the ship’s surgeon ventured ashore. The purpose of the captain was
probably to visit the shippers with the object of drumming up trade, as
captains are obliged to do on the coast. For this purpose he makes a
very friendly call on each trader, listens to his graphaphone, and even
praises it. He was brave to risk the surf, but he took the doctor. The
captain afterwards narrated the adventure of their landing to a small but
enthusiastic audience. He said that after waiting outside the surf half
an hour, the headman suddenly gave the order, and in a moment they were
in the breakers, riding on the top of one of them, and speeding towards
the shore at the rate of “seventy miles an hour,” which calculation was
merely his sensation expressed in terms of linear measure. The captain
was in the bow of the boat well braced and cushioned. But when the boat
struck the beach with the force of a railway collision, the doctor was
thrown violently over two thwarts into the captain’s bosom, whom he
clasped about the neck with a steel-like grip. The next moment another
breaker picked the boat up and hurled it upon the beach, throwing both
captain and doctor to a perfectly safe distance where they sprawled upon
the sand. The doctor, still hugging the captain’s neck, and very much
frightened, exclaimed: “O Captain, dear Captain, is there anybody killed
but you and me?”
But now it is evening, at the close of a bad day. No white man has
ventured ashore these ten days. But the Kruboys have gone, and there on
the beach is a boat making a last attempt to come off. The sea has been
getting worse all day, and it is now like a boiling caldron. They have
been there for hours, and have tried again and again to get off, but have
failed, though they have no cargo, and they are the best crew and have
the best headman of all. Several times they have been thrown back on the
beach, and once the boat was capsized when nearly through the breakers;
now they are making a last effort.
They stand around the boat, their weight against it, alert, and waiting
in eager attention for the word of command. A shout from the headman, and
in a moment they have pushed the big boat out into the water, have leaped
into it, grasped the paddles, and are pulling like mad. The first breaker
strikes the boat a blow that staggers it: the spirits must have been very
angry. They are through it; but the boat is nearly half full of water
and is not straight. The headman throws himself upon the oar, but alas!
with such force that the becket attaching it to the stern is wrenched
off. They are now at the mercy of the next breaker, a fearful one, which
sweeps them ashore with violence, whirling the boat round, and then
rolling it over and over upon the beach. As the water recedes we see them
lying scattered at random upon the sand. They get up slowly as if half
dazed; and one of them lies unconscious as the next wave washes over him,
matting his hair with the wet sand. And there lies the brave headman
badly bruised, the flesh torn from his leg, exposing the bone from the
knee down. But one poor boy has fought his last fight with the wild sea.
Many fights he has won, but the spirits have beaten him this time. “Oh,
boys,” he says, “I’m hurt. I can’t get up. I can’t even move. I’m afraid
my back is broken.”
So it was indeed: his back was broken. Late in the night he died, the
other boys sobbing like children as they stood around him. Next day
they buried him; and that evening they got off to the ship. As they
approached, the wind wafted to us the sound of a native dirge, weird and
plaintive, which they were chanting for their dead brother.
I feel bound to tell the sequel of this incident. The next day the sea
was so bad that it seemed useless and foolish to attempt to land. The
boys presented themselves in a body before a certain one of the officers
and said: “Mastah, them sea he be bad too much. We no be fit for land
cargo. S’pose we try, we go loss all cargo, and plenty man’s life. So
please excuse to-day, Mastah; for we think to-morrow go be fine.”
The answer they received was a volley of profanity and curses. “Just
because one of them was killed they all turn cowards,” said one.
“Always thinking of themselves!” said another. With many such shrewd
observations, and sundry moral exhortations to bravery, the boats were
lowered and they were ordered into them.
But on these same steamers there are brave men and kind-hearted. On this
particular morning the purser boldly protested. “If they are cowards,”
said he, “what are we? For notwithstanding the demands of business, not
one of us has ventured ashore for many days. I’m no coward myself,” he
continued, “but I confess that those boys put my bravery to shame. They
are the bravest boys in the world. Neither do I believe that they are
bound to risk their lives in such a sea as this for a shilling a day.”
While he was speaking some one shouted: “There goes the first boat.”
We ran to the side just in time to see the boat borne down by the first
breaker, whirled around and capsized, the boys struggling for their
lives, not only with a furious sea, but with heavy boxes and casks and
the boat itself, all tossed to and fro in the surging waters. They
escaped without serious injury; but no white man could have escaped.
About the same time, a few miles up the coast, a steamer had one of its
strong surf-boats flung upon the beach with such violence that it was
broken in two across the middle. Another steamer had two boys killed.
One day our boys went ashore early in the morning, leaving the ship
at half-past five. They were expecting to make the first trip before
breakfast, as usual, and therefore had nothing to eat before starting.
They had landed the cargo safely at the trading-house; but the sea was
so bad that they could not get off to the ship all that day. They made
several unsuccessful attempts, and it was almost night when at last they
succeeded. Meanwhile, the swell had become so heavy that we had steamed
far out for safety, and were anchored seven miles from the shore. The
boys reached the ship after dark, and we then learned that the white
trader ashore had given them nothing to eat; although the ship would have
repaid him. Those boys had battled with the sea weak with hunger, not
having had a taste of food all that day. It is only fair to say that on
the steamers they are well fed. There are but very few English traders
who would do as that man did; though there are many such men of other
nationalities.
Only a short time afterwards, one evening at the table, an officer who
had been ashore told us a story that was intended to prove the cruelty
of the native. A white trader, he said, had caught a young elephant. He
went away on a journey to the bush, leaving the care of it to his native
workmen. Upon his return, after several months, he found the elephant
in very poor health; and a few weeks later it died. There was no doubt
that the natives had neglected to feed it in his absence, and this was
the cause of its death. Horrible cruelty of the beastly native! Pungent
remarks, appropriate to the occasion, were contributed all around the
table. For myself—I was thinking of those starved and tired boys battling
with a raging sea. But I said not a word. What would be the use?
We need not be sentimental about the native’s wrongs. Though a victim, he
is not necessarily innocent. He would do unto others as others do unto
him; and his life is perhaps not rendered more miserable by the white man
than it was before. But, then, they are _savages_ and we are supposed to
be civilized; and the most wretched excuse that the white man can give
for his cruelty is that he is only imitating the natives themselves. The
white man is always calling the native a devil, and always expecting him
to act like an angel, while he himself, so far from being angelic, sets
an infernal example.
The truth is that the white man in the tropics is out of his element as
much as the diver who works in the deep sea. The atmosphere in which
he was produced and in which he developed—the mental, moral, social
and physical conditions—are also necessary to his moral and physical
maintenance. The climate weakens and depresses him, while at the same
time he is not sustained by domestic cheer and the society of equals
to which he has been accustomed. He is invariably nervous and as a
consequence impatient, while at the same time the circumstances that
confront him in the discharge of his daily duties are such as would try
the temper of a saint. If he remain long in a climate so unnatural to him
and in a strange and uncivilized society the likelihood is that there
will be an imperceptible and unconscious lowering of moral standards and
accommodation to the standards of the society around him. Cruelty which
at first shocked him gradually ceases to shock and at length he becomes
indifferent, or perhaps himself capable of barbarous deeds from which he
would at first have recoiled with horror.
For the men of whom I have been speaking are not inferior to the average
man at home. Your virtues, and the graces of mind and character upon
which you pride yourself—your strength and composure, your patience and
devotion to duty, your honesty, your justice, your purity—all these
belong not only to yourself but to the society which has produced you
and of which you are a part. The moral standards which it has erected
in the course of its social evolution, the safety with which it has
surrounded you, the comforts which this safety has made procurable,
the disapprobation by which it punishes any infraction of its laws—to
these, not to yourself alone, you owe your moral attainments. None but
the highest and most fixed moral standards will bear transportation to
a tropical climate and tropical society. Until this fact is clearly
recognized the relation of civilization to the uncivilized tropics
is likely to be productive of misery and shame. If I did not hate
sensationalism I could easily fill this chapter with a record of the
misdeeds and barbarities in Africa of men, many of whom belonged to
respectable families and to good society and were well-behaved at home.
Neither does the white man become acclimated in the tropics—no more than
the diver in the deep sea. The longer he remains, his physical and moral
resources become the more exhausted. Let us keep these facts in mind in
judging those of whom we have spoken, and those of whom we have yet to
speak in the next chapter.
X
WHITE AND BLACK
“Our only program, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral
and material regeneration.”—_King Leopold II._
“The work of civilization, as you call it, is an enormous and
continual butchery.”—_M. Lorand, in the Belgian Parliament._
St. Paul de Loanda, in the Portuguese colony of Angola, is the only place
on the entire west coast of Africa that looks like a real city. It is
several centuries old, and from the sea the appearance is not unlike the
Mediterranean cities of North Africa. But as soon as one goes ashore this
illusion is dissolved. What makes it unlike any other settlement on the
west coast is chiefly its roofs of red tile instead of corrugated iron,
with its superheated appearance, that is used in all places recently
built. The city is also lighted by oil lamps. The harbour being one of
the best, I went ashore with the captain and after a walk about the town
we played a few games of billiards with the British consul. I had then
been several years on the coast and this seemed like a brief return to
civilization. The night coming on brought with it more civilization.
A native band played, by ear, two or three tunes, and played them
well—considering. It is said that they have played those same tunes since
the band was organized, and no one now living remembers when that was.
A mouldering church, _Our Lady of Salvation_, which stands on the beach,
is two and a half centuries old, and is a work of art, containing
interesting and historical scenes in blue and white tiles. From this
place in the dark age of slavery thousands of slaves were shipped across
the Atlantic; and the Roman Catholic bishop sat on the wharf and baptized
them, not individually, but in shiploads. Surely _Our Lady of Salvation_
might have been called _Our Lady of Sorrows_.
There were very few passengers on board, but there were a number of
dogs. The captain had a weakness for dogs. The breed of the dog made
no difference. Whether they were useful or useless, whether sound and
healthy or dreadfully diseased and scarcely able to walk, he loved them
all without partiality or discrimination. Men further up the coast who
had European dogs that were particularly mangy or threatened with rabies
would give them into the captain’s care and he would take them for a
health-change down the coast. At one time there were nine dogs living on
board. He never seemed to realize that in this, as in all other things,
tastes differ; and that a certain dog, an English mastiff, as ugly as the
rest of its kind, might not be entirely welcome to share my soup at the
table just because it was welcome to his.
There were two fox-terriers tied together with five or six feet of small
rope between them. As their health improved these two terriers became
animated beyond all control. They amused themselves by pulling down
cages full of parrots for the delight of hearing them remonstrate in
a prolonged concert of harsh squawking. But their chief exercise was
straight running at breakneck speed from one end of the promenade deck
to the other, with six feet of rope stretched taut between them, to
the terror of the passengers, who were so few in number that they were
regarded as a negligible quantity. There was a lady on board with whom
I occasionally walked until the terriers made it impossible to do so
without sacrificing either comfort or gallantry. At the sight of them
coming towards her, like a whirlwind sweeping down the deck and the
rope threatening to trip her up, the lady’s energy all went to her hands
instead of her feet; for she invariably lost her presence of mind and
stood still wringing her hands instead of hastily retreating into some
safe corner. But I could not understand why she should think that I also
ought to lose my presence of mind and stand still and be tripped when I
had youth and fleetness of limb to accomplish an escape.
We were three days at Benguela during which we witnessed the Mardi Gras
celebration. Men, women, and children filled the streets with merrymaking
and presented a spectacle of fantastic colours, grotesque costumes, and
uncouth masks, such as I had never before seen. Our errand to Benguela
was the delivery of a large consignment of supplies for the newly
projected railway which, it is expected, shall ultimately extend far
inland to the region of Lake Tanganyika, thus connecting with the traffic
of the east coast. The bit of this railway already built represents what
Portugal has done towards the development of Africa in the course of
several centuries.
The trading-houses of Benguela are surrounded by walled enclosures, or
compounds, in former days used for the confinement of slaves awaiting
shipment. This is not like the bush country further north, but is more
open and its main slave-trail extends a thousand miles into the interior.
This is the end of the trail that Livingstone followed in his first
tragic journey across Africa.
But that which ought to be fully known to the civilized world is that
slavery still exists in the whole territory of Angola and in the
adjoining Portuguese islands, and with all its attendant horrors. Most of
the house-servants and factory-servants of Benguela are slaves purchased
with money and frequently resold. Young women are sold and resold by
white men to white men as mistresses. Any white man in Benguela will
tell one that the average price is twenty pounds. She may be resold from
time to time at a decreasing price. The work on the large plantations is
done by slaves who serve under the lash, and it is estimated that half
the population of Angola are in slavery; some would say more than this.
This includes domestic as well as foreign slavery. But the traffic by
the Portuguese has made domestic slavery more severe. They were also
being shipped from Benguela at that time, to the islands of San Thomé
and Principe, at the rate of three or four thousand a year, and in all
probability the number has since increased. I have visited Principe, and
I know something of the actual conditions in that island.
The ways of Portugal have not changed in these four centuries of her
African history. In the year 1509 a Portuguese officer landing in South
Africa became embroiled with the Hottentots and he and twenty of his men
were killed. Three years afterwards a Portuguese captain landed a cannon
loaded with grapeshot as a pretended present to the Hottentots. Men,
women and children gathered around in wonder. While they were admiring
it the Portuguese captain fired it off and looked on with delight as the
wretched people fell in heaps. And Portugal has not changed. The ally
of England from time immemorial, and possessing a remarkable collection
of souvenirs in the form of anti-slavery treaties, some of them recent
and one of them as late as 1885, she still prosecutes her slave-trade
with vigour, albeit with circumspection to her reputation as well as her
profit.
The Bailundu rebellion, in the interior of Angola, in 1902, was still
an occasional topic of conversation. The Portuguese claimed that it was
caused by the few American missionaries of that interior district—as if
their own rapacity and lust were not sufficient explanation. If that be
true, and if it be true that the missionaries are responsible for all
similar wars from Angola to China, as their detractors allege, it is
surely evident that the missionary influence is not to be derided after
all, but is a tremendous force to be reckoned with in national economy.
The Bailundu rebellion was a complete failure. The unorganized native
forces were unable to stand before an army disciplined by white officers,
and it soon developed into a wholesale massacre of natives.
Shortly afterwards a missionary from that part spent a day with me at
Gaboon and recounted many incidents of the war. Portuguese planters
exacted enormous indemnity which reduced many to slavery. Such incidents
as the following occurred: A certain man, in order to pay his portion
of the indemnity exacted by a certain planter, at last was compelled to
sell his two children as slaves. He returned to his village with desolate
heart and tearless eyes, went into his house, came out again, and walked
around it, went into it again and came out with his sword, uttered one
heart-broken cry, and plunging the sword into his breast, killed himself.
As a consequence of the war, however, the Angola secret became known
and there was considerable feeling aroused among the better class in
Portugal. To their righteous remonstrance the government responded by
abolishing the name of slavery and prosecuting the traffic as vigorously
as ever under an ingenious and particularly diabolical form of law called
“labour contract.” The only difference to the native is that while
formerly his servitude was a direct violation of law it is now perfectly
legal; but he is still seized and transported and labours under the lash
until he dies.
In 1905, Mr. Henry W. Nevinson went to Angola for the express purpose
of investigating the reported slavery. Mr. Nevinson upon a careful and
intelligent investigation found the conditions such as I have stated,
and he gave an accurate report in a series of articles in _Harper’s
Magazine_.
The slave-merchant, or “labour-merchant,” as we must now call him,
procures his labourers in the interior, sometimes six hundred or eight
hundred miles from the coast. He pays for them in rifles and other goods.
The price that he offers, while very small, considering the value of a
slave to a planter, is yet sufficient to excite the cupidity of a class
of natives beyond the possibility of control. They first sell their
domestic slaves to the white men, then they sell anybody whom they can
get into their power. In the old slave days it was not safe for three
men to go together to the slave-market lest two of them should combine
to sell the third, and such is always the brutalizing effect of the
slave-trade on many of the natives. Those slaves that are not used on the
plantations of Angola are marched in caravans to the coast. They march in
shackles, or chained together, and under an armed guard. Many die on the
way, sometimes half the caravan.
Arriving at the coast, they are sold, or contracted, to an employer,
usually a planter of San Thomé or Principe, at a large advance on the
interior price. They are then brought by the employer before a magistrate
who draws up a contract in proper legal form. It makes not the slightest
difference what the native answers to the questions asked him or whether
he answers at all, a contract is drawn up in which he declares that he
has come of his own free will to contract for his services at so much
labour for so much pay, and that the contract holds good for five years.
The contractor on his part agrees to pay a certain monthly wage and to
provide food and clothing. The native is given a copy of the contract and
a little tin cylinder in which to keep it, the sign and declaration of
his freedom and protection by law. But hypocrisy can go even further;
for these Portuguese, merchants and government officials, actually pose
as _Philanthropists_. “See,” they say, “what we have done for these men
and women. They were all slaves to black men, and we have redeemed them.”
Philanthropy is usually unlucrative, but the genius of the Portuguese has
made it pay.
Despite the expiration of the contract at the end of five years and the
promise of a free passage home, the native thus transported is never
known to return. Henceforth he is one of a long line of men and women
that labour on the cocoa fields all the day long, some of the women
carrying babies on their backs—that labour in stolid silence under the
lash or the prod of a sharpened stick from early morning till the sound
of the evening bell. That they become debased and immoral is only what
we should expect; and therefore the traffic in men’s bodies is also a
traffic in men’s souls. So they live and toil, each day like all the
others until the last short journey, when, as Mr. Nevinson describes,
“their dead bodies are lashed to poles to be carried out and flung away
in the forest.”
But is there no relief to the dark picture? No compensation? Yes, there
is some compensation. We get cheaper cocoa and plenty of chocolate.
The people of the United States have a deep and practical interest in the
question of the principles that ought to regulate the relations of the
governing and the governed in those tropical countries that are under the
dominion of the various civilized powers. Having come into possession
of the Philippine Islands, with their vast and undeveloped resources,
the problem is their own and waits for solution. Upon the people of
the United States, because of the serious and responsible situation
with which they are confronted, may devolve the task of devising and
administering a form of government in accord with the higher modern
standard of English-speaking people in regard to the national duty
involved in the relation of a civilized power to a subject and savage
people. No graver problem is likely to arise in the course of the entire
century of which we are still on the threshold. And the United States is
the better prepared for her task by the fact that she is uncontrolled by
precedent and unbiased by tradition.
The Portuguese theory of tropical control is evident enough. The acquired
possession is an estate to be worked for the benefit of those in control,
whose right is simply “might.” Its native inhabitants, who have the moral
right to its possession, are counted among the various resources of
the acquired property, and may be exploited accordingly. The practical
sequences of this theory are slavery and plunder.
The theory that surrounds the colony with high tariffs for the exclusive
benefit of the governing power and which concedes foreign monopolies to
the disregard of native interests, is not essentially different from that
of Portugal. This latter is the theory that is being worked out in the
Congo Français as a result of the example and influence of the Belgian
trusts, and the intrigues of King Leopold’s agents in France. We believe
that it cannot be permanent as a form of French colonial government
because of the humane and generous instincts of the French people. And
it is certain that such a policy could not long endure in any territory
under the control of the United States. For a policy in order to be
permanent must have the support of the moral sentiment of the nation, and
such a policy traverses our basal doctrine of the native equality of men.