History of the Kongo One Colossal Horror
History of the Kongo One Colossal Horror is an article written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in Los Angeles Record on 30 october 1909.
This article is the third part of a slightly modified abstract of a part of Arthur Conan Doyle's essay : The Crime of the Congo (1909).
History of the Kongo One Colossal Horror
"The sign of the white man" — photograph by Mrs. Harris, a missionary, shows Kongo woman named Braji, whose foot was struck off because she didn't bring in enough rubber.
(In this third installment of Sir A. Conan Doyle a horrifying book, The Crime of the Kongo, Dr. Doyle continues the tale of horrors he began in the second installment. These articles, containing important extracts from the book are published exclusively in The Record by special permission. — Editor.)
The array of evidence of cruelty against King Leopold of Belgium forms a gallery of horrors.
Added to the testimony already given is that of the Rev. Jos. Clark, an American missionary in the Crown Domain, which is King Leopold's own private preserve. In the town of Irebo, in this territory, where there were 2000 persons in 1893, there were only 600 survivors in 1903.
"If you do not come soon and stop the present trouble," Clark wrote to Commissary Fievez in 1894, "the town will be empty. It seems so hard to see the dead bodies in the creek and on the beach and to know why they are killed.
"The soldiers are themselves savages, some even cannibals, trained to use rifles and in many cases they are sent away without supervision, and they do as they please. When they come to any town no man's property or wife is safe.
"IMAGINE THEM RETURNING FROM FIGHTING SOME 'REBELS;' SEE, ON THE BOW OF THE CANOE IS A POLE AND A BUNDLE OF SOMETHING ON IT —THESE ARE THE HANDS OF 16 WARRIORS THEY HAVE SLAIN. 'WARRIORS!' DON'T YOU SEE AMONG THEM THE HANDS OF LITTLE CHILDREN AND GIRLS (YOUNG BOYS OR GIRLS)? I HAVE SEEN THEM. I HAVE SEEN WHERE THE TROPHY HAS BLEN CUT OFF EVEN WHILE YET THE POOR HEART BEATS STRONGLY ENOUGH то SHOOT THE BLOOD FROM THE CUT ARTERIES TO A DISTANCE OF FULLY FOUR FEET."
Compare this with extracts from King Leopold's official bulletin, referring to the same tract of country:
"The exploitation of the rubber vines in that district was undertaken barely three years ago by M. Fievez. The results he obtained have been unequaled. The district produced in 1895 more than 650 tons Or rubber bought for 2½d and sold at Antwerp for 5s 5d per kilo.
"With this development of general order is combined an inevitable amelioration in the native's condition of existence wherever he comes into contact with the European element. Such is, in fact, one of the ends of the general policy of the state to promote the regeneration of the race by instilling into him a higher idea of the necessity of labor."
Truly I know nothing in history to match such documents as these — pirates and bandits have never descended to that last odious abyss of hypocrisy. It stands alone, colossal in its horror, colossal, too, in its effrontery.
To show the conditions in 1903 let me give the statement of the Rev. Scrivener, an English missionary, who made an investigation among the villages in the special district owned by King Leopold.
He saw the rubber brought in by the natives.
"As I saw it brought in each man had a little basket containing, say, four or five pounds of rubber. This was emptied into a larger basket and weighed, and, being found sufficient, each man was given a cupful of coarse salt and to some of the head men a fathom of calico. The former white man would stand at the door of the store to receive the poor trembling wretches, who after, in some cases, weeks of privation in the forest, had ventured to come in with what they had been able to collect. A man bringing rather under the proper amount, the white man flies into a rage, and, seizing a rifle from one. of the guards, shoots him dead on the spot. Very rarely did rubber come in but one or more were shot in that way at the door of the store."
Consul General Roger Casement, who made an investigation in the Kongo in 1904, said that men came to him whose hands had been cut off by soldiers.
"The agent on the Bussira, with 150 guns, got only 10 tons of rubber a month," said a witness who talked to Casement. "We, with 130 guns, got 13 tons a month."
"So, you count by guns?' I asked him.
"'Surely,' he said, 'Each time the corporal goes out to get rubber, cartridges are given him. He must bring back all not used. And for every one used he must bring back a hand.' The witness told me that sometimes they shot a cartridge at an animal in hunting; they then cut off a hand from a living man. He told me that they had used 6000 cartridges in six months, which means that 6000 people were killed or mutilated."
Tomorrow, in the concluding installment of Dr. Doyle's book, he will tell of the hopelessness of reform in the Kongo by Belgium.
