"Perhaps a greater defence than their spears and blow-pipes even had been more ruthlessly destroyed. Their old people, both women and men, respected for character and ability to wisely advise, had been marked from the first as dangerous, and in the early stages of the occupation were done to death. Their crime had been the giving of 'bad advice.' To warn the more credulous or less experienced against the white enslaver and to exhort the Indian to flee or to resist rather than consent to work rubber for the new-comers had brought about their doom. I met no old Indian man or woman, and few had got beyond middle age. The Barbados men assured me that when they first came to the region in the beginning of 1905 old people were still to be found, vigorous and highly respected, but these had all disappeared, so far as I could gather, before my coming."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
LGBT peopleDiplomats of the United KingdomPoets from IrelandIrish nationalistsCatholics from Ireland
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Page 178 of Sir Roger Casement's Heart of Darkness: The 1911 Documents
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Casement
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist. He worked for the British Foreign Office as a diplomat, becoming known as a humanitarian activist, and later as a poet and Easter Rising leader. Described as the "father of twentieth-ce
32 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Roger Casement →
Related Quotes
"In 1887 i spend several months on the upper Congo, and i traveled over some of the grounds i now revisit in the absen…"
"Of the persistent mutilation by government soldiers, there can be no shadow of a doubt, should the system maintain fo…"
"Infamous, infamous shameful system."
"When up in those lonely Congo forests where I found Leopold I also found myself – the incorrigible Irishman."
"Tackling Leopold in Africa has set in motion a big movement – it must be a movement of human liberation all the world…"
"Generally, a leading man fitted out an expedition with a few companions, partners in effort and initial expenditure, …"
"Caoutchouc was first called 'india rubber,' because it came from the Indies, and the earliest European use of it was …"
"That every word of Nordenskiöld's letter to the Anti-Slavery Society is true I am quite convinced. The entire Indian …"
"And the charming Lizardo Arana tells me in Iquitos I shall find "such splendid Indians" here, and he feels sure the r…"
"On Sunday evening, natives brought me a mutilated lad, who's right hand had been hacked of quite recently, the cold t…"