Congo Free State

"The Imperial Government will be glad to have such an opportunity of showing its sentiments of sympathy for the Congo Free State, which, under the wise direction of its August Sovereign, has given such striking proofs of vitality. The German Government will willingly lend its help to placing the Congo Free State in a position to dispose of the means which may seem necessary to assist its development and to enable it to continue its valuable services to the cause of civilization and humanity."

"The King will find in the homage now rendered him the highest reward of his toil and sacrifices, which will at once be a great encouragement and a source of legitimate pride."

"The change which has occurred in the political condition of the African Coast, to-day calls for common action on the part of the Powers responsible for the control of that Coast. That action should tend to close all foreign slave-markets and should also result in putting down slave hunting in the interior. The great work undertaken by the King of the Belgians, in the constitution of the Congo State, and the lively interest taken by His Majesty in all questions affecting the welfare of the African races, lead Her Majesty's Government to hope that Belgium will be disposed to take the initiative in inviting the Powers to meet in Conference at Brussels, in order to consider the best means of attaining the gradual suppression of the slave-trade on the Continent of Africa and the immediate closing of all the outside markets which the slave-trade daily continues to supply."

"To the king's great satisfaction, Brussels was chosen as the location, for eight months of intermittent meetings starting in November 1889, for an Anti-Slavery Conference of the major powers. The king happily entertained the delegates, in whose meeting room at the Belgian Foreign Ministry aforked slave-yoke was on display."

"What does the greatness of a monarch consist in? I fit is the extent of his territory, then the Emperor of Russia is the greatest of all. I fit is the splendour and power of military organization, then William II [of Germany] takes first place. But if royal greatness consists in the wisdom and goodness of a sovereign leading his people with the solicitude of a shepherd watching over his flock, then the greatest sovereign is your own."

"Last came the famous Hamed bin Mohammed, alias Tippu Tib, or, as it is variously pronounced by the natives, Tipo Tib, or Tibbu Tib. He was a tall, black-bearded man, of negro complexion, in the prime of life, straight and quick in his movements, a picture of energy and strength. He had a fine, intelligent face, with a nervous twitching of the eyes, and gleaming white and perfectly formed teeth. lie was attended by a large retinue of young Arabs, who looked up to him as chief, and a score of Wangwana and Wanyamwezi followers, whom he had led over thousands of miles through Africa. With the air of a well bred Arab, and almost courtier-like in his manner, ho welcomed me to Mwana Mamba*s village, and his slaves being ready at hand with mat and bolster, we reclined vis-a-vis, while a buzz of admiration of his style was perceptible from the on-lookers. After regarding him for a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that this Arab was a remarkable man — the most remarkable man I had met among Arabs, Wa-Swahili, and half-castes in Africa. He was neat in his person; his clothes were of spotless white; his fez cap brand new; his waist was incircled by a rich dowle; his dagger was splendid with silver filagree work; and his tout ensemhle was that of an Arab gentleman in very comfortable circumstances."

"The natives are quick to detect a peculiarity in a man, and to give him a name accordingly. The conquerors of a country try to forestall them by selecting one for themselves. Susi states that when Tipo Tipo stood over the spoil taken from Nsama, he gathered it closer together, and said: "Now I am Tipo Tipo,'that is,'the gatherer together of wealth.'""

"You don't have to worry in the least, because in Belgium you will be able to enjoy all the benefits with which I will shower you, choose your replacement carefully, and appoint him only with my approval, until then then you will remain on your post my faithful cloak. May God guide and support you in the missions I entrust to you for the sake of my subjects, I wish that all your duties have already been carried out, so that when you come to Belgium so i can prove to you that I am a true friend my faithful cloak, I pray to God that he may protect you, Leopold."

"A sentry on the Congo is a dare-devil aboriginal chosen from troops impressed outside the district in which he serves, for his loyalty and force of character. Armed with a rifle and pouch of cartridges he is located in a native village to see that the labour for which its inhabitants are responsible is duly attended to. If they are india rubber collectors, his duty is to send the men into the forest and take note of those who do not return with the proper quantity. When food is the tax demanded, his business is to make sure that the women prepare and deliver it; and in every other matter connected with the Government he is the factotum, as far as that village is concerned, of the officer of the district, his power being limited only by the amount of zeal the latter may show in checking oppression."

"Mr. Sheppard saw along the way several burnt vilages, also some wounded persons. He reached the well-arranged stockade, and was received in a friendly way by Mlumba Nkusa and his 500 or more followers. Inside the stockade Mr. Sheppard saw and counted eighty-one human hands slowly drying over a fire."

"Now I am Tipo Tipo,'that is,'the gatherer together of wealth."

"During the last days of July, 1899 (or about that time), news reached us at Luebo that a large band of Zappo-Zapps, under a famous warrior chief named Mlumba Nkusa, was proceeding into the Bena Pianga country, not far from one of our Mission stations, in order to collect tribute and get stores for the State. Upon hearing this news I wrote at once to our missionary at Ibanj, the Rev. W. H. Sheppard, F.R.G.S., warning him to be on the look-out for trouble. He had not long to wait, for soon the news began to come in from the region only one day from the station that the Zappo-Zapps had established themselves in a strong stockade near a village named Chinyama, from which they were almost daily sallying forth to catch slaves, demand tribute from villagers, and kill all who dared oppose them. This condition of affairs went on uninterrupted by the officer at Luluaburg, though only four—or at the most five—days distant. The greatest terror prevailed throughout the whole region, extending even as far as Luebo and beyond. Many thousands of people had deserted their villages and fled to the forests for safety."

"In the months of August and September of the year 1899 occurred, about three days from Luebo, one of the most shameful affairs that has come within my knowledge. By way of explanation it is necessary to say that at the State post of Luluaburg, which is about five days march from Luebo, is located a large village of people called Zappo-Zapps. They are cannibals, and were brought from far to the east, and settled there by a State officer named Paul Le Marinel about the year 1890. Ever since their coming to Luluaburg they have been a terror to the whole surrounding district. In fact, having guns and being known to be cannibals and very brave warriors, they have all these years been the great slave-dealers and slave-raiders of the district."

"At last word came to Mr. Sheppard that the Zappo-Zapps had treacherously invited a large number of the prominent chiefs of the region to come inside the stockade, and that there they had been shot down without 1294quarter. The mission than asked Mr. Sheppard, who was also a friend of many of the Zappo-Zapps, to go and carefully investigate the whole affair, taking with him some reliable native men, who could, if necessary, corroborate the statements he made."

"Have you not subdued the whole district, and could you not have taken a few hundred strong men as slaves to have carried all your superfluous stock and the small ivory, and put your one hundred guns in charge?"

"July 29, 1869. — Went two and a half hours west to village of Ponda, where a head Arab, called by the natives 'Tipo Tipo' lives; bis name is Hamid bin Mohammed bin Juma Borajib. He presented a goat, a piece of white calico, and four big bunches of beads, also a bag of holens sorghum, and apologized because it was so little."

"The rubber quotas imposed on natives in this 15 percent of the territory were enforced by native soldiers working for the companies or for the EIC itself. In many areas, the rubber came with ease and the natives prospered. The rubber station at Irengi, for instance, was known for its bulging stores and hospitable locals, whose women spent a lot of time making bracelets and where “no one ever misses a meal,” noted the EIC soldier George Bricusse in his memoirs. Elsewhere, however, absent direct supervision, and with the difficulties of meeting quotas greater, some native soldiers engaged in abusive behavior to force the collection. Bricusse noted these areas as well, especially where locals had sabotaged rubber stations and then fled to the French Congo to the north. In rare cases, native soldiers kidnapped women or killed men to exact revenge. When they fell into skirmishes, they sometimes followed long-standing Arab and African traditions by cutting off the hands or feet of the fallen as trophies, or to show that the bullets they fired had been used in battle. How many locals died in these frays is unclear, but the confirmed cases might put the figure at about 10,000, a terrible number."

"By 1891, six years into the attempt to build the EIC, the whole project was on the verge of bankruptcy. It would have been easy for Léopold to raise revenues by sanctioning imports of liquor that could be taxed or by levying fees on the number of huts in each village, both of which would have caused harm to the native population. A truly “greedy” king, as Hochschild repeatedly calls him, had many fiscal options that Léopold did not exercise."

"The abuses were first reported by an American missionary in The Times of London in 1895 and quickly brought Léopold’s censure: “If there are these abuses in the Congo, we must stop them,” he warned EIC officials in 1896. “If they continue, it will be the end of the state.” For the next ten years, reforming the Congo’s rubber industry absorbed an inordinate amount of attention in the British and American press and legislatures, not to mention within Belgium and the EIC itself, leading to formal Belgian colonization in 1908. Hochschild thus takes a very limited, unintentional, unforeseen, and perhaps unavoidable problem of native-on-native conflict over rubber harvesting and blows it up into a “forgotten Holocaust” to quote the subtitle given to the French edition of his book. Inside this great invention are many more perfidious Russian dolls."

"This heroism was also that of the first missionaries. They had a life expectancy of about 5 years in Congo, and some were given extremely anointing at the time of their journey to Africa. There were many young idealists. Their graves are still lined up in the Mpala locality, which overlooks Lake Tanganyika. The Catholic mission was a fort where people who fled slavers and brutality took refuge."

"Congo is the oldest independent country in Africa, after Ethiopia (800 BC) and Liberia (1847). The only country that was not colonized in Berlin!"

"Congo reformers like Morel, much to the annoyance of Hochschild, advocated either German or British colonization of the area (Congo). Morel’s view, according to Hochschild, speaking ex cathedra from the hallowed seat of modern California, “seems surprising to us today” and was among his “faults” and “political limitations.” Quite the opposite. The moment the Belgians colonized the Congo in 1908, a miraculous improvement was noted on all fronts. Seeking to debunk colonialism, Hochschild’s book demonstrates the opposite. This is the first and biggest lie at the heart of King Leopold’s Ghost."

"Even taking Sanderson’s pessimistic estimate as correct, does this mean that Léopold’s rule “killed” 500,000 people? Of course not, because, in addition to the misplaced personalization of long-term population changes, the rubber regions, as mentioned, experienced both population increases and declines. Even in the latter, such as the rubber-producing Bolobo area in the lower reaches of the Congo river, population decline was a result of the brutalities of freelance native chiefs and ended with the arrival of an EIC officer. More generally, the stability and enforced peace of the EIC caused birth rates to rise near EIC centers, such as at the Catholic mission under EIC protection at Baudouinville (today’s Kirungu). Population declines were in areas outside of effective EIC control. The modest population gains caused by EIC interventions were overwhelmed by a range of wholly separate factors, which in order of importance were: the slave trade, sleeping sickness, inter-tribal warfare, other endemic diseases (smallpox, beriberi, influenza, yellow fever, pneumonia, dysentery, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and venereal disease), cannibalism, and human sacrifice."

"The mission which the agents of the State in Congo must fulfill is noble and of high purpose. Their task is to develop the work of civilization. They must gradually contain the primitive wildness, the bloodthirsty habits of thousands of years. They must subject the population to new laws. among which the most urgent and the most beneficial is undoubtedly that of labour."

"It would be difficult to imagine a more centralized organization than that which has been achieved in the central government of the Independent State of Congo. The Secretary of State is its absolute head, although he himself remains in the most absolute dependence of the Sovereign."

"Ever since Stanley and the first pioneers entered the Congo Basin, the Flemish and Walloons have used their best efforts to give the country a modern economic structure and a higher civilization for the people. Mistakes have been made in this respect, but the closing balance is very positive. Despite the taunts in the UN guardianship council and sometimes even in Belgium, it is an achievement that all of black Africa looks up to with awe."

"In ten years or so, when rubber starts to decline, it will be agriculture that will have to ensure our public income and our trade."

"By the end of 1892, all the King's collaborators during the first and second phases of Belgian work in the Congo had therefore ceased to participate. M. van Eetvelde, who had increasingly isolated himself from them, remained alone in possession of the sovereign's confidence, with the sole program of being the passive instrument of his designs. This third phase of the administration of the state of Congo affected all signs of impending dissolution."

"By blowing up the isolated facts, the British sought to cover up their territorial greed under the guise of philanthropy."

"Leopold II was able to push through his imperial wish and obtained that the fate of what would then be called the Congo Free State was linked to his own. He gave Congo its shape and dimensions, as well as a financial-capitalist structure. However, the debt burden that had become too heavy meant that the king handed over his colony to Belgium, a gift that the parliament was hesitant about but did not dare to refuse."

"This much i can speak of with certainty and emphasis : that from the British frontier hear Fort George to the limit of my journeys into the Mbuba country of the Congo Free State, up and down the Semliki, the natives appear to be prosperous and happy... The extent to which they were building their villages and cultivating their plantations within the precincts of Fort Mbeni showed that they had no fear of the Belgians."

"The prevailing opinion at court was that the founding of a colony was beyond the strength of the Sovereign of a small state and that he would swallow up his private fortune, unable to create anything lasting. The King sought for the execution of his designs collaborators possessed of the faith which he himself had and which lifts mountains."

"The state of Congo is no colonized state, barely a state at all but a financial enterprise."

"In many ways a model colony was realized after 1908. A handful of whites turned the wheels in Congo and laid the foundations of the modern state structure. Remarkable achievements were made in the field of education, the traffic network, health care and development in general. This was made possible by the cooperation between the three pillars on which the entire colonial system rested, in particular the interaction between the firm civil administration, the extensive mission network and the powerful colonial private sector. However, there were also dark sides, but no looting was committed. Unfortunately, the former colonials do not receive the appreciation and prestige to which they are entitled. Belgium need not be ashamed of its colonial period, certainly not in view of the failed decolonization."

"As long as Europe is not strong enough to follow up the results already obtained by her voyages of discovery, the explorer can never be satisfied with his work; it will have injured rather than benefited the native races. People hesitate before resorting to extreme measures, but they lose sight of the fact that, if their efforts were concentrated on a single object, more would be done in a day for the real welfare of Africa than has been accomplished in past decades, nay even in past-centuries."

"The first step towards the regeneration of the black man is the destruction of the destroyer of the African race, of the adventurer whose power daily increases, in a word, of the Arab."

"As to the question whether this modification is opportune, the fact must not be lost sight of that the Berlin Conference never intended to fix unalterably the economic system of the Free State, which, as was already then foreseen, would undergo radical modifications under the influence of progress, nor of establishing for an indefinite period regulations which may hinder, check, and even arrest its development. Provision was wisely made for the probability of future changes, which would require a certain latitude in economic matters in order to secure their easy realization... The moment has now come when the marvellous progress made by the infant State is creating fresh needs, when it would be only in accordance with wisdom and foresight to revise an economic system primarily adapted to a creative and transitional period. Can we blame the infant State for a progress which, in its rapidity, has surpassed the most optimistic forecasts? Can we hinder and arrest this progress in refusing her the means necessary for her development? Can we condemn the Sovereign who has already made such great sacrifices to support for an indefinite period a burden which daily becomes heavier, and at the same time impose upon him new and heavy expenses necessitated by the suppression of the slave-trade? We are convinced that there will be but one answer to these questions."

"Using the word genocide in Congo is absolutely unacceptable, nor appropriate! Colonization was not a silly undertaking. And yes, it was perhaps rather dominate, discovery and even acquire pure power. But at a certain point civilization did come."

"Several of the little girls were so sickly on their arrival that our good sisters wouldn't save them, but all had the happiness of receiving holy baptism, they are now little angels in heaven who are praying for our great king."

"When up in those lonely Congo forests where I found Leopold I also found myself – the incorrigible Irishman."

"I accuse Leopold's officials of tyranny, i accuse Leopold's government of excessive cruelty, ox chains eaten to the necks of prisoners and produce sores about which flies circle, the courts are aborted unjust and delinquent, not one state official knows the language of the natives, your majesties' government is engaged in slave trade, wholesale and retail."

"I did not fail to refer to the "abuses and other undeniable deficiencies that this report rightly stigmatizes. Leopold II, of course, also carefully read this report. He reacted to it very quickly, with an honesty, insight and efficiency worthy of this visionary King. Despite the damning conclusions, he did not hesitate to have it published - in extenso - in the Official Journal of the EIC (Independent State of Congo). He had the perpetrators of the abuses prosecuted and, above all, taken a series of radical measures to put an end to them, by issuing no less than 24 Decrees to this effect."

"Leopold's Congo state is guilty of crimes against humanity."

"Botofé bo le iwa! Rubber is death!"

"The change which has occurred in the political condition of the African Coast, today calls for common action on the part of the Powers responsible for the control of that Coast. That action should tend to close all foreign slave markets and should also result in putting down slave hunting in the interior. The great work undertaken by the King of the Belgians, in the constitution of the Congo State, and the lively interest taken by His Majesty in all questions affecting the welfare of the African races, lead Her Majesty's Government to hope that Belgium will be disposed to take the initiative in inviting the Powers to meet in Conference at Brussels, in order to consider the best means of attaining the gradual suppression of the slave-trade on the Continent of Africa and the immediate closing of all the outside markets which the slave-trade daily continues to supply."

"But it would not be reckless to say that from the start the King dreamed of founding a Belgian colony. Many times I have heard him say, when the Independent State emerged from its swaddling clothes like a newborn baby trying to walk: "I work there for Belgium"."

"There have been cases in which the natives have been maltreated by minor officials, but these are isolated cases, and are severely punished by the authorities. Such cases have occurred in all public services where an attempt has been made to govern inferior races. Such things have happened in the Philippines, in British Africa, and in India. No colonising nation can cast a stone at King Leopold on that score. Among a large number of officials scattered over a vast territory there will often be one or two wicked stewards who despitefully use the natives. All that any State can do is to keep vigilant watch and to punish the wrongdoers, and this the Congo State has done. It has even established a Commission for the protection of the natives. By the decree of 1896, this Commission consisted of seven members, three being Catholic priests and four Protestant missionaries."

"The Congo was a sovereign State before the Berlin Conference was thought of. The first official acknowledgment of the new State came from the United States in the spring of 1884. It was afterwards formally recognised by other nations, and it entered the Berlin Conference on equality with the other Powers. It has never placed itself under the guardianship of any Power or collection of Powers. It has no connection with Belgium except that King Leopold II happens to be king of each of them."

"The committee is to travel throughout the country into all the districts covered by Mr Casement in his recent tour of inspection, besides visiting many places Mr Casement never saw. In brief, the committee is to hold inquiry wherever evidence can be obtained. Where native witnesses give evidence of a nature prejudicial to white men, the committee will see that such witnesses are protected from the possibility of suffering at the hands of officials against whom they may bear witness. The Government of the Congo holds itself responsible for the safety and well-being of such witnesses. On the latter point King Leopold has expressed himself in the strongest possible terms."

"To my beginnings in colonial life, almost forty years ago, I found my first major lesson in studying the work of King Leopold II in the Congo: model of creation, practical organization and director, broad and liberal initiative, understanding the material, moral and social needs of natives, from whom all colonial works should be inspired and which, for so many years and over so many points, served as a guide."