from very heavy timber to
roofing mats and native string to tie these on with are provided by the
natives; but their services in supplying these indispensable adjuncts to
civilized existence do not appear to be everywhere equally remunerated.
At Bongandanga I saw thirty-three large tree trunks, each of which could
not have weighed less than 1/2 a ton, some of them nearer 1 ton, which,
I was told, had been felled and carried in by the natives for his use
in building a new house. He explained that as the natives came in from
different districts fortnightly, and then had only to carry very small
baskets of india-rubber, this additional burden was imposed upon them,
but that this was one reserved for unwilling workers of india-rubber. It
was, in fact, one of the punishments for backward “récolteurs.”
At Bongandanga the men of the district named E**, distant about 20
miles, had been brought in with the rubber from that district. They
marched in in a long file, guarded by sentries of the A.B.I.R. Company,
and when I visited the factory grounds to observe the progress of the
“market,” I was informed by the local agent that there were 242 men
actually present. As each man was required, I was told, to bring in 3
kilog. nett of rubber, the quantity actually brought in on that occasion
should have yielded about three-quarters of a ton of pure rubber. The
rubber brought by each man, after being weighed and found correct, was
taken off to be cut up in a large store, and then placed out on drying
shelves in other stores. As considerable loss of weight arises in the
drying to obtain 3 kilog. nett a dead weight of crude rubber
considerably in excess of that quantity must be brought in. There were
everywhere sentries in the A.B.I.R. grounds, guarding and controlling
the natives, many of whom carried their knives and spears. The sentries
were often armed with rifles, some of them with several cartridges
slipped between the fingers of the hands ready for instant use; others
had cap-guns, with a species of paper cartridge locally manufactured for
charging this form of muzzle-loader. The native vendors of the rubber
were guarded in detachments or herds, many of them behind a barricade
which stretched in front of a house I was told was the factory prison,
termed locally, I found, the “maison des otages.” The rubber as brought
up by each man under guard, was weighed by one of the two agents of the
A.B.I.R. present, who sat upon the verandah of his house. If the rubber
were found to be of the right weight its vendor would be led off with it
to the cutting up store or to one of the drying stores. In the former
were fully 80 or 100 natives who had already passed muster, squatting on
raised cane platforms, busily cutting up into the required sizes the
rubber which had been passed and accepted. At the corners of these
platforms stood, or equally squatted, sentries of the A.B.I.R. with
their rifles ready.
In another store where rubber was being dried seven natives came in
while I was inspecting it carrying baskets which were filled with the
cut-up rubber, which they then at once began sorting and spreading on
high platforms. These seven men were guarded by four sentries armed with
rifles.
Somewhat differing explanations were offered me of the reasons for the
constant guarding of the natives I observed during the course of the
“market.” This was first said to be a necessary precaution to insure
tranquillity and order within the trading factory during the presence
there of so many raw and sturdy savages. But when I drew attention to
the close guard kept upon the natives in the drying and cutting sheds, I
was told that these were “prisoners.” If the rubber brought by its
native vendor were found on the weighing machine to be seriously under
the required weight, the defaulting individual was detained to be dealt
with in the “maison des otages.” One such case occurred while I was on
the ground. The defaulter was directed to be taken away, and was dragged
off by some of the sentries, who forced him on to the ground to remain
until the market was over. While being held by these men he struggled to
escape, and one of them struck him in the mouth whence blood issued, and
he then remained passive. I did not learn how this individual
subsequently purged his offence, but when on a later occasion I visited
the inclosure in front of the prison I counted fifteen men and youths
who were being guarded while they worked at mat-making for the use of
the station buildings. These men, I was then told, were some of the
defaulters of the previous market day, who were being kept as compulsory
workmen to make good the deficiency in their rubber.
Payments made to the rubber-bringers, depending on the quantity brought,
consisted of knives, matchets, strings of beads, and sometimes a little
salt. I saw many men who got a wooden handled knife of Sheffield
cutlery, good and strong--others got a matchet. The largest of these
knives with a 9-inch blade, and the smaller with a 5-inch, cost in
Europe, I find, 2_s._ 10_d._, and 1_s._ 5_d._ per dozen respectively,
less 2-1/2 per cent. cash discount. The men who got the knife of the
larger kind, or a matchet, had brought in, I understood, a full basket
of pure rubber, which may have represented a European valuation of some
27 fr. To the original cost of one of these knives, say 2-3/4_d._,
should be added fully 100 per cent. to cover transport charges, so that
their local cost would be about 6_d._ Among the natives themselves these
knives pass at 25 rods (1·25 fr.) and 15 rods (75 centimes) each. From
two of these rubber workers I later purchased two of these knives,
giving twenty-five teaspoonfuls of salt for the larger, and six
teaspoonfuls with an empty bottle for the smaller. From a third member
of their party, whose payment had consisted of a string of thirty-nine
blue and white glass beads (locally valued at 5 rods), I bought his
fortnight’s salary for five teaspoonfuls of salt. This youth, indeed,
confessed that his basket of rubber had not been so well filled as those
of the others.
I went to the homes of these men some miles away and found out their
circumstances. To get the rubber they had first to go fully a two days’
journey from their homes, leaving their wives, and being absent for from
five to six days. They were seen to the forest limits under guard, and
if not back by the sixth day trouble was likely to ensue. To get the
rubber in the forests--which generally speaking are very
swampy--involves much fatigue and often fruitless searching for a
well-flowing vine. As the area of supply diminishes, moreover, the
demand for rubber constantly increases. Some little time back I learned
the Bongandanga district supplied 7 tons of rubber a-month, a quantity
which it was hoped would shortly be increased to 10 tons. The quantity
of rubber brought by the three men in question would have represented,
probably, for the three of them certainly not less than 7 kilog. of pure
rubber. That would be a very safe estimate, and at an average of 7 fr.
per kilog. they might be said to have brought in 2_l._ worth of rubber.
In return for this labour, or imposition, they had received goods which
cost certainly under 1_s._, and whose local valuation came to 45 rods
(1_s._ 10_d._). As this process repeats itself twenty-six times a-year,
it will be seen that they would have yielded 52_l._ in kind at the end
of the year to the local factory, and would have received in return some
24_s._ or 25_s._ worth of goods, which had a market value on the spot of
2_l._ 7_s._ 8_d._ In addition to these formal payments they were liable
at times to be dealt with in another manner, for should their work,
which might have been just as hard, have proved less profitable in its
yield of rubber, the local prison would have seen them. The people
everywhere assured me that they were not happy under this system, and it
was apparent to a callous eye that in this they spoke the strict truth.
In September I visited a native village called D**, situated some miles
from the A.B.I.R. factory at Bongandanga. I went there to see one of the
natives, who, with his wife and little children, had come to visit me.
My going to his town was solely a friendly visit to this man’s
household, since I was told that he was an excellent character, and one
who set a good example to his countrymen. On the way, at some 4 or 5
miles only from the A.B.I.R. factory, I passed through a part of D**
(which is a very long town) where were several sentries of the A.B.I.R.
Society. One of these had a 6-chamber revolver loaded with six 4·50 Ely
cartridges--doubtless given, like the shot-gun at A**, for intimidation
rather than for actual use. Another sentry present had only his cap-gun.
He said there were in this one village six sentries of the A.B.I.R., but
that the other four had just gone into Bongandanga guarding some
prisoners. These were, it was explained to me, some of the natives of
the country side who had not brought in what was thought to be a
sufficiency of india-rubber. A little further on I met two more sentries
of the A.B.I.R. in this town. Coming home from D** by another road I
found two other sentries apparently acting as judges and settling a
“palaver” among the natives, this being one of the commonest uses to
which these men put their authority in their own interest, levying
blackmail and interfering in the domestic concerns of the natives by
compelling payment for their “judicial” decisions.
The following day my host at D** came in to say that the sentries were
making trouble with him on account of my visit of the previous day,
declaring that they would inform the agent of the A.B.I.R. that he and
others had told me lies about their treatment by that Company, and that
they would all be put in the prison gang and sent away out of their
country. That evening C E spoke to me of my visit to D** of the previous
day, assuring me that the natives were all liars and rogues. The fact
that I had personally gone to see a native community, theoretically as
free as I was myself, and that I had spoken at first hand to some of
these natives themselves, caused, I could not but perceive, considerable
annoyance.
That the fears of my native host were not entirely groundless I
subsequently learned by letter from Bongandanga, wherein I was informed
that two of his wives and one of the children I had seen had fled in the
middle of the night for refuge to the Mission evangelist--the sentries
quartered at D** having arrested my friend at midnight, and that he had
been brought in a prisoner to the A.B.I.R. factory.
As to the condition of the men who paid by detention in the “maison des
otages” their shortcomings in respect of rubber, I was assured by the
local agent that they were not badly treated and that “they got their
food.” On the other hand, I was assured in many quarters that flogging
with the chicotte--or hippopotamus-hide whip--was one of the measures
used in dealing with refractory natives in that institution. I was told
that men have frequently been seen coming away from the factory, after
the rubber markets, who had been flogged, and that on two occasions this
year, the last of them in March, two natives had been so severely
flogged that they were being carried away by their friends.
The A.B.I.R. Society effectually controls the movements of the natives
both by water as well as by land. Since almost every village in the
Concession is under control, its male inhabitants are entered in books,
and according to age and strength have to furnish rubber or, in the
villages close to the factory, food-stuffs, such as antelope meat or
wild pig (which the elders are required to hunt), as also the customary
kwanga bread, or bananas, and fowls and ducks. An agent showed me some
of these village lists, during the purchasing of the rubber, of the 242
E** men, explaining that the impositions against the individuals named
are fixed by the Government, and are calculated on the bodily service
each man owes it, but from which he is exempted in the Concession in
order to work rubber and assist the progressive development of the
A.B.I.R. Company’s territory. He added that it was not the few guns he
disposed of at F** which compelled obedience to this law, but the power
of the Congo State “Force Publique,” which, if a village absolutely
refuses obedience, would be sent to punish the district to compel
respect to these civilized rights. He added that, as the punishment
inflicted in these cases was terribly severe, it was better that the
milder measures and the other expedients he was forced to resort to
should not be interfered with. These measures, he said, involved
frequent imprisonment of individuals in his local “house of hostages.” A
truly recalcitrant man, he said, who proved enduringly obstinate in his
failure to bring in his allotted share of rubber, would in the end be
brought to reason by these means. He would find, I was assured, as a
result of his perversity that the whole of his time must be spent either
in the prison or else in being marched under guard between it and his
native town. Terms of fifteen days, from “market” day to “market” day,
were the usual period of detention, and generally proved
sufficient--during which time the prisoners worked around the
factory--but longer periods were not at all unknown. My informant added
that an excellent project for dealing with obstinate opponents to the
rubber industry had recently been mooted, but had not been carried into
practice. This was to transport to the Upper Lopori, or the Upper
Maringa, far from their homes and tribes, such men as could not be
reclaimed by milder methods. In these distant regions they would have no
chance of running away, but would be kept under constant guard and at
constant work. This proposal had, however, been disapproved of by the
local authorities. In one town I visited, the Chief and some thirty
people gave me the names of several men of the town who had, about
eighteen months previously, been transported in this manner to G**, an
A.B.I.R. post, some 340 miles by water from Bongandanga. Three, whose
names were stated, had already died, only two had returned, the others
being still detained.
Deaths even in the local prison are not, however, unknown. I heard of
several. The late Chief of H**, a town I visited with the agent of the
A.B.I.R. station had died some months before as the result, it was said,
of imprisonment. He had been arrested because another man of the town
had not brought in antelope meat when required. After one and a-half
months’ imprisonment the Chief was released. He was then so weak that he
could not walk the 2 miles home to H**, but collapsed on the way and
died early the following morning. This was on the 14th June last.
On the [blank space in text] September a man named T came to see me. He
had been very badly wounded in the thigh, and walked with difficulty. He
stated that a sentry of the A.B.I.R., a man named U, had shot him, as I
saw; and at the same time had killed V, a friend. The sentries had come
to arrest the Chief of H** on account of meat, which was short for the
white man--not the present white man, but another--and his people had
gathered around the Chief to protect him. An inquiry I gathered had been
held by a Law Officer into this and other outrages committed the
previous year, and as a result the sentry U had been removed from the
district. T went on to say to me that this sentry was now back in the
country at large, and a free man. When I asked him if he himself had not
been compensated for the injuries entailing partial disablement he had
received, he said: “Four months ago I was arrested for not having got
meat, and was kept one and a-half months in prison on that account. U,
who killed V, and shot me here in the thigh, is a free man, as all men
know; but I, who am wounded, have to hunt meat.”
This statement I found on fuller inquiry in other quarters was
confirmed; and it became apparent that while the murderer was at large,
one of those he had seriously injured, and almost incapacitated, was
still required to hunt game, and paid for his failure by imprisonment.
On further inquiry, I gathered that this occasion was the only one
locally known when a qualified Law Officer had ever visited the Lopori,
although charges from that region involving very grave accusations had,
on several occasions, been preferred. There being no Magistrate resident
in the whole of the A.B.I.R. Concession, inquiries, unless conducted by
the agents of the A.B.I.R. themselves, have to be investigated at
Coquilhatville--distant fully 270 miles from Bongandanga, and over 400
miles from some parts of the Concession.
It is true an officer of the Congo Executive is deputed to exercise a
qualified surveillance within this Concession; but he is not a qualified
Magistrate or legally empowered to act as such.
The occupant of this post is a military officer of inferior rank, who is
quartered, with a force of soldiers, near to Bassankusu, the chief
station of the A.B.I.R. Company.
This officer, when he enters the A.B.I.R. territory, is accompanied by
soldiers, and his actions would appear to be generally confined to
measures of a punitive kind, the necessity for such measures being that
which almost everywhere applies--namely, a refusal of or falling off in
the supplies of india-rubber.
At the date of my visit to the Lopori he was engaged in a journey, not
unconnected with fighting, to the Maringa River. His independence is not
complete, nor is his disassociation from the A.B.I.R. Company’s agencies
as marked as, in view of the circumstances attending the collection of
rubber, it should be.
His journeys up the two great rivers, the Maringa and Lopori, which
drain the A.B.I.R. territory, are made on the steamers of that Company,
and he is, to all intents, a guest of the Company’s agents.
The supervision of this officer extends also over the course of the
Lulongo river, outside the A.B.I.R. Concession, and he it was who had
occupied the town of Z* on an occasion some months before my visit, when
two native men had been killed.
The Commissaire-Général of the Equator District has also, at recent
periods, visited the A.B.I.R. Concession, but this officer, although the
Chief of the Executive and the President of the Territorial Court of the
entire district, came as a visitor to the A.B.I.R. stations and as guest
on the steamer of that Company.
No steamer belonging to the Congo Government regularly ascends either
the Lopori or Maringa rivers, and the conveyance of mails from the
A.B.I.R. territory depends, for steamer transport, on the two vessels of
that Company.
On the 15th June last, the Director of this Company by letter informed
the Missions of Bongandanga and Baringa that he had given orders to the
steamers of the Company to refuse the carriage of any letters or
correspondence coming from or intended for either of those Mission
stations, which are the only European establishments, not belonging to
the A.B.I.R. Company, existing within the limits of the Concession.
Resulting from this order the missionaries at these two isolated posts
are now compelled, save when, some three times a year, the Mission
steamer visits them, to dispatch all their correspondence by canoes to
their agent at Tkau, lying just outside the Concession.
This involves the engagement of paddlers and a canoe journey of 120 to
130 miles from each of these Missions down to Tkau.
But as the A.B.I.R. Company claims a right to interrogate all canoes
passing up or down stream, this mode of transport leaves some elements
of insecurity, apart from the delay and inconvenience otherwise
entailed.
At the date of my visit to the Concession, the Mission at Baringa,
situated 120 miles up the Maringa river, had despatched a canoe manned
by native dependents with mails intended for the outer world--the
nearest post office being at Coquilhatville, some 260 miles distant.
When seeking to pass the A.B.I.R. station at Waka, situated half-way
down the Maringa river, this canoe was required by the European agent
there to land and to deliver to him its correspondence.
The native canoe men reported that this agent had opened the packet and
questioned them, and that the letters intrusted to them for delivery to
the Mission representative at Tkau were not restored to them without
delay and much inconvenience.
It might not be too much to expect that, in return for the very
extensive privileges it enjoys of exploitation of public lands and a
large native population, the A.B.I.R. Company should be required, in the
entire absence of the public flotilla, to discharge the not onerous task
of conveying the public mails by its steamers which so frequently
navigate the waterways of the Concession in the collection of
india-rubber.
Were a qualified Magistrate appointed to reside within the limits of
this Concession--as within the other Upper Congo Concessions, some of
them territories as large as a European State, and still containing a
numerous native population--the public service could not but be the
gainer.
As it is to-day, no Court is open to the appeals of these people that
lies at all within their reach, and no European agency, save isolated
Mission stations, has any direct influence upon them except that
immediately interested in their profitable exploitation.
It is only right to say that the present agent of the A.B.I.R. Society I
met at Bongandanga seemed to me to try, in very difficult and
embarrassing circumstances, to minimize as far as possible, and within
the limits of his duties, the evils of the system I there observed at
work.
The requisitions of food-stuffs laid on the villages adjoining the
factories were said to be less onerous than those affecting the rubber
towns. They rested, I was informed, on the same legal basis as that
authorizing rubber working, and a failure to meet them involved the same
desultory modes of arrest and imprisonment. During my stay at
Bongandanga several instances of arrest in failures of this kind came to
my notice.
On a Sunday in August, I saw six of the local sentries going back with
cap-guns and ammunition pouches to E**, after the previous day’s market,
and later in the day, when in the factory grounds, two armed sentries
came up to the agent as we walked, guarding sixteen natives, five men
tied neck by neck, with five untied women and six young children. This
somewhat embarrassing situation, it was explained to me, was due to the
persistent failure of the people of the village these persons came from
to supply its proper quota of food. These people, I was told, had just
been captured “on the river” by one of the sentries placed there to
watch the waterway. They had been proceeding in their canoes to some
native fishing grounds, and were espied and brought in. I asked if the
children also were held responsible for food supplies, and they, along
with an elderly woman, were released, and told to run over to the
Mission, and go to school there. This they did not do, but doubtless
returned to their homes in the recalcitrant village. The remaining five
men and four women were led off to the “maison des otages” under guard
of the sentry.
An agent explained that he was forced to catch women in preference to
the men as then supplies were brought in quicker; but he did not explain
how the children deprived of their parents obtained their own food
supplies.
He deplored this hard necessity, but he said the vital needs of his own
station, as well as of the local missionaries, who, being guests of the
A.B.I.R. Society, had to be provided for, sternly imposed it upon him if
the peopled failed to keep up their proper supplies.
While we thus talked an armed sentry came along guarding four
natives--men--who were carrying bunches of bananas, a part of another
food imposition. This sentry explained to his master that the village he
had just visited had failed to give antelope meat, alleging the very
heavy rain of the previous night as an excuse for not hunting.
The agent apologized to me for his inability to give me meat during my
stay, pointing out the obvious necessity he now was under of catching
some persons without delay. He should certainly, he said, have to send
out and catch women that very night.
On leaving the A.B.I.R. grounds, still accompanied by this gentleman,
another batch of men carrying food supplies were marched in by three
armed guards, and were conducted towards the “maison des otages,” which
two other sentries apparently guarded.
At 8 P.M. that evening, just after the Sunday service, a number of women
were taken through the Mission grounds past the church by the A.B.I.R.
sentries, and in the morning I was told that three such seizures had
been effected during the night. On the 2nd September I met, when
walking in the A.B.I.R. grounds with the subordinate agent of the
factory, a file of fifteen women, under the guard of three unarmed
sentries, who were being brought in from the adjoining villages, and
were led past me. These women, who were evidently wives and mothers, it
was explained in answer to my inquiry, had been seized in order to
compel their husbands to bring in antelope or other meat which was
overdue, and some of which it was very kindly promised should be sent on
board my steamer when leaving. As a matter of fact, half an antelope was
so sent on board by the good offices of this gentleman.
As I was leaving Bongandanga, on the 3rd September, several elderly
Headmen of the neighbouring villages were putting off in their canoes to
the opposite forest, to get meat wherewith to redeem their wives, whom I
had seen arrested the previous day. I learned later that the husband of
one of these women brought in, two days afterwards, to the
Mission-station, his infant daughter, who, being deprived of her mother,
had fallen seriously ill, and whom he could not feed. At the request of
the missionary this woman was released on the 5th September. I took
occasion to say to the agent of the A.B.I.R. Company, before leaving,
that the practice of imprisoning women for impositions said to be due by
their husbands was to my mind unquestionably illegal, and that I should
not fail to draw the attention of the Governor-General of the Congo
State to what I had seen. The excuse offered, both on this occasion as
on others when I had ventured to allude to the condition of the natives
around Bongandanga, was that the station compared most favourably with
all others within the A.B.I.R. Concession, which were run, I was
assured, on much sterner lines than those which caused me pain at
Bongandanga. I later made official communication to the local Government
at Boma on these points, in so far as the system I had seen at work
affected the English missionaries within the A.B.I.R. Concession, and in
that letter I sought to show that neither the local agent nor his
subordinate were responsible for a state of affairs which greatly
wounded the feelings of my countrymen at Bongandanga, and which had
filled me with a pained surprise. My attention, it was true, had been
drawn to the systematic imprisonment of women in parts of the Upper
Congo some two years previously, in a case wherein a British coloured
subject--a native of Lagos--along with three Europeans, all of them in
the service of the Compagnie Anversoise du Commerce au Congo--a
Concession Company--had been charged with various acts of cruelty and
oppression which had caused much loss of life to the natives in the
Mongala region. These men had been arrested by the authorities in the
summer of 1900, and had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment,
against which they had made appeal. The facts charged against the
British coloured subject (who sought my help) were, among others, that
he had illegally arrested women and kept them in illegal detention at
his trading station, and it was alleged that many of these women had
died of starvation while thus confined. This man himself, when I had
visited him in Boma gaol in March 1901, said that more than 100 women
and children had died of starvation at his hands, but that the
responsibility for both their arrest and his own lack of food to give
them was due to his superiors’ orders and neglect. The Court of Appeal
at Boma gave final Judgment in the case on the 13th February, 1901; and
in connection with the Lagos man’s degree of guilt, a copy of this
Judgment, in so far as it affected him, at my request had been
communicated to me by the Governor-General. From this Judgment I learned
that the case against the accused had been clearly proved. Among other
extenuating circumstances, which secured, however, a marked reduction of
the first sentence imposed on the coloured man, the Court of Appeal
cited the following:--
“That it is just to take into account that, by the correspondence
produced in the case, the chiefs of the Concession Company have, if not
by formal orders, at least by their example and their tolerance, induced
their agents to take no account whatever of the rights, property, and
lives of the natives; to use the arms and the soldiers which should have
served for their defence and the maintenance of order to force the
natives to furnish them with produce and to work for the Company, as
also to pursue as rebels and outlaws those who sought to escape from the
requisitions imposed upon them.... That, above all, the fact that the
arrest of women and their detention, to compel the villages to furnish
both produce and workmen, was tolerated and admitted even by certain of
the administrative authorities of the region.”
I had gathered at the time of this finding of the Boma High Court that
steps had then been taken to make it everywhere effective and to insure
obedience to the law in this respect, and that a recurrence of the
illegalities brought to light in the Mongala region had been rendered
impossible in any part of the Congo State. From what I saw during the
few days spent in the A.B.I.R. Concession, and again outside its limits
in the Lower Lulongo, it seemed to be clear that the action taken by
the authorities nearly three years ago could not have produced the
results undoubtedly then desired.
On my leaving Bongandanga on the 3rd September I returned down the
Lopori and Lulongo Rivers, arriving at J**. The following day, about 9
at night, some natives of the neighbourhood came to see me, bringing
with them a lad of about 16 years of age whose right hand was missing.
His name was X and his relatives said they came from K**, a village on
the opposite side of the river some few miles away. As it was late at
night there was some difficulty in obtaining a translation of their
statements, but I gathered that X’s hand had been cut off in K** by a
sentry of the La Lulanga Company, who was, or had been, quartered there.
They said that this sentry, at the time that he had mutilated X, had
also shot dead one of the chief men of the town. X, in addition to this
mutilation, had been shot in the shoulder blade, and, as a consequence,
was deformed. On being shot it was said he had fallen down insensible,
and the sentry had then cut off his hand, alleging that he would take it
to the Director of the Company at Mampoko. When I asked if this had been
done the natives replied that they believed that the hand had only been
carried part of the way to Mampoko and then thrown away. They did not
think the white man had seen it. They went on to say that they had not
hitherto made any complaint of this. They declared they had seen no good
object in complaining of a case of this kind since they did not hope any
good would result to them. They then went on to say that a younger boy
than X, at the beginning of this year (as near as they could fix the
date at either the end of January or the beginning of February), had
been mutilated in a similar way by a sentry of the same trading Company,
who was still quartered in their town, and that when they had wished to
bring this latter victim with them the sentry had threatened to kill him
and that the boy was now in hiding. They begged that I would myself go
back with them to their village and ascertain that they were speaking
the truth. I thought it my duty to listen to this appeal, and decided to
return with them on the morrow to their town. In the morning, when about
to start for K**, many people from the surrounding country came in to
see me. They brought with them three individuals who had been shockingly
wounded by gun fire, two men and a very small boy, not more than 6 years
of age, and a fourth--a boy child of 6 or 7--whose right hand was cut
off at the wrist. One of the men, who had been shot through the arm,
declared that he was Y of L**, a village situated some miles away. He
declared that he had been shot as I saw under the following
circumstances: the soldiers had entered his town, he alleged, to enforce
the due fulfilment of the rubber tax due by the community. These men had
tied him up and said that unless he paid 1,000 brass rods to them they
would shoot him. Having no rods to give them they had shot him through
the arm and had left him. The soldiers implicated he said were four
whose names were given me. They were, he believed, all employés of the
La Lulanga Company and had come from Mampoko. At the time when he, Y,
was shot through the arm the Chief of his town came up and begged the
soldiers not to hurt him, but one of them, a man called Z, shot the
Chief dead. No white man was with these sentries, or soldiers, at the
time. Two of them, Y said, he believed had been sent or taken to
Coquilhatville. Two of them--whom he named--he said were still at
Mampoko. The people of L** had sent to tell the white man at Mampoko of
what his soldiers had done. He did not know what punishment, if any, the
soldiers had received, for no inquiry had since been made in L**, nor
had any persons in that town been required to testify against their
aggressors. This man was accompanied by four other men of his town.
These four men all corroborated Y’s statement.
These people were at once followed by two men of M**, situated, they
said, close to K**, and only a few miles distant. They brought with them
a full-grown man named A A, whose arm was shattered and greatly swollen
through the discharge of a gun, and a small boy named B B, whose left
arm was broken in two places from two separate gun shots--the wrist
being shattered and the hand wobbling about loose and quite useless. The
two men made the following statement: That their town, like all the
others in the neighbourhood, was required to furnish a certain quantity
of india-rubber fortnightly to the head-quarters of the La Lulanga
Company at Mampoko; that at the time these outrages were committed,
which they put at less than a year previously, a man named C C was a
sentry of that Company quartered in their village; that they two now
before me had taken the usual fortnight’s rubber to Mampoko. On
returning to M** they found that C C, the sentry, had shot dead two men
of the town named D D and E E, and had tied up this man A A and the boy
B B, now before me, to two trees. The sentry said that this was to
punish the two men for having taken the rubber to Mampoko without having
first shown it to him and paid him a commission on it. The two men
asserted that they had at once returned to Mampoko, and had begged the
Director of the Company to return with them to M** and see what his
servants had done. But, they alleged, he had refused to comply with
their request. On getting back to their town they then found that the
man A A and the child B B were still tied to the trees, and had been
shot in the arms as I now saw. On pleading with the sentry to release
these two wounded individuals, he had required a payment of 2,000 brass
rods (100 fr.). One of the two men stayed to collect this money, and
another returned to Mampoko to again inform the Director of what had
been done. The two men declared that nothing was done to the sentry C C,
but that the white man said that if the people behaved badly again he
was to punish them. The sentry C C, they declared, remained some time
longer in M**, and they do not now know where he is.
These people were immediately followed by a number of natives who came
before me bringing a small boy of not more than 7 years of age, whose
right hand was gone at the wrist. This child, whose name was F F, they
had brought from the village of N**. They stated that some years ago
(they could not even approximately fix the date save by indicating that
F F was only just able to run) N** had been attacked by several sentries
of the La Lulanga Company. This was owing to their failure in supplying
a sufficiency of india-rubber. They did not know whether these sentries
had been sent by any European, but they knew all their names, and the
Chief of them was one called G G. G G had shot dead the Chief of their
town, and the people had run into the forest. The sentries pursued them,
and G G had knocked down the child F F with the butt of his gun and had
then cut off his hand. They declared that the hand of the dead man and
of this boy F F had then been carried away by the sentries. The sentries
who did this belonged to the La Lulanga Company’s factory at O**. The
man who appeared with F F went on to say that they had never complained
about it, save to the white man who had then been that Company’s agent
at O**. They had not thought of complaining to the Commissaire of the
district. Not only was he far away, but they were afraid they would not
be believed, and they thought the white men only wished for rubber, and
that no good could come of pleading with them.
At the same time a number of men followed, with the request that I would
listen to them. W declared that their town P**, which had formerly been
on the north bank of the X** River (where I had myself seen it), had now
been transferred by force to the south bank, close to the factory at
Q**. He said that this act of compulsory transference was the direct act
of the Commissaire-Général of the ... district. The Commissaire had
visited P** on his steamer, and had ordered the people of that town to
work daily at Q** for the La Lulanga factory. W had replied that it was
too far for the women of P** to go daily to Q** as was required; but the
Commissaire, in reply, had taken fifty women and carried them away with
him. The women were taken to Q**. Two men were taken at the same time.
To get these women back, W went on to say, he and his people had to pay
a fine of 10,000 brass rods (500 fr.). They had paid this money to the
Commissaire-Général himself. They had then been ordered by the
Commissaire to abandon their town, since it lay too far from the
factory, and build a fresh town close to Q**, so that they might be at
hand for the white man’s needs. This they had been forced to do--many of
them were taken across by force. It was about two years ago W thought
that this deportation had been effected, and they now came to beg that I
would use my influence with the local authorities to permit their return
to their abandoned home. Where they were now situated close to Q** they
were most unhappy, and they only desired to be allowed to return to the
former site of P**. They have to take daily to Q** the following:--
10 baskets gum-copal.
1,000 long canes (termed “ngodji”), which grow in the swamps, and are
used in thatching and roofing.
500 bamboos for building.