I.—Labour—Supply and Demand.
II.—Land and its Relation to Labour.
III.—Portuguese Slavery.
IV.—The Future of Belgian Congo.
I
LABOUR—SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Everywhere in West Africa the cry goes up, “Give us more labour.” The
British, German, Portuguese and French merchants all declare that if
only they could get the labour, they might put a different face on
the whole of the problems of production in West Africa. The principal
reason for this shortage is unquestionably the fact that West Africa is
sparsely populated, but this one fact does not, by any means, explain
the situation. In Liberia alone does there appear to be any appreciable
quantity of surplus labour, and upon its resources considerable demands
are made by other colonies. This surplus obviously arises from the fact
that Liberia is completely undeveloped, but if in the near future some
energetic power should take charge of that territory, a period would
certainly be put to indiscriminate recruiting amongst the native tribes.
It is true that in some territories in West Africa there is an increase
in the population, but taking the whole areas into review, the labour
force has seriously decreased within recent years. Statistics, though at
present little more than estimates, go to prove that in several colonies
this falling off is becoming a grave question. Recently the religious
denominations in Lagos have been holding “intercessions” with reference
to the high rate of mortality. If this intercession should lead the
natives from faith to works, we may still hope to see the abandonment of
those European customs which are doing untold harm to the physique of the
native women and children.
The causes of decrease in the population, generally speaking, are beyond
human ken and one can only express opinions which someone else will
promptly contradict. For example, almost every traveller wrecks his
reputation on that old-time rock of controversy—polygamy. Sir Harry
Johnston mentions in one of his books the case of a polygamist with
700 children, but the greatest polygamist I have ever met in Africa
possessed 1000 wives, yet he had no children! Argument based upon two
such instances, however, is profoundly unsatisfactory, because with so
large a company of wives in one case, and children in the other, it is
obvious that many other considerations repose beneath the surface. There
is one outstanding fact which everyone knows, but few speak about except
in whispers; human nature is pretty positive in West Africa, no matter
of what hue the skin, and scientists may argue until eternity upon the
relative effects of polygamy and monogamy on the birth rate, but all
their deductions are wide of the mark whilst they have so little actual
monogamy anywhere in West Africa.
[Sidenote: SLEEPING SICKNESS AND LABOUR]
Sleeping sickness has made the most terrible ravages wherever it has
established a firm hold on the tribes, but this scourge would seem to
be spending its force. Seven years ago Uganda recorded over 8000 deaths
from sleeping sickness within twelve months, and the latest Government
report shows that there has been a gradual reduction until in the year
1910 there were only 1546. Happily this encouraging feature is present
on the West Coast also. The Congo suffered more than any other colony,
due, probably to a large extent, to the systematic oppression under which
the population groaned during the Leopoldian régime. Now, however, the
absence of the scourge in many of the old districts is quite noticeable.
Villages that we knew to be swept by this plague ten years ago are once
more flourishing, and in some cases where the birth rate was almost nil
the villages are again joyous with the laughter of little children.
The worst sleeping sickness areas remaining in West Africa appeared to
me to be the Bangalla region of the Congo and the Portuguese island of
Principe. In the latter it has reached such proportions that the whites
are leaving the island. The Portuguese still keep a considerable number
of slaves on the cocoa farms, all of them either infected or exposed to
the disease. As one passes from roça to roça, these slaves, stricken with
disease, with emaciated bodies and gaunt features, stare piteously at
the passer-by from eyes that seem to stand out from their heads, mutely
appealing for the freedom of their distant village homes on the mainland.
Looking at the matter from the materialistic standpoint of labour-supply,
but makes this ruinous conduct on the part of the Portuguese appear
doubly reprehensible.
“Civilization,” too, has contributed to a decrease in the working
population, but in a varying degree. All the Powers have sinned in this
respect. I never read of punitive expeditions with “many natives killed”
without inwardly fuming at the folly of the administration which should
know how precious from an economic standpoint alone, is the life of every
single native. Yet in some places the tribes are hustled, tormented and
even butchered in a manner little realized as yet by the European public.
Think of the loss of life by violent death in both Belgian and French
Congo, and in German West Africa! Think of the countless thousands of
bleaching bones scattered over the highways through Portuguese Angola!
Within the last twenty-five years well over 60,000 slaves have been
shipped to San Thomé alone; add to this the thousands sold and still in
slavery on the mainland, and you probably have a total of over 100,000
slaves passing into the possession of the whites in Portuguese West
Africa. That stream of human merchandize involved a wastage of another
100,000 lives, for a Portuguese slave-trader once admitted that if he got
half his total gang to the coast, he was lucky, but that generally he
could not deliver more than three out of ten!
It is a haunting thought that since the “85” scramble for Africa, the
civilized Powers who rearranged the map of the African continent,
ostensibly in the interests and for the well-being of the natives, have
passively allowed the premature destruction of not less than ten millions
of people. Now these Powers complain bitterly that they are short of
labour and jump at any expedient which presents itself to obtain labour
for their hustling developments.
[Illustration: COCOA FARM, BELGIAN CONGO.]
The sins of King Leopold are visiting themselves upon his successors in
every part of the Congo basin. The prospective gold mines, the cocoa
farms, the public departments, all of them are handicapped owing to lack
of an adequate labour force. If only the Belgians could restore to life
an odd million of the able-bodied men and women done to death under the
régime of their late sovereign, what a different outlook their colony
would possess!
The Belgians now propose bringing Chinese for the Katanga Mines, but
seeing that their former experience of Chinese coolies was not a happy
one, and considering other drawbacks, I very much doubt whether they
will ultimately launch the experiment of bringing thousands of Chinese
across Africa. The original idea of the Belgian Government was that of
bringing the coolies into the Congo under a regulation which would secure
their repatriation at the termination of the contracts, coupling that
regulation with others similar to those adopted by Great Britain in South
Africa. Mr. R. C. Hawkin,[8] whose knowledge of South African politics
is not only wide, but intimate, at once pointed out that the Belgian
Administration was restricted by the Berlin and Brussels Acts. This
opened up a situation so obviously awkward that nothing more has been
heard about the introduction of Chinese labour into the Congo, at least
for the present.
[Sidenote: WHAT GERMANY LACKS]
Germany, like Belgium, differs from France and England in that she has
no other colonies from which to draw a labour force. Quite recently her
colonists, at their wit’s end for labour, passed a resolution agreeing to
import 1000 Indian coolies for labour in the mines. It had not occurred
to them that the British India Office might object. How much trouble, to
say nothing of expense, they would have saved themselves if only they had
asked the office-boy in Downing Street!—they need have gone no higher.
This is another instance of the strange features which now and again
attend German colonization, good as well as bad. Their authorities had
apparently entirely forgotten the regrettable Wilhelmsthal affair, but
probably the real reason was that this incident (which many Englishmen
will not readily forget) was regarded by them as altogether too
trivial to be noticed. This unfortunate affair—though in some respects
comparatively unimportant, yet in reality a grave matter—certainly
merits a permanent record in some form, because it is just one of those
blundering incidents which bring in their train a whole crop of labour
difficulties.
[Sidenote: AN ANGLO-GERMAN INCIDENT]
A German Railway Construction Company had been allowed to recruit British
Kaffir subjects from South Africa. In the autumn of 1910 trouble arose
because deductions were made from the labourers’ wages, and they further
complained of bad food and housing. The Railway authorities seem to
have then embittered the situation by refusing to allow the men food
and water. This conduct in a tropical country was little, if at all,
short of inhuman, and the labourers naturally struck work and apparently
assumed a somewhat threatening attitude. The situation was then handled
in a style characteristically German. The Company itself, ignoring the
civil authorities, called in the troops, who shot seven of these British
subjects in cold blood and wounded several others. How one-sided the
whole affair was is demonstrated by the fact that not a single German
soldier was even injured. This incident, from every point of view an
outrage, was regarded as so trivial that no one appears to have been
punished, nor so far as we know has any compensation been paid to the
wounded or to the relatives of the murdered Kaffirs.
German colonial knowledge of British public opinion cannot be of a very
far-reaching nature when it ignores this incident in asking for British
labour to develop its colonies. To Englishmen it cannot be a matter of
surprise that the India Office has not yet granted permission to recruit
labour from the Indian Empire.
Germany and Belgium are the only two Powers in West Africa which do
not possess colonies in other parts of the world from which to recruit
labour, hence they are dependent upon other Powers. To the proud German
Empire, this situation is irritating, while Great Britain, France,
and also Portugal, to a limited extent, can each of them augment the
labour force of any given colony by recruiting from their other colonial
possessions.
The Portuguese colonies of Angola, San Thomé and Principe, which comprise
the major portion of Portuguese West Africa, experience the greatest
difficulty in obtaining labour. It is perfectly true that during the
last half-century, close on a hundred thousand labourers have left the
shores of Angola for the cocoa islands and other places, but these it
must be remembered were almost exclusively slaves which had been bought
or captured in the remoter regions of Angola, Rhodesia, Barotseland,
and, more especially, the Congo Free State. The Portuguese colonists of
Angola are so pressed for labour that they started some years ago an
“anti-slavery” movement against the Portuguese planters of the islands.
No doubt there was an honest element in this movement, but it is equally
beyond question that the mainspring of the movement was local anxiety
to keep all the slaves in the Angola colony, which is to this moment
rotten with slavery. If Angola, a territory more than twice the size of
France, were properly developed, it would require first of all a complete
abolition of slavery, and then an immense augmentation of the labour
supply. When we were at Lobito, the Robert Williams Railway Company and
the Electrical Syndicate between them were at their wit’s end for two
thousand more men, but these could not be obtained.
The two colonies of San Thomé and Principe are by far the most serious
problem. The area of the two islands is not large—only 400 square miles
together—but they are extraordinarily fertile; the very air seems to
intoxicate with abounding fertility; everything flourishes, cocoa, sisal
and rubber; everything multiplies and replenishes on the earth, but man;
for some reason there appears to be a curse upon those islands, they are
almost without an indigenous population and the wretched slaves imported
to fill the ranks die off like flies. The future of the Portuguese cocoa
colonies is doubtful because it is obvious that they cannot be run
permanently by a temporary solution of the labour question.
[Sidenote: THE BRITISH DEMAND]
Both France and England at present manage their labour difficulties with
greater ease than any of the other Powers, and this because both have a
floating supply in their colonies, which, owing to the high standard of
colonial development as expressed in railways and steamers, motors and
good roads, is readily transferred to the more needy districts. At the
same time every now and then we hear laments that expansion is rendered
impossible owing to the lack of men.
When Lord Sanderson’s Commission took up the study of contract coolie
labour, the areas appealing for labour included the Gold Coast colony,
and the Government Secretary of the mines, Mr. Cogill, put in a plea that
the colony should be allowed to recruit labour for its mines from India.
In this plea he was supported by Sir John Rodger and the Acting-Governor,
Major Bryan. This application is not easy to understand, for everyone
knows, or should know, that Indian labour generally is unsuited to mining
work. There is, however, some reason to believe that the inspiration of
this plea came from sources requiring indentured labour from other parts
of the world, and that the demand for Indian coolie labour was put forth
in the hope of establishing necessity and thereby paving the way for a
less acceptable demand.
The bulk of labour in West Africa is employed under indenture or
contract, the majority of the latter being for three years, but a
great deal of unskilled labour is employed on a yearly, or in some
colonies—particularly the Portuguese—a five years’ contract. The latter
are paper contracts, and in practice may mean anything or nothing at all.
Very few unskilled labourers in Africa are prepared to accept willingly
a single contract of longer duration than one or at the most two years,
and if a contract system exists whereby labourers are bound for longer
periods at a single service, it may be generally assumed that some form
of pressure or intrigue has been at work.
Now that public attention is being focussed upon labour conditions,
it becomes increasingly imperative that Governments should lay down
the broad lines upon which they are prepared to allow contract labour.
Nor must the labourer only be considered, the employer has the right
to be heard in framing such conditions. In spite of much evidence to
the contrary, I am still inclined to the belief that, as a class, the
employers of labour everywhere in Africa detest as much as anyone labour
conditions which are unfair. Even the Portuguese planters of San Thomé
hate the slavery they practice, but by a long series of blunders they
have been led into their present position.
The greatest care requires to be exercised if contract labour is to be
kept free from the taint of slavery. The Indian authorities, in spite of
every precaution, frequently find that the most reprehensible practices
attach to the recruitment of labour for the East and West Indies. In the
African continent, where domestic slavery is so widely prevalent, the
need for watchfulness is a hundredfold greater.
[Sidenote: RECRUITING]
The conditions which govern the immigration of indentured labour should
differ but little from those which cover local contracts, with the
one exception that local labour contracts should always be of short
duration—never longer than a year. Contracts for over-sea labour must
be longer to cover the cost of transport, but even these are seldom
satisfactory to either employer or employee for a period longer than
three years. The Jamaican and Fiji indenture, which in practice involves
a contract of ten years, is for many reasons highly objectionable.
The chief danger is beyond question with the recruiters. In India
these men according to Mr. Broun,—an Indian Civil servant of large
experience—“are the worst kind of men they could possibly have. They are
generally very low class men.” They seem to bribe, deceive and bully by
turns, anything indeed to bring the Indian coolie into their toils. In
Portuguese West Africa the recruiter has for years been a slave-trader
pure and simple, purchasing slaves from the Congo rebels, and also from
the chiefs in the Rhodesian borderland. The Portuguese Government has
now issued a regulation that all such recruiters must be duly licensed.
In Belgian, German and French colonies, recruiting is undertaken very
largely by Government officials.
Recruiting—whether by the irresponsible recruiter, the licensed agent,
or by the Government official—calls for the closest attention of the
Administration. The official will demand from a chief, the unofficial
recruiter will bribe him for a given number of labourers; in the former
case the chief fears to refuse, in the latter he becomes a party to a
form of slavery.
The German official carries this operation through with the least amount
of sentiment. I asked a planter in the Cameroons whether he obtained
all the labour he wanted with a fair amount of ease. He looked at me
in astonishment, and replied, “With ease, of course. I only notify the
Government that I want labour and they bring it to me!” On another
occasion, when I was discussing Portuguese administration with a French
cotton planter from the Cunene, he began roundly abusing the Portuguese
Government, and upon my inquiring wherein they differed from the German
administration across the river, he replied, “The Germans stand no
nonsense over labour. If the native villages are small and distant from
the planters, they just burn down the villages and drive the natives
nearer the planters. The Government can then quite easily make a list of
the able-bodied men and supply them as they are required.” How far this
may be a general characteristic of German treatment of native races, I
cannot say, but what I have seen of German colonial methods does not
impress me that their occupation is far removed from a sort of military
despotism. In the matter of official recruitment of labour, the Germans
are by far the most vigorous of any of the West African Powers. In this
official recruitment the individual labourer concerned has very little
say indeed; that he should desire to enjoy his freedom is apparently no
concern of anyone, all he knows is that he has to work for the white man
for a given period, and in German South West Africa the “contract” must
be made “as long as possible.”
[Sidenote: DOMESTIC SLAVERY]
The hardships of contract labour are greatly increased by the prevalence
of domestic slavery. We are sometimes told that domestic slavery is
inseparable from native social life, and that from time immemorial it has
been an integral part of African law and custom. For that matter so has
cannibalism! There are many apologists for domestic slavery, including
students of such eminence as Mr. R. E. Dennett and the Editor of the
_African Mail_; the latter considers it would be foolish to abolish the
House Rule Ordinance—or in other words the legalization of domestic
slavery in Southern Nigeria. It is difficult to understand how a man with
Mr. Dennett’s experience could possibly write the paper on this question
which was reprinted in a journal of the Royal Colonial Institute. Mr.
Dennett knows, or should know, that the horrors of early history in the
middle Congo, the blood-curdling stories of Kumasi, the present-day
slavery of the Portuguese colonies and a thousand other labour scandals
rested and still rest in the ultimate resort upon domestic slavery. The
cheap sneers at the sentimentalist, the innuendo that they are mere
stay-at-home critics is entirely misplaced and no one knows this better
than Mr. R. E. Dennett.
Domestic slavery is slavery pure and simple, although I agree that
under the African chiefs it may not be so bad as under the old planter
systems. Front rank statesmen with large administrative experience have
recorded the lamentable results attaching to domestic slavery, and so
recently as 1906 Africa’s greatest constructive Administrator—the Earl of
Cromer—penned the following significant passage:—
“If the utility of the Soudan, considered on its own productive
and economic merits, is not already proved to the satisfaction
of the world—if it is not already clear that the reoccupation
of the country has inflicted, more perhaps than any other
event of modern times, a deadly blow to the abominable traffic
in slaves, and to the institution of domestic slavery,
_which is only one degree less hateful than that traffic_—it
may confidently be asserted that we are on the threshold of
convincing proof.”[9]
The broad lines of domestic slavery are common throughout West Central
Africa. The slave becomes the property of the head of the house or chief,
who can “contract” him to third parties without reference to the one
primarily concerned, that is to say the slave himself, who in turn cannot
hire out his labour without the consent of his master, and he may also be
transferred in payment of debt. Upon the death of the owner, the slaves
with their families—who are the property of the chief—are divided amongst
the heirs with other goods and chattels of the deceased. The domestic
slave can by native law everywhere, and by European law in some parts, be
recaptured if he runs away. According to British law the slave becomes
the property of the master in Southern Nigeria “by birth or in any other
manner.” This only legalizes native law, it is true, but “in any other
manner” throws the door widely open to a transfer of human beings in a
way highly repugnant to British sentiment.
[Sidenote: A REVOLTING CUSTOM]
In the middle Congo a system is rapidly extending which violates every
moral code in that it is none other than a wholesale prostitution. Under
this custom, known locally as that of the “Basamba,” a man hires out a
proportion of his wives on a monthly or yearly agreement. The basis is
the principle of absolute ownership; a weekly or a monthly “hire” in
cash, or its equivalent, is paid, and all the offspring handed over
to the husband and owner. Thus the owner, or husband, obtains first a
financial return for the hire of his surplus wives, and secondly he
claims the offspring. In the event of males, they become domestic slaves,
with which the chief may satisfy administrative and other demands for
labour; while in the case of girls the chief possesses a further source
of revenue either by hiring them out to “temporary husbands,” or by
purchasing other and older women for the same purpose. This method of
increasing the number of wives and slaves is by no means limited to the
middle Congo, but in no other part of West Africa were we able to find it
carried on so extensively. In those regions it is quite common to find
men with ten wives hired out in the different villages, and a few cases
exist of men who now carry on their trade with no less than fifty, and
even one hundred, such surplus wives!
[Illustration: A CONGO CHIEF WITH SOME OF HIS WIVES AND “BASAMBA”
CONCUBINES.]
There are other means of obtaining domestic slaves. Many of them are, of
course, “inherited,” and not a few are passed over as part dowry with a
wife; others are taken for debt and some are captured in tribal warfare.
The relation between contract labour and domestic slavery is more
intimate than appears on the surface. In West African practice an
employer desiring a given number of labourers invites or “calls” the
chief whom he informs of his requirements; if a merchant, he generally
accompanies his request for boys with a gift; if a Government official,
the demand more often than not is accompanied by a threat. At a later
date the chief returns with the required number of labourers. If asked
whether they are willing to work, they generally assent, for they fear
to oppose their chief who, even if European prestige were not behind him,
still possesses all the power of native law and customs—to say nothing of
the awe-inspiring fetish.
Admittedly, however, normal domestic slavery in Africa is widely removed
from predial slavery with which our school books made us familiar.
Eliminating from domestic slavery the sacrifices for which slaves were
always, and in some places are still, reserved; eliminating also European
demands for labour, the system is not everything that is bad, nor are
the chiefs invariably cruel and despotic towards their slaves. It is
nevertheless equally true that the frequency of “palavers” which deal
with escaping slaves is an evidence that the yoke of slavery is often
intolerable, and that in spite of native law, in spite of European law
and practice, and still more in spite of the fetish, the slaves attempt,
and sometimes make good their escape.
[Sidenote: SLAVE CAPTURE]
Over large areas in the British colony of Southern Nigeria the police
can, and do, recapture and restore such slaves to their owners, and two
years ago it came as a shock to many that an escaping slave seeking
refuge on the deck of a British Government ship could be forcibly
recaptured and restored to his master; not only so, but he was actually
flogged by British police for running away! It is, however, not
altogether an easy matter to secure recapture of runaway slaves under
British law, and therefore to the charge of “running away” is sometimes
added larceny—the theft of a canoe or a cloth; the canoe, of course,
being the boat by which the wretched slave made good his escape, and the
cloth that which he uses to cover his nakedness. The following is a fair
specimen of the warrants issued for the recapture of slaves in Southern
Nigeria:—
_COPY._ No. 1881
----
74
WARRANT TO ARREST ACCUSED.
Form 2.
In the Native Council of Warri, Southern Nigeria.
To..............................Officer of Court.
Whereas Joe of Lagos is accused of the offence of (1) running
away from the Head of his House two years ago; (2) Larceny of
cloth value 16_s._, two handkerchiefs, and a canoe. You are
hereby commanded to arrest the said Joe of Lagos and to bring
him before this Court to answer the said charge.
Issued at Warri, the 28th day of November, 1910.
(Signed): PERCY GORDON,
_Senior Member of Court_.
The British Government alone amongst the Powers in West Africa really
dislikes this system and shows some inclination to secure its abolition.
The Portuguese like it, and in the main descend to the level of it,
manipulating the system to suit, so far as possible, their labour
requirements. The Belgians cannot recognize it without violating the
Berlin and Brussels Acts, so they leave it alone to bring forth a whole
crop of abuses.
[Illustration: A HUNTER’S “LUCKY” FETISH.]
The Lieutenant-Governor of French Guinea has recently taken a strong line
upon the question of domestic slavery, which other Governments might
emulate. He has issued instructions to all his subordinate officials in
which he says:—
“We cannot allow the system of captivity to continue any
longer; it is a matter of duty as well as of dignity to put an
end to the present situation.... You are to profit by every
occasion which offers for making the captives understand that
it is immoral for one man to possess another.... Whenever you
or your colleagues make a journey you are to gather the natives
together and explain to them our wish.... In all cases which
are brought before you, you are resolutely to refuse to examine
those which relate to master and slave; make them understand
that for us there are no slaves, and that in justice and law we
only admit the relations of employer and employee. You are to
follow up with the utmost rigour all crimes committed against
human liberty, and to employ all the severity of the laws
against barbarous masters or slave-traders who are still too
numerous on the frontiers of neighbouring colonies.... Every
captive who appeals to your authority is to be welcomed by you
and protected against every abuse of force. You will disregard
every stipulation which in civil contracts, wills, etc., would
postulate the condition of family captivity.... There are no
longer any captives in Guinea—such is the formula which must
rule your conduct.”
If transfer to French Congo is a promotion, the quicker the French
Government promotes this enlightened official to that sphere, the better
for French reputation in that unhappy region.
[Sidenote: FORCED LABOUR]
In Africa forced labour, like contract labour, rests very largely
upon domestic slavery. What is generally understood by forced labour
is indistinguishable from the corvée of Germany, or from that which
obtained in earlier times in Prussia and France. It is simply a communal
undertaking upon works of general welfare, mainly roads from town to
town, although the word corvée was also applied to all feudal demands,
but in those cases some wages were given in return for the labour.
The old African communities exacted, and in many cases still exact,
labour from their domestic and agricultural slaves for which they were
and are paid, according to the whim or the benevolence of the chief. This
labour was, and is, devoted to the clearing of paths, keeping bridges
in repair, gathering harvests, porterage, canoeing, boat-building, and
indeed any undertaking which involves a considerable labour force. These
exactions, however, are always made at a time which avoids interference
with agricultural necessities; moreover, in the nature of the case, the
labour was never used very far from the village.
European administrations have stepped into West Africa, and have taken
the place of the chiefs, and in so doing have adopted corvée under the
plea of works of public utility—a blessed phrase which covers a multitude
of questionable “necessities.”
In the Gambia every able-bodied male is compelled under the penalty of a
fine, or six months’ imprisonment, to give labour for the construction
of roads, bridges, wells and clearings round the villages in his own
district. They must also provide carriers when required. Apparently the
Governor is the only arbiter of the time to be given to such works and
whether or not any remuneration may be made. In Southern Nigeria the
Governor may call up all able-bodied males between 15 and 50, and all
able-bodied women between 15 and 40, to give labour upon road-making and
creek-clearing for a period of six days each quarter. Refusal to obey
involves a fine of £1 or imprisonment not exceeding one month. Similar
regulations prevail in Northern Nigeria.
In German Togoland the natives must give twelve days a year, or commute
this by paying six marks; but the labour can only be used upon roads
and bridges in the district in which the labourers reside. Almost
identical regulations prevail in the French and Portuguese Congo. These
regulations—_qua_ regulations—are unobjectionable and, after all, only
assume powers exercised for generations by the chiefs. In practice,
however, under the term works of “public utility,” frequent and irregular
demands are constantly being made to the irritation of the people. Think
of what a single punitive expedition involves—no matter on how small a
scale. Modern weapons of warfare, ammunition, tent kits, provisions and
the thousand and one odds and ends of the modern paraphernalia of war,
all this is carried in the main by forced labour. I shall doubtless be
reminded that the chiefs always exacted labour for war. That I admit,
but “civilized warfare” is so infinitely more elaborate than the simple
native spear and arrow warfare, that they are not to be put in the same
category.
Carriers too are demanded in numbers and for distances which violate
every native restriction. It is but two years ago that a British official
in Southern Nigeria decided to start off upon a journey on Sunday
morning, and because the carriers did not come quickly enough, he marched
into the two nearest churches and seized the congregations, including
the native minister, and to demonstrate further his petty authority and
repugnance of loftier ideals, insisted on this native clergyman carrying
a box containing his whisky. At this distance it is the ludicrous which
probably strikes the imagination, but it is an entirely different matter
locally. The missionaries of Southern Nigeria, no matter what their
denomination, are of a very devout and noble-minded order; they have
instilled into the minds of the natives a deep reverence of all things
pertaining to worship, and nothing will ever efface from the native mind
that—to say the least—irreverent conduct of the representative of the
Christian Government of Great Britain.
It is difficult sometimes to discriminate between contract labour,
forced labour and slavery, the boundary lines having been obliterated
by vigorous administrations demanding labour for this and that work of
public utility, which in reality bear little relation to an enterprise
for the general welfare. In Belgian Congo this is carried further than
in any other West African colony. The Belgians insist that there is no
forced labour in the Congo, and this is perfectly true from the legal
point of view, but nevertheless almost the whole administrative machinery
and Government undertakings are maintained by forced labour. To roads
and bridges Belgium has added telegraphs, mines, plantations, and
recruitment for the army; the ranks of both—labourers and soldiers—being
filled almost entirely by forced labour.
[Sidenote: BELGIAN FORCED LABOUR]
Loud were the complaints made to us in our recent journeys through the
Congo of the incessant demands for labour by the Administration.
Wearied with a day of struggle through Congo forests and swamp, I was
resting one moonlight evening in the centre of a primitive Congo village;
a group of native chiefs were sitting round me discussing political
conditions. The absence of a certain token led me to question one
individual somewhat pointedly as to the cause.
“If I tell you, white man, you won’t betray me?”
“Your chief knows me well enough for that,” I replied.
“Well, there were eight of us,” he explained, “called by Bula Matadi. We
were bound to go, bound to leave our wives and our children and go down
river several days by steamer. When we arrived, the head white official
gave us a ‘book’ (contract) for three years, and sent us to cut a road
for the ‘Nsinga’ (telegraph wire). We worked for some days, discussing
every night how we could escape. One afternoon the white man went into
the forest and four of us who were working together ran down to the
river where we found an old canoe and one paddle hidden in the grass. We
crowded in and pushed off, one guiding the canoe with the single paddle,
whilst the others paddled with their hands. We managed to get into a
creek hiding ourselves until the next night, when, with the help of some
stout sticks for paddles, we began the long journey home, paddling in
the night and hiding ourselves and our canoe during the day. We lived
on roots and nuts for eight days, and then, when hiding in the forest,
we heard some women talking we ‘frightened’ them and they fled, leaving
their baskets behind. These contained palm nuts, on which we lived for
another six days. On the fifteenth day we reached home again, but our
people did not at first recognize us.”
“Why?”
“Because, white man,” chimed in the old chiefs, “they were so emaciated
that the flesh had shrunk from their cheek-bones, their ribs stood out
like skeletons, and they could barely speak.”
Such is Belgian forced “Contract Labour” in the Congo.
What are the boundary lines between legitimate forced labour and that
which public opinion, as trustee for native rights, should refuse to
tolerate?
The broad line of division is unquestionably between genuine works of
public utility on the one hand, and profit-bearing works on the other.
Road-making, bridge-building, creek-clearing, are all of them works from
which the whole community benefits, but the requisition of this labour
should not be left to the arbitrary will of a temporary official, but
subject to clearly-defined regulations. Any legislation upon forced
labour for works undertaken for the public good should only permit the
requisition, in lieu of taxation, as is the case in German Togoland,
where the native has the alternative of paying a head tax of six marks
per annum or giving his labour for twelve days, subject to the labour
being required for the improvement of his own district.
As in Ceylon and other British colonies, the natives should be allowed
to commute the labour by a money payment. To labour exacted under these
rigid conditions, there can assuredly be no strong objection, and,
generally speaking, the native tribes would loyally co-operate in such
proposals.
[Sidenote: FORCED LABOUR AND PROFITS]
To employ forced labour upon any kind of work which carries with it a
financial advantage partakes of slavery. A merchant obtaining forced
labour at his own price is thereby, in principle, engaging in slavery,
and if by obtaining such labour he is able to enter into unfair
competition, he is further guilty of doing a gross injustice to his
fellow-merchants. The Belgians are extremely prone to this form of
labour. In the Congo there is a good deal of State commercial enterprise,
which may yet ruin the individual merchant. The Belgian Government is
doing the larger proportion of transport on the vast fluvial system of
the Congo, and thereby competes with the Dutch House and other transport
companies.
These transport steamers are all driven with wood fuel cut from the
forests. Every few miles along the banks of the Congo river there may
be seen stacks of fire logs cut into lengths of about eighteen inches,
which have been either cut by the employees of the Government or by the
villagers. No company is permitted to purchase Government wood, and
ordinary steamers purchasing from the villagers have to pay 2 francs a
fathom for such fuel. Journeying down the Congo a few months ago, three
of us carefully examined conditions at one of the wooding posts, manned
by twenty-six men and ten women, most of whom had been “demanded” from
the chiefs in more distant parts of the Congo, and drafted to the spot
in question. Several had already served three years—the nominal term
of the contract—but, without any option in the matter, their contracts
had been renewed. Each of the men had to cut one fathom of wood per
diem; some were paid 7 francs and others only 5 francs a month, with a
3-francs allowance for food. The maximum cost, therefore, was 10 francs
for the thirty fathoms of wood cut in the month. Thus the State provides
itself with wood at a fraction over threepence per fathom, for which
company steamers must pay 2 francs. Under such systems not only are
human liberties violated, but commerce suffers prejudice. There is not a
little danger that the Belgian authorities intend giving a considerable
extension to State enterprises, which in all probability will be
prosecuted with this form of forced labour.
The question of State railways and telegraph lines is a difficult one,
both partaking of works of public utility, yet both are as a rule
profit-bearing. There is the further consideration that all profits go
to relieve local taxation. Given representative Government or given even
an elective element in the Administration, there may be some justice in
imposing this form of forced labour upon the general community, but under
the autocratic systems of Crown Colony Administration, large demands
for forced labour cause, not unnaturally, widespread disaffection.
Fortunately British colonies are almost entirely free from the employment
of such labour and to this no doubt is due the excellent management of
all railway systems under British control.
The most economic and the most politic line to follow is that of the
employment of free labour. Supervision is reduced to a minimum, abuses of
authority are rare, the work goes more smoothly, the song takes the place
of the boot and the lash, the native labourer goes home when the day’s
toil is over vowing vengeance on no one, and the white man returns to his
somewhat primitive home with a mind undisturbed by conscious wrong-doing.
II
LAND AND ITS RELATION TO LABOUR
It will not, I think, be contested that throughout West Africa there is
no native conception of private ownership of land. This is almost an
article of religious faith amongst the African races generally. Let one
tribe murder a member of another community and a palaver will be called
and compensation paid. If wife-stealing or kidnapping of boys takes
place, the tribes involved will remain calm and settle their dispute by
making peaceful and honourable amends. Let one tribe exploit the palm, or
without leave settle on the lands of another, and, on the instant, the
ultimatum is despatched—“Depart forthwith, or accept the alternative!”
Indeed the occupation of the communal lands of another tribe is
recognized by most tribes as an overt act of warfare, the signal that all
negotiations for peace are at an end.
Perhaps no more eloquent testimony of the attachment of native tribes
to their lands is to be found anywhere than in the great Equatorial
regions of the Congo. The early ’eighties witnessed in the Congo basin
three convulsive movements; the entrance of the white man from the west,
following on Stanley’s journey across the continent; the incursion of the
Arabs from the north, and the Lokele wars towards the south. This latter
movement was destined to change the whole situation in the Equatorial
regions, south of the main Congo. The Lokeles, probably pressed by
the Arabs from the north, started a “land war” with their southern
neighbours, the object being to obtain an extension of tribal land. This
pressure set in motion a land war, which ultimately extended over an area
nearly five times the size of Great Britain and ran right through the
south reaching down to the Lukenya river, and in some places even across
the greatest of the southern tributaries—the Kasai. Tribes fought each
other for the maintenance of their ancient boundaries until the whole of
the Equatorial region was in a state of warfare, which only ceased when
starvation claimed victims by the thousand. Then only were boundaries
re-adjusted by peaceful agreements; even so the whole population for
months was in such dire straits for food, that men sold their wives, and
mothers their children, for a single basket of manioca. One realizes how
passionately the natives are attached to their lands as they recount the
horrors of those terrible years. Said one to me recently—“At first we
fought to protect our lands, but in the end we had to fight to obtain
‘meat’—human flesh—to stay the pangs of hunger.”
[Sidenote: FIXED LAND BOUNDARIES]
The native boundaries are almost invisible to the European eye, but to
the African student of nature those boundaries are fixed and immovable as
the eternal hills. The limits of tribal lands, within the orbit of which
the clans may move and hunt whenever they will, are the stream, the palm
plantation, the hilly range and the bridges across streams and rivers.
Upon the chief and his advisers devolves the sacred duty of maintaining
intact these tribal lands, alienation being foreign to the native ideas.
So jealously is this guarded that many paramount chiefs in native law
have no power to grant even occupancy rights. For six months the cession
of Lagos to the British Crown was held up because King Docemo had signed
a treaty which appeared to violate this principle of native law. The
population declared that the ownership of the land of Lagos was not
vested in the paramount chief, but in the seven White Cap chiefs, who,
fearing the terrible consequences of alienating the tribal lands, fled to
the bush. It became necessary for the British representatives to give the
most explicit assurances and sacred promises on the point, in order to
secure the ratification of the treaty of cession.
It is perfectly true that titles have been granted to native tribes and
to white men, but it is equally true that originally there was never
the remotest idea that this involved the European conception of total
alienation. In the Holt _v._ Rex case of Southern Nigeria, the Crown
held that “under native law strangers cannot obtain freehold rights—only
occupancy rights.” The tribal conception of occupancy rights also carries
with it the communal idea; a native clan settling by permission within
the territory of another tribe really constitutes the first step in
progressive incorporation. In the first instance of white settlers, there
are abundant stories of the native interpretation of this principle—some
of them distinctly objectionable, although there were pure motives behind
them; others are amusing, such as that of the chiefs “borrowing” saws,
axes, string, rope, nails and what not. Again and again they have freely
and openly helped themselves to palm nuts and other produce from the
white man’s ground. No doubt much of what the European calls “pilfering”
was really quite innocently founded upon the communal conception of the
primitive races.
The impetuous scramble for African territory, which began thirty years
ago, made, and continues to make, a considerable breach in this old
primitive system. White men, acting through the doubtful medium of
interpreters not infrequently corrupted in advance, have secured from
chiefs titles to land of all dimensions. These chieftains, as a whole,
never fully grasped the meaning of the titles obtained with honeyed
words, and which they are now unable to repudiate. That this is so is
partly proved by the fact that in some colonies areas have been conceded
twice and even three times over. Swaziland is, of course, the most
flagrant example, where it will be remembered a situation so complex was
created that it ultimately became impossible for any Court to decide as
to who were the real owners of specific areas.
In West Africa things are not, and never can be, quite so bad, although
in some colonies, the Gold Coast for example, German Cameroons and French
Congo, land difficulties are being piled up for the endless confusion of
future administrators. In Belgian Congo there is no immediate probability
of trouble, due partly to the fact that capital has little confidence in
Belgium’s heritage, but more because the major part of the population has
disappeared.
[Sidenote: LAND AND LABOUR]
There is a vital connection between land and labour in all tropical
and sub-tropical colonies. The economic future of native races is
immobilized in the proportion in which their lands are taken from them.
The almost phenomenal success of the cocoa industry in the British
colony of the Gold Coast is due entirely to the fact that the natives
are the proprietors of the cocoa farms. Throughout the colonial world,
there is no more striking contrast between a landed and a landless
native community than the British Gold Coast colony and the neighbouring
Portuguese colony of San Thomé. In both territories cocoa flourishes,
both produce excellent cocoa, in both nature is very kind, but while the
one will march on conquering the cocoa markets of the world, the other is
doomed to ultimate disaster.
The San Thomé cocoa producer is only a labourer—in fact a slave—and he
is perishing at such a rate that the depleted ranks must be filled from
outside sources to the number of 3000 to 4000 labourers every year. This
constant inflow of labour cannot continue indefinitely, even if European
sentiment permitted—which it will not—the revolting concomitants by which
this labour has been maintained. The economic future of these colonies
from which the supplies are drawn will soon forbid the emigration which
at present is necessary to the island of San Thomé The population of the
Gold Coast, on the other hand, happy in the enjoyment, in the main, of
its own lands, reproduces and to some extent even increases itself every
year. The native occupies his rightful place as producer, while the white
man finds his true sphere, first as the inspirer of native efforts to
place on the market cocoa of increasingly good quality, secondly as the
medium by which the cocoa produced is conveyed to the manufacturer, and
thirdly that by which surplus European manufactures are brought to the
door of the native in exchange for his products.
This relationship of land to labour is receiving increasing recognition
by students of colonial policy. The Republican Government of Portugal,
finding both labour and land problems in hopeless confusion in the
African colonies, has recently introduced a comprehensive measure
embracing both factors in the development of African colonies. The
ordinance is probably too generous in proportions to be carried through
effectively in any colony, and stands little chance of complete
application in Portuguese colonies, which suffer already from an excess
of legislation, coupled with a rooted contempt for “Lisbon dictation.”
This new ordinance, however, is a valuable contribution to West African
legal literature.
The Provisional Government first lays down the proposition that every
native in the Portuguese colonies is under “a moral and legal obligation
to work.” The proposition upon land is in the following terms: “In all
the Provinces beyond the seas, wherever there are public lands vacant,
uncultivated, and not used for any special purpose, natives may occupy
and cultivate them subject to conditions laid down in the present
ordinance.”
The native in Portuguese colonies, therefore, must work. The sphere of
labour he may choose, but idleness is henceforth a punishable offence.
Women, sick men, minors under fourteen years of age, chiefs and those
in regular employment, are either exempt from the operation of the
ordinance or deemed to have fulfilled its obligations.
Any native may contract his services, but, in the first instance, for
a period limited to two years. The agreement is null and void unless
the wages are fixed and recorded in the contract. Any clause giving the
employer the right to administer corporal punishment likewise renders
the contract invalid. The engagement may be made with or without the
assistance of Government officials, but any document signed in the
presence of a Government authority carries with it both the right and
the responsibility of official intervention in any subsequent dispute
between the parties. If, however, the contracting parties enter into
the agreement without reference to the authorities, the employer cannot
look for official assistance in disputes with the employés, although
the latter under all circumstances may rely upon official protection
and assistance. All contracts must bear the impress of the labourer’s
thumb. Wages may not be withheld, nor may pressure be exerted to force
merchandize upon the employé in lieu of wages.
Recruiting agents must obtain a licence from the Governor of the
province, and any infraction of this section of the ordinance is
punishable by a fine of £100 to £1000. A heavier penalty still awaits
any recruiting agent who attempts to contract labourers for prescribed
regions: presumably that death-trap of Portuguese colonies, the island of
Principe. The punishment for such violation may be imprisonment for one
year, a fine of £200, and at the expiration of the term of imprisonment,
expulsion from the colony. Similar penalties await any agent contracting
labourers beyond the bounds of his judicial area.
The Republican Government evidently realizes that contract labour,
however benevolent it may be made to appear on paper, is not always a
heavenly condition, and that the labourer may repent of his bargain
before expiration. Section 18 provides for almost every concomitant
which attaches to restrained labour. The pill, however, is sugared by
a preliminary and somewhat unctuous preamble, that the whole trend of
employment must be that of “moral education.” In pursuance of this
laudable object, powers of arrest are conferred, “precautions” against
running away are permitted, and if a second offence occurs, the offender,
“when caught,” may be taken to the authorities “to be chastised.” There
are, however, certain limits to these powers, for the employer may
neither shackle nor chain an employé, nor may he deprive the labourers of
food, nor impose any fines which involve deductions from wages.
If the native of the Portuguese colonies dislikes the yoke of any master,
he may, like Adam, “till the soil,” for, as already stated, all vacant
public and uncultivated lands are at the disposal of the colonists. The
first general restriction is that this liberty is only open to those
“who do not possess immovable property to the value of £10.” The object
of this restriction is nowhere elucidated, but apparently it is that of
fixing the population upon definite areas.
[Sidenote: LEASEHOLD BECOMES FREEHOLD]
If, then, the native does not possess immovable property to that amount,
he may occupy a piece of land measuring 2¼ acres for himself, and an
additional acre for every member of his family with the exception of
males above fourteen years of age.
A man with two wives, a mother, three daughters, and also three sons
under fourteen years of age, could occupy under this regulation a
little over ten acres, but the occupation must be an effective one. A
dwelling-house must be erected, and two-thirds of the area must be under
cultivation, otherwise the title becomes void, and the authorities will
expel the occupants. The right of occupancy is inalienable.
During the first five years of occupation, the colonist is exempt from
all dues, but at the close of this period taxation is levied and may
be paid either in cash or kind. Failure to pay these dues renders the
occupier liable to eviction without any compensation for improvements.
After an occupation of twenty years, characterized by the fulfilment
of all legal responsibilities, the occupier automatically acquires the
freehold. These cultivators or small holders are exempt from serving
either in the army or the police; they are likewise freed from any form
of forced labour, hammock carrying, or paddling, but they are not exempt
from taking part in military operations with their respective chiefs,
when such expeditions are undertaken by command of the authorities.
District commissioners, civil and military officials are urged to induce
natives to avail themselves of the land provisions, and are empowered
to assign them plots of land. They are also instructed to prepare local
regulations safeguarding the rights of the colonists, compile land
registers, etc., for which no fees are to be exacted from the natives.
If a native will not labour for another, if he will not sow a field
or trade in produce, if in short he is only prepared to stretch forth
an unwashed hand and mutter “Matabeesh, Senhor!” then the official
representative of the Government will deal with him. The danger is that
other than “wastrels” may be swept into the official net, particularly
whilst such operations are so highly profitable to the Portuguese
colonies.
First the delinquent is summoned to answer the charge of idling without
visible means of support; then the paternal authorities are to read him
a homily on “moral education,” and forthwith despatch him to a place
where work is waiting for him. If he still refuses to work he may be sent
to “correctional labour.” There he will receive food and lodging and
be given one-third the market rate of wages. “Correctional labourers”
may, according to Section 58, be hired out by private persons upon the
same terms as the prisoners of State. Such persons willing to employ
“correctional labourers” are requested to make formal application, but
only those are eligible to receive such labourers who have never been
convicted in any court. If they receive such labourers a given sum _per
capita_ must be paid to the State and a fine of £20 paid for any shortage
in “returns” alive or dead, the number hired out must be returned to the
Authorities. If, however, escape is feared, the correctional labourers
may be returned to State prisons each night.
If the whole ordinance is to be applied to the Portuguese colonies in a
measure of completeness hitherto foreign to the Portuguese possessions,
then there is some hope that even the leopard may be able to change his
spots.
[Sidenote: HUMAN VALUES]
There is little likelihood that the Portuguese land laws will be rendered
effective on the spot, especially when we remember that many thousands
of miles throughout which such laws are intended to operate are not yet
under any sort of administrative control. The step which is finding most
favour in British West African colonies is that of declaring all lands,
whether occupied or not, as native land under some sort of ultimate
trusteeship of the Governor for the benefit of the natives. No purpose
can be served by denying that this would place very large powers in the
hands of a single individual, even though the powers so conferred may
only be exercised “in accordance with native law and custom.” It would
beyond question give to the Governor powers which in the hands of some
individuals might be exceedingly dangerous.
The majority of British Governors of Crown colonies could undoubtedly be
allowed to supersede the paramount chiefs in every respect, providing
the constitution of the Crown colonies permitted the bringing into full
play of this one vital condition, viz. that his actions would always be
“in accordance with native law and custom,” but Crown Colony government
excludes at present any form of representative government which is the
unwritten law of every African tribe.
Docemo, and his successor Prince Eleko, in Southern Nigeria, exacted,
and exact to-day, an abject obeisance from their counsellors, which,
if demanded by a British Governor, would secure his prompt recall. No
chieftain, whether he be Mohammedan or Pagan, ever enters the presence
of the native Council Chamber of Lagos without prostrating himself flat
upon the ground and kissing it three times before receiving permission to
sit down. Yet this paramount chief could not alienate a square yard of
land without the sanction of his advisers.
No British Governor is at present in this position. In practice, his
powers under Crown Colony government are in the ultimate resort absolute
and uncontrolled, except by question, answer and debate, in the British
House of Commons. When, however, the subject-matter reaches this stage,
the man on the spot has probably already committed the Government, and
the department is therefore bound to defend him.
Admittedly, somebody must protect the native from the wiles of
unscrupulous white speculators, no less than from the subtle and
treacherous conduct of individual natives. It is the duty of the
Governor, as the responsible authority of the Crown and trustee of native
welfare, to do this; let him by all means have power to prevent the
alienation of land and to grant occupancy rights, but under a system of
government which will give the natives themselves that which they possess
by native law and custom—a collective voice in such decisions. It should
not be beyond the wit of man to frame a system of governmental control
over native tribal lands which would satisfy the great mass of the
people, for let it never be forgotten that Africans in the aggregate are
reasonable and by no means difficult to deal with along lines which are
demonstrably equitable.
[Illustration: PRINCE ELEKO AND COUNCIL, SOUTHERN NIGERIA.]
III
PORTUGUESE SLAVERY
In Portuguese West Africa one sees the best and the worst treatment of
native races. The best for the free native, the best for the educated
coloured man and the best for the coloured woman. In every other
colony—and in this respect British colonies are becoming the worst—race
prejudice not only prevails but is on the increase. In the Portuguese
colonies there is a pleasing absence of race prejudice; natives of equal
social status are as freely admitted to Portuguese institutions as white
men; the hotels, the railways, the parks and roads possess no colour-bar,
and if the Portuguese colonies could be purged of their foul blot of
slavery, the natives of other African colonies might well envy their
fellows in Portuguese Africa. Alongside intimate social relations with
the native is a widespread plantation slavery in Angola, San Thomé and
Principe.
[Sidenote: ANGOLA]
Angola, one of the largest political divisions of West Africa, is bounded
on the north by the Congo, the east by Rhodesia and on the south by
German Damaraland; a considerable section of the northern territory,
including the whole Lunda country, comes within the operations of the
General Act of Berlin. Apart from the Lunda province and strips of land
bordering the rivers, the colony cannot be said to give any promise of
an agricultural future, although if one nation is adept over all others
in turning wastes into gardens, that nation is the Portuguese, to whom
gardens and plantations are second nature. A Portuguese house without
its shady vinery, its delicate fernery and luxuriant kitchen garden is
unthinkable; even the little children in the streets, instead of building
castles and grottos, find infinite delight in laying out miniature
gardens, in which they arrange flowers and ferns with artistic taste.
Economically, however, Angola does not pay, its finances are like many of
its old houses—very unstable and subject to leakage. Walk its streets,
visit its families, Government departments or merchants’ houses, and
certain it is that every other man you meet will remind you forcibly of
Micawber. The Portuguese community in any part of Angola can be roughly
classed as the Moneylenders and Borrowers. Each, however, appears to be
supremely happy and lives in absolute assurance that something will turn
up every day to render life more agreeable.
Loanda, the capital, is a strange admixture of ancient and modern
dwellings, old churches, a roofless theatre and dilapidated bull-rings.
But despite its shortcomings, the Portuguese have made Loanda the most
restful health-restoring sea-port in West Africa. Boma, the capital of
the Congo, is distant only twenty-four hours’ steam, but it is surely
the most unhealthy and the most foodless place in Africa. The Belgians,
if they liked, might supply fresh provisions to its starving and dying
population,—for everyone in Boma is dying, it is only a question of
time. In Boma, fowls, eggs, fruit, fish and vegetables are priceless,
while every day shiploads can be purchased very cheaply in Loanda, and if
shipped twice a week to the Lower Congo, would at least make life, though
short, more comfortable.
[Illustration: LAND FORMATION, LOANDA, PORTUGUESE ANGOLA.]
There is one place every visitor to Loanda should inspect—the old Dutch
Church dedicated to “The Lady of our Salvation.” Some American dollars
would be well spent in preserving this relic, for it is one of the many
instances which demonstrate that slaving was a pious occupation in the
early seventeenth century. The whole of the interior was once composed of
blue and white tiles of pictorial design, and one on the north wall of
the chancel is still complete; this apparently represents the conquest
of Angola by the Dutch, who are seen in broad-brimmed hats, braided
coat-tails and parade boots, fighting and slaughtering the hosts of
savages. The whole operation against the unfortunate infidels is being
directed, and presumably blessed, by the Lady of our Salvation enthroned
in the clouds.
If Portuguese enterprise has made Loanda a restful spot for weary
travellers, British capital—in the person Robert Williams—has turned an
unknown strip of desert land into a nourishing sea-port now known as
Lobito Bay. It is from this port, with excellent anchorage and transport
facilities, that the West Coast will connect with the Cape railway. This
Lobito—Katanga railway, though it has only completed some 450 of the 1200
miles to Katanga, promises commercial success when opened, for it should
then constitute the cheapest transport route to Rhodesia and the Congo;
that is unless the Portuguese, with their usual short-sighted economic
policy, kill the enterprise with tariffs before it has had a real chance
of life.
There are only two other ports of any consequence in Portuguese
Angola—Mossamedes and Benguella; the latter a harbour with perpetual
“rollers” which make a stay on board anything but a comfortable
experience. The town itself, like most Portuguese institutions, is
going to ruin: the only redeeming feature being the maintenance of its
public gardens, fountains and Eucalyptus avenues. Catumbella, an inland
town, lies midway between Lobito Bay and Benguella, and with the latter
town, constituted the principal centre of the slave-trade. The old
slave-compounds and prison-houses confront the traveller in every part of
Catumbella and Benguella, and although many have fallen into disuse, some
still have the appearance of occasional occupation.
[Sidenote: PORTUGUESE “HOTELS”]
Loanda, Lobito and Benguella all possess “hotels.” Those of the capital
proper are a strange mixture of cleanliness, tobacco-ash and half-hidden
dirt, but at least they are free from the presence of those unfortunate
white women who intrude themselves with such persistence on the attention
or inattention of passing white travellers in Benguella, and live by
running accounts paid irregularly by white men in that most loathsome
of all towns in West Africa. Those wishing to visit Benguella should
order their rooms months ahead and not be surprised if on arrival Senhor
has forgotten all about the order and has neither room nor bed at his
disposal. A sound and vigorous rating, however, will generally extort a
promise of a room somewhere, a promise which will seldom be fulfilled
until all other guests have retired to beds severally robbed of one
portion or another to make up an incomplete set for the newly-arrived
guests. Nor must the tired travellers be surprised if a black boy enters
the bedroom, without knocking, and demands the “other master’s pillow,”
only to be followed later by another woolly pate thrust round the doorway
sleepily requesting the surrender of a counterpane or towel, for yet
“another master.”
[Illustration: CHANCEL AND NORTH WALL OF DISUSED DUTCH CHURCH, LOANDA.
_See p. 171._]
It is useless to expostulate with the hotel manager, who will reply with
a veritable flood of apologies and threaten to break the head, and neck
if necessary, of every black boy in the place, and yet the guest knows
with mathematical certainty that he will again have to go through the
same course of torture before getting a troubled sleep on that straw
mattress in yonder whitewashed room. This is the whole trouble with the
Portuguese, commercially and diplomatically; their eternal protestations
of sincerity, integrity and courtesy on the one hand, and, on the other,
a total incapability of observing the most sacred promises. It is an
old story, the same which confronted Wellington in the early nineteenth
century. The Portuguese is very like the African; you despair of curing
him of his weaknesses—which are, after all, seldom intentionally
vicious—and yet you love him, because his kindly nature compels you.
The chief interest for the British public in Portuguese colonies arises
from two distinct causes—financial interests and treaty obligations.
Our financial interests are not large; they involve certain railway
schemes, the supply of labour for the Transvaal mines, and a few
plantation and merchant enterprises. Our treaty obligations, binding
us in definite alliance with Portugal, may at any moment involve Great
Britain in a grave international situation. The value, or otherwise, of
such an alliance is open to a difference of opinion. It is, however,
imperative that our ally should observe all moral standards which the
civilized Powers are pledged to maintain with all the forces at their
disposal. Travellers, consuls, merchants, sea captains and government
officials have repeatedly called attention to the prevailing slavery
and slave-trade in Portuguese West Africa; both of which detestable
practices are in gross violation of Anglo-Portuguese treaties, the
Brussels and Berlin Acts. All, or any, of the civilized Powers can at any
moment—and in point of responsibility should—intervene and demand the
abolition of slavery in Angola, San Thomé and Principe, and if Portugal
continued to beg the question by calling slavery by some other name, that
Power, or those Powers, could, if they so desired, shake her out of her
indifference by casting the anchor of a battleship in sight of the ports
of San Thomé and St. Paul de Loanda. I am not advocating such a course
for one moment, but it is vital that the British public should realize
that in the event of any Power signatory to anti-slavery Conventions
waking up for any reason, disinterested or otherwise, to treaty
obligations, and making some effort to discharge those liabilities, such
Power would be at once confronted by the possibility of Britain’s navy
defending Portuguese colonies, although run by slave labour. A pretty
spectacle indeed, Britain’s matchless fleet defending the slaver, only
wanting old Jack Hawkins on the Bridge, to complete the picture!
[Illustration: COCOA CARRYING, BELGIAN CONGO.]
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO COCOA ROÇA, PRINCIPE ISLAND. (PORTUGUESE.)]
[Sidenote: MAINLAND SLAVERY]
Portugal shares with every other West African Power the problem of
shortage of labour and with it the short-sighted energy of the impatient
employer, who, beyond the ken of the official eye, frequently resorts
to illegal means for increasing his supply. Domestic slavery survives
in Portuguese Angola as well as in Nigeria, and in Belgian and French
Congo. One can only estimate very roughly the slave population of Africa,
but probably not less than a million human beings are to-day ignorant
of the blessings of personal liberty. Mr. Nevinson, in his admirable
book on “Modern Slavery,” says of Angola alone, “including the very
large number of natives who, by purchase or birth, are the family slaves
of the village chiefs and other fairly prosperous natives, we might
probably reckon at least half the population as living under some form
of slavery.” We cannot acquit many Powers in Africa from the charge of
profiting administratively from this form of human chattelage, but when
Portugal sets up a _tu quoque_ plea we are compelled to differ. The
dividing line between the Powers is that whilst many of them profit by
this practice occasionally and for restricted periods, the Portuguese
descend to the lowest level, adopt the native practice themselves and
thus become not the “hirers,” but the owners. In this way they endeavour
to meet their interminable shortage in the labour supply. To what lengths
they are prepared to carry this system may be gathered from the report
of Professor A. Prister in the _Hamburger Fremden-Blatt_ for 28th July,
1906:—“In Angola, even in San Paolo de Loanda, under the eyes of the
Governor, the Bishop and the high officials,” he alleges, are to be
found “regular ‘bridewells’ for the production of slaves.” One of these,
he says, he visited on the estate of “one of the richest Portuguese,”
sixteen miles from Loanda. There he saw a large number of women, with
only a few men, at work. “Each woman has a little hut, in a courtyard
enclosed by a wall, in which she lives with her young ones. The woman is
always pregnant, and carries her last child on her back, during work, in
Kaffir manner. The overseer of this plantation, who treated me in every
respect with Portuguese friendliness, and took me for a great admirer of
his breeding establishment, told me that about four hundred negroes were
there, and added with a laugh that he had over a hundred young ones in
the compound. This is just as if a cattle-breeder were boasting of the
fine increase in his herds. When the young one is so far grown up that he
can be put to some use, at from six to eight years of age, he enters into
a so-called contract, or he steps quite simply into the place of a dead
serviçal. For instance, Joseph is told that his name is no more Joseph
but Charles, and immediately the dead Charles is replaced. He never fell
ill; he never died; he only lives a second life.” It is to be hoped that
such incidents are rare even in Angola, but it brings home forcibly to
the British mind the sort of colonies the “matchless navy” of Great
Britain may be called upon one day to defend.
[Sidenote: CONTRACT LABOUR AND SLAVERY]
Certain apologists of the Portuguese are very fond of comparing the
British indentured labour system with labour conditions on the Angolan
mainland and the islands. The labour system of the East and West Indies
are by no means ideal, but there is a world of difference, not only in
the daily management of this labour, but fundamentally.
In San Thomé the contracted labourer from Angola is a slave: he calls
himself a slave, and the Mozambique free man holds him in contempt as a
slave; either he was captured, or purchased on the mainland with cash
by the plantation owners just as men purchase cattle or capture wild
animals. Every single slave with whom I spoke, both on the mainland and
on the islands, gave me the clearest account, replete with convincing
detail, of the manner in which he or she had been either kidnapped or
purchased. Not a few of the slaves had “changed hands” several times
before the ultimate sale to the planter.
THE SLAVE’S CASE