Chapter IV: First Fruits of the System

The first testimony which I shall cite is that of Mr. Glave, which covers the years 1893 up to his death in 1895. Mr. Glave was a young Englishman, who had been for six years in the employ of the State, and whose character and work were highly commended by Stanley. Four years after the expiration of his engagement he travelled as an independent man right across the whole country, from Tanganyika in the east to Matadi near the mouth of the river, a distance of 2,000 miles. The agent and rubber systems were still in their infancy, but already he remarked on every side that violence and disregard of human life which were so soon to grow to such proportions. Remember that he was himself a Stanleyman, a pioneer and a native trader, by no means easy to shock. Here are some of his remarks as taken from his diary.

Dealing with the release of slaves by the Belgians, for which so much credit has been claimed, he says (_Cent. Mag._, Vol. 53):

"They are supposed to be taken out of slavery and freed, but I fail to
see how this can be argued out. They are taken from their villages and
shipped south, to be soldiers, workers, etc., on the State stations,
and what were peaceful families have been broken up, and the different
members spread about the place. They have to be made fast and guarded
for transportation, or they would all run away. This does not look as
though the freedom promised had any seductive prospects. The young
children thus 'liberated' are handed over to the French mission
stations, where they receive the kindest care, but nothing justifies
this form of serfdom. I can understand the State compelling natives to
do a certain amount of work for a certain time; but to take people
forcibly from their homes, and despatch them here and there, breaking
up families, is not right. I shall learn more about this on the way
and at Kabambare. If these conditions are to exist, I fail to see how
the anti-slavery movement is to benefit the native."

With regard to the use of barbarous soldiers he says:

"State soldiers are also employed without white officers. This should
not be allowed, for the black soldiers do not understand the reason of
the fighting, and instead of submission being sought, often the
natives are massacred or driven away into the hill.... But the black
soldiers are bent on fighting and raiding; they want no peaceful
settlement. They have good rifles and ammunition, realize their
superiority over the natives with their bows and arrows, and they want
to shoot and kill and rob. Black delights to kill black, whether the
victim be man, woman, or child, and no matter how defenceless. This is
no reasonable way of settling the land; it is merely persecution.
Blacks cannot be employed on such an errand unless under the
leadership of whites."

He met and describes one Lieutenant Hambursin, who seems to have been a capable officer:

"Yesterday the natives in a neighbouring village came to complain that
one of Hambursin's soldiers had killed a villager; they brought in the
offender's gun. To-day at roll-call the soldier appeared without his
gun; his guilt was proved, and without more to do, he was hanged on a
tree. Hambursin has hanged several for the crime of murder."

Had there been more Hambursins there might have been fewer scandals. Glave proceeds to comment on treatment of prisoners:

"In stations in charge of white men, Government officers, one sees
strings of poor emaciated old women, some of them mere skeletons,
working from six in the morning till noon, and from half-past two till
six, carrying clay water-jars, tramping about in gangs, with a rope
round the neck, and connected by a rope one and a half yards apart.
They are prisoners of war. In war the old women are always caught, but
should receive a little humanity. They are naked, except for a
miserable patch of cloth of several parts, held in place by a string
round the waist. They are not loosened from the rope for any purpose.
They live in the guard-house under the charge of black native
sentries, who delight in slapping and ill-using them, for pity is not
in the heart of the native. Some of the women have babies, but they go
to work just the same. They form, indeed, a miserable spectacle, and
one wonders that old women, although prisoners of war, should not
receive a little more consideration; at least, their nakedness might
be hidden. The men prisoners are treated in a far better way."

Describing the natives he says:

"The natives are not lazy, good-for-nothing fellows. Their fine powers
are obtained by hard work, sobriety and frugal living."

He gives a glimpse of what the chicotte is like, the favourite and universal instrument of torture used by the agents and officers of the Free State:

"The 'chicotte' of raw hippo hide, especially a new one, trimmed like
a corkscrew, with edges like knife-blades, and as hard as wood, is a
terrible weapon, and a few blows bring blood; not more than
twenty-five blows should be given unless the offence is very serious.
Though we persuaded ourselves that the African's skin is very tough it
needs an extraordinary constitution to withstand the terrible
punishment of one hundred blows; generally the victim is in a state of
insensibility after twenty-five or thirty blows. At the first blow he
yells abominably; then he quiets down, and is a mere groaning,
quivering body till the operation is over, when the culprit stumbles
away, often with gashes which will endure a lifetime. It is bad enough
the flogging of men, but far worse is this punishment when inflicted
on women and children. Small boys of ten or twelve, with excitable,
hot-tempered masters, often are most harshly treated. At Kasnogo there
is a great deal of cruelty displayed. I saw two boys very badly cut. I
conscientiously believe that a man who receives one hundred blows is
often nearly killed, and has his spirit broken for life."

He has a glimpse of the treatment of the subjects of other nations:

"Two days before my arrival (at Wabundu) two Sierra Leoneans were
hanged by Laschet. They were sentries on guard, and while they were
asleep allowed a native chief, who was a prisoner and in chains, to
escape. Next morning Laschet, in a fit of rage, hanged the two men.
They were British subjects, engaged by the Congo Free State as
soldiers. In time of war, I suppose, they could be executed, after
court-martial, by being shot; but to hang a subject of any other
country without trial seems to me outrageous."

Talking of the general unrest he says:

"It is the natural outcome of the harsh, cruel policy of the State in
wringing rubber from these people without paying for it. The
revolution will extend." He adds: "The post (Isangi) is close to the
large settlement of an important coast man, Kayamba, who now is
devoted to the interests of the State, catching slaves for them, and
stealing ivory from the natives of the interior. Does the
philanthropic King of the Belgians know about this? If not, he ought
to."

As he gets away from the zone of war, and into that which should represent peace, his comments become more bitter. The nascent rubber trade began to intrude its methods upon his notice:

"Formerly the natives were well treated, but now expeditions have been
sent in every direction, forcing natives to make rubber and to bring
it to the stations. Up the Ikelemba, we are taking down one hundred
slaves, mere children, all taken in unholy wars against the
natives.... It was not necessary in the olden times, when we white men
had no force at all. This forced commerce is depopulating the
country.... Left Equateur at eleven o'clock this morning, after taking
on a cargo of one hundred small slaves, principally boys, seven or
eight years old, with a few girls among the batch, all stolen from the
natives. The Commissary of the district is a violent-tempered fellow.
While arranging to take on the hundred small slaves a woman who had
charge of the youngsters was rather slow in understanding his order,
delivered in very poor Kabanji. He sprang at her, slapped her in the
face, and as she ran away, kicked her. They talk of philanthropy and
civilization! Where it is, I do not know."

And again:

"Most white officers out on the Congo are averse to the india-rubber
policy of the State, but the laws command it. Therefore, at each post
one finds the natives deserting their homes, and escaping to the
French side of the river when possible."

As he goes on his convictions grow stronger:

"Everywhere," he said, "I hear the same news of the doings of the
Congo Free State--rubber and murder, slavery in its worst form. It is
said that half the liberes sent down die on the road.... In Europe we
understand from the word liberes slaves saved from their cruel
masters. Not at all! Most of them result from wars made against the
natives because of ivory or rubber."

On all sides he sees evidence of the utter disregard of humanity:

"To-day I saw the dead body of a carrier lying on the trail. There
could have been no mistake about his being a sick man; he was nothing
but skin and bones. These posts ought to give some care to the
porters; the heartless disregard for life is abominable.... Native
life is considered of no value by the Belgians. No wonder the State is
hated."

Finally, a little before his death, he heard of that practice of mutilation which was one of the most marked fruits of the policy of "moral and material advantage of the native races" promised at the Berlin Conference:

"Mr. Harvey heard from Clarke, who is at Lake Mantumba, that the State
soldiers have been in the vicinity of his station recently fighting
and taking prisoners; and he himself had seen several men with bunches
of hands signifying their individual skill. These, I presume, they
must produce to prove their success! Among the hands were those of men
and women, and also those of little children. The missionaries are so
much at the mercy of the State that they do not report these barbaric
happenings to the people at home. I have previously heard of hands,
among them children's, being brought to the stations, but I was not so
satisfied of the truth of the former information as of the reports
received just now by Mr. Harvey from Clarke. Much of this sort of
thing is going on at the Equateur Station. The methods employed are
not necessary. Years ago, when I was on duty at the Equateur without
soldiers, I never had any difficulty in getting what men I needed, nor
did any other station in the old, humane days. The stations and the
boats then had no difficulty in finding men or labour, nor will the
Belgians, if they introduce more reasonable methods."

A sentence which is worth noting is that "The missionaries are so much at the mercy of the State that they do not report these barbaric happenings to the people at home." Far from the question being one, which, as the apologists for King Leopold have contended, has been fomented by the missionaries, it has actually been held back by them, and it is only the courage and truthfulness of a handful of Englishmen and Americans which have finally brought it to the front.

So much for Mr. Glave's testimony. He was an English traveller. Mr. Murphy, an American missionary, was working in another part of the country, the region where the Ubangi joins the Congo, during the same years. Let us see how far his account, written entirely independently (_Times_, November 18, 1895), agrees with the other:

"I have seen these things done," he said, "and have remonstrated with
the State in the years 1888, 1889, and 1894, but never got
satisfaction. I have been in the interior and have seen the ravages
made by the State in pursuit of this iniquitous trade. Let me give an
incident to show how this unrighteous trade affects the people. One
day a State corporal, who was in charge of the post of Solifa, was
going round the town collecting rubber. Meeting a poor woman, whose
husband was away fishing, he asked: 'Where is your husband?' She
answered by pointing to the river. He then asked: 'Where is his
rubber?' She answered: 'It is ready for you.' Whereupon he said 'You
lie,' and lifting up his gun, shot her dead. Shortly afterward the
husband returned and was told of the murder of his wife. He went
straight to the corporal, taking with him his rubber, and asked why he
had shot his wife. The wretched man then raised his gun and killed the
corporal. The soldiers ran away to the headquarters of the State, and
made representations of the case, with the result that the Commissary
sent a large force to support the authority of the soldiers; the town
was looted, burned, and many people were killed and wounded."

Again:

"In November last (1894) there was heavy fighting on the Bosira,
because the people refused to give rubber, and I was told upon the
authority of a State officer that no less than eighteen hundred people
were killed. Upon another occasion in the same month some soldiers ran
away from a State steamer, and, it was said, went to the town of
Bombumba. The officer sent a message telling the chief of the town to
give them up. He answered that he could not, as the fugitives had not
been in his town. The officer sent the messenger a second time with
the order: 'Come to me at once, or war in the morning.' The next
morning the old chief went to meet the Belgians, and was attacked
without provocation. He himself was wounded, his wife was killed
before his eyes, and her head cut off in order that they might possess
the brass necklet that she wore. Twenty-four of the chief's people
were also killed, and all for the paltry reason given above. Again the
people of Lake Mantumba ran away on account of the cruelty of the
State, and the latter sent some soldiers in charge of a coloured
corporal to treat with them and induce them to return. On the way the
troops met a canoe containing seven of the fugitives. Under some
paltry pretext they made the people land, shot them, cut off their
hands and took them to the Commissary. The Mantumba people complained
to the missionary at Irebu, and he went down to see if the story was
true. He ascertained the case to be just as they had narrated, and
found that one of the seven was a little girl, who was not quite dead.
The child recovered, and she lives to-day, the stump of the handless
arm witnessing against this horrible practice. These are only a few
things of many that have taken place in one district."

It was not merely for rubber that these horrors were done. Much of the country is unsuited to rubber, and in those parts there were other imposts which were collected with equal brutality. One village had to send food and was remiss one day in supplying it:

"The people were quietly sleeping in their beds when they heard a shot
fired, and ran out to see what was the matter. Finding the soldiers
had surrounded the town, their only thought was escape. As they raced
out of their homes, men, women and children, they were ruthlessly shot
down. Their town was utterly destroyed, and is a ruin to this day. The
only reason for this fight was that the people had failed to bring
Kwanga (food) to the State upon that one day."

Finally Mr. Murphy says: "The rubber question is accountable for most of the horrors perpetrated in the Congo. It has reduced the people to a state of utter despair. Each town in the district is forced to bring a certain quantity to the headquarters of the Commissary every Sunday. It is collected by force; the soldiers drive the people into the bush; if they will not go they are shot down, their left hands being cut off and taken as trophies to the Commissary. The soldiers do not care whom they shoot down, and they most often shoot poor, helpless women and harmless children. These hands--the hands of men, women and children--are placed in rows before the Commissary, who counts them to see the soldiers have not wasted the cartridges. The Commissary is paid a commission of about a penny per pound upon all the rubber he gets; it is, therefore, to his interest to get as much as he can."

Here is corroboration and amplification of all that Mr. Glaves had put forward. The system had not been long established, and was more efficient ten or twelve years later, but already it was bearing some notable first fruits of civilization. King Leopold's rule cannot be said to have left the country unchanged. There is ample evidence that mutilations of this sort were unknown among the native savages. Knowledge was spreading under European rule.

Having heard the testimony of an English traveller and of an American missionary, let us now hear that of a Swedish clergyman, Mr. Sjoblom, as detailed in _The Aborigines' Friend_, July, 1897. It covers much the same time as the other two, and is drawn from the Equateur district. Here is the system in full swing:

"They refuse to bring the rubber. Then war is declared. The soldiers
are sent in different directions. The people in the towns are
attacked, and when they are running away into the forest, and try to
hide themselves, and save their lives, they are found out by the
soldiers. Then their gardens of rice are destroyed, and their supplies
taken. Their plantains are cut down while they are young and not in
fruit, and often their huts are burned, and, of course, everything of
value is taken. Within my own knowledge forty-five villages were
altogether burned down. I say altogether, because there were many
others partly burned down. I passed through twenty-eight abandoned
villages. The natives had left their places to go further inland. In
order to separate themselves from the white men they go part of the
way down the river, or else they cross the river into French
territory. Sometimes, the natives are obliged to pay a large
indemnity. The chiefs often have to pay with brass wire and slaves,
and if the slaves do not make up the amount their wives are sold to
pay. I was told that by a Belgian officer. I will give you," Mr.
Sjoblom continues, "an instance of a man I saw shot right before my
eyes. In one of my inland journeys, when I had gone a little farther,
perhaps, than the Commissary expected me to go, I saw something that
perhaps he would not have liked me to see. It was at a town called
Ibera, one of the cannibal towns to which no white man had ever been
before. I reached it at sunset, after the natives had returned from
the various places in which they had been looking for india-rubber.
They gathered together in a great crowd, being curious to see a white
man. Besides, they had heard I had some good news to tell them, which
came through the Gospel. When that large crowd gathered, and I was
just ready to preach, the sentinels rushed in among them to seize an
old man. They dragged him aside a little from the crowd, and the
sentinel in charge came to me and said, 'I want to shoot this man,
because he has been in the river fishing to-day. He has not been on
the river for india-rubber.' I told him: 'I have not authority to stop
you, because I have nothing to do with these palavers, but the people
are here to hear what I have to say to them, and I don't want you to
do it before my eyes.' He said: 'All right, I will keep him in bonds,
then, until to-morrow morning when you have gone. Then I will kill
him.' But a few minutes afterward the sentinel came in a rage to the
man and shot him right before my eyes. Then he charged his rifle again
and pointed it at the others, who all rushed away like chaff before
the wind. He told a little boy, eight or nine years of age, to go and
cut off the right hand of the man who had been shot. The man was not
quite dead, and when he felt the knife he tried to drag his hand away.
The boy, after some labour, cut the hand off and laid it by a fallen
tree. A little later this hand was put on a fire to smoke before being
sent to the Commissary."

Here we get the system at its highest. I think that picture of the child hacking off the hand of the dying man at the order of the monster who would have assuredly murdered him also had he hesitated to obey, is as diabolical a one as even the Congo could show. A pretty commentary upon the doctrine of Christ which the missionary was there to preach!

Mr. Sjoblom seems to have been unable to believe at first that such deeds were done with the knowledge and approval of the whites. He ventured to appeal to the Commissary. "He turned in anger on me," he adds, "and in the presence of the soldiers said that he would expel me from the town if I meddled with matters of that kind any more."

It would, indeed, have been rather absurd for the Commissary to interfere when the severed hand had actually been cut off in order to be presented to him. The whole procedure is explained in the following paragraph:

"If the rubber does not reach the full amount required, the sentinels
attack the natives. They kill some and bring the hands to the
Commissary. Others are brought to the Commissary as prisoners. At the
beginning they came with their smoked hands. The sentinels, or else
the boys in attendance on them, put these hands on a little kiln, and
after they had been smoked, they by and by put them on the top of the
rubber baskets. I have on many occasions seen this done."

Then we read in the latest State papers of the Belgian diplomatists that they propose to continue the beneficent and civilizing work which they have inherited.

Yet another paragraph from Mr. Sjoblom showing the complicity of the Belgian authorities, and showing also that the presence of the missionaries was some deterrent against open brutality. If, then, they saw as much as they did, what must have been the condition of those huge tracts of country where no missions existed?

"At the end of 1895, the Commissary--all the people were gathering the
rubber--said he had often told the sentinels not to kill the people.
But on the 14th of December a sentinel passed our mission station and
a woman accompanied him, carrying a basket of hands. Mr. and Mrs.
Banks, besides myself, went down the road, and they told the sentinel
to put the hands on the road that they might count them. We counted
eighteen right hands smoked and from the size of the hands we could
judge that they belonged to men, women and children. We could not
understand why these hands had been collected, as the Commissary had
given orders that no more natives were to be killed for their hands.
On my last journey I discovered the secret. One Monday night, a
sentinel who had just returned from the Commissary, said to me: 'What
are the sentinels to do? When all the people are gathered together,
the Commissary openly tells us not to kill any more people, but when
the people have gone he tells us privately that if they do not bring
plenty of india-rubber we must kill some, but not bring the hands to
him.' Some sentinels, he told me, had been put in chains because they
killed some natives who happened to be near a mission station; but it
was only because he thought it might become known that the Commissary,
to justify himself, had put the men in chains. I said to the sentinel:
'You should obey the first command, never to kill any more.' 'The
people,' he answered, 'unless they are frightened, do not bring in the
rubber, and then the Commissary flogs us with the hippopotamus hide,
or else he puts us in chains, or sends us to Boma.' The sentinel
added that the Commissary induced him to hide cruelty while letting it
go on, and to do this in such a way that he might be justified, in
case it should become known and an investigation should be made. In
such a case the Commissary could say, 'Why, I told him openly not to
kill any more' and he might put the blame on the soldier to justify
himself, though the blame and the punishment in all its force ought to
have been put on himself, after he had done such a terrible act in
order to disguise or mislead justice. If the sentinels were puzzled
about this message, what would the natives be?"

I have said that there was more to be said for the cannibal murderers than for those who worked the system. The capitas pleaded the same excuse. "Don't take this to heart so much," said one of them to the missionary. "They kill us if we do not bring rubber. The Commissary has promised us if we bring plenty of hands he will shorten our service. I have brought plenty already, and I expect my time will soon be finished."

That the Commissaries are steeped to the lips in this horrible business has been amply shown in these paragraphs. But Mr. Sjoblom was able to go one stage further along the line which leads to the Palace at Brussels. M. Wahis, the Governor-General, a man who has played a sinister part in the country, came up the river and endeavoured to get the outspoken Swede to contradict himself, or, failing that, to intimidate him. To get at the truth or to right the wrong seems to have been the last thing in his mind, for he knew well that the wrong was essential to the system, and that without it the wheels would move more slowly and the head engineer in Europe would soon wish to know what was amiss with his rubber-producing machine. "You may have seen all these things that you have stated," said he, "but nothing is proved." The Commissary meanwhile had been holding a rifle to the head of witnesses so as to make sure that nothing would be proved. In spite of this Mr. Sjoblom managed to collect his evidence, and going to the Governor, asked him when he could listen to it. "I don't want to hear any witnesses," said he, and then: "If you continue to demand investigation in these matters we will make a charge against you.... That means five years' imprisonment."

Such is Mr Sjoblom's narrative involving Governor Wahis in the general infamy. "It is not true," cries the Congolese apologist. Strange how Swedes, Americans, and British, laymen and clergy, all unite in defaming this innocent State! No doubt the wicked children lop off their own hands in order to cast a slur upon "the benevolent and philanthropic enterprise of the Congo." Tartuffe and Jack the Ripper--was ever such a combination in the history of the world!

One more anecdote of Mr. Wahis, for it is not often that we can get a Governor of the Congo in person face to face with the results of his own work. As he passed down the river, Mr. Sjoblom was able to report another outrage to him:

"Mr. Banks told the Governor that he had seen it himself, whereupon M.
Wahis summoned the commandant in charge--the officer who had ordered
the raid had already gone elsewhere--and asked him in French if the
story were true. The Belgian officer assured M. Wahis that it was, but
the latter, thinking Mr. Banks did not understand French, said: 'After
all, you may have seen this; but you have no witnesses.' 'Oh,' said
Mr. Banks, 'I can call the commandant, who has just told you that it
is true.' M. Wahis then tried to minimize the matter, when, to his
great surprise, Mr. Banks added: 'In any case I have, at his own
request, furnished to the British Consul, who passed through here
lately, a signed statement concerning it.' M. Wahis rose from his
chair, saying: 'Oh, then, it is all over Europe!' Then for the first
time he said that the responsible Commissary must be punished."

It need not be added that the punishment was the merest farce.

These successive reports, each amplifying the other, coming on the top of the killing of Mr. Stokes, and the action of the British Colonial Office in prohibiting recruiting for Congoland, had the effect of calling strong attention to the condition of that country. The charges were met partly by denial, partly by general phrases about morality, and partly by bogus reform. M. van Eetvelde, in Brussels, and M. Jules Houdret, in London, denied things which have since been proved up to the hilt. The reform took the shape of a so-called Natives' Protection Commission. Like all these so-called reforms, it was utterly ineffectual, and was only meant for European consumption. No one knew so well as the men at Brussels that no possible reform could have any effect whatever unless the system was itself abolished, for that system produced outrages as logically and certainly as frost produces ice. The sequel will show the results of the Natives' Protection Commission.