Sir Conan Doyle Traces Kongo Guilt Up To King
Sir Conan Doyle Traces Kongo Guilt Up To King is an article written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in Los Angeles Record on 28 october 1909.
This article is the first part of a slightly modified abstract of a part of Arthur Conan Doyle's essay : The Crime of the Congo (1909).
Sir Conan Doyle Traces Kongo Guilt Up To King
King Leopold, whom Sir Conan Doyle charges with first responsability for the outrages, and actual photograph of Kongo boy whose right hand was struck off because he didn't bring in rubber.
| DOYLE'S TRUE BUT AWFUL STORY SECURED BY THE RECORD
We have all heard more or less of the white man's misrule and barbarity in dealing with the natives in the Kongo Free State. But today there was given to the world a volume that will make civilization shiver. It is by Sir A. Conan Doyle, the famous English author, creator of Sherlock Holmes, who having made an exhaustive investigation of the entire Kongo situation, has embodied all the terrible, tragic story in "The Crime of the Kongo." The book, which was placed before the public of England and America today, is published in this country by Doubleday, Page & Co., and special permission has been given the Record to print important extracts from it. The following article is the first installment. The work is the most thrilling and revolting story that has ever been written of the Kongo horror, and Sir Conan Doyle's hope is that it may stir the nations to take action against the Belgian rule in Africa. — Editor. |
Famous Writer, After an Investigation of Belgium's Acts in Africa, Declares That the Responsibility for the Nightmare of Devilish, Barbaric Cruelty Rests On the Head of King Leopold
M. Renkin, the Belgian colonial minister, has, within the past few months, been inspecting conditions in the Belgian Kongo Free State.
Before leaving Belgium he said that nothing would be changed in the Kongo. Last year the Kongo Free States was annexed to Belgium and exchanged its blue flag, with a golden star, to the tri color of Belgium. M. Renkin seemed to think that change would end the reign of terror in the Kongo.
M. Renkin will be back no doubt with the usual talk of minor reforms which will take another year to produce, and will be utterly futile when reduced to practice. But the world has seen this game too often. Surely it will not be made a fool of again. There is some limit to European patience.
HORRIBLE TRAGEDY
Belgium has enacted one long, horrible tragedy, vouched for by priests and missionaries, traders, travelers and consuls, all corroborated, but in no way reformed, by a Belgium commission. The nations have seen these unhappy people, who were their wards, robbed of all they possessed, debauched, degraded, mutilated, tortured, murdered, all on such a scale as has never to my knowledge, occurred before in the whole course of history, and now, after all these years, with all the facts notorious, we are still at the stage of polite diplomatic expostulations.
Trace back the chain from the red-handed savage (known as the capita, or head of the natives) through the bibulous, worried agent, the pompous commissary, the dignified governor general, the smooth diplomatist, and you come finaly, without a break, and without a possibility of mitigation or excuse, up to the cold, scheming brain which framed and drove the whole machine. It is upon the king, always upon the king, that the guilt must lie. There is no possible subterfuge by which the moral guilt can be deflected from the head of the state, the man who went to Africa for the freedom of congress and the regeneration of the native.
America was the first nation to recognize the Kongo Free State, in 1884, after Henry M. Stanley, for the king of Belgium, had secured trade treaties with chiefs along the Kongo.
FOOLED ALL
With these treaties the king of Belgium asked the nation to recognize the Kongo Free State, which he had organized. The professions of King Leopold made the whole world his allies. The Kongo Free State was created amid general rejoicings. The veteran Bismarck, as credulous as the others, pronounced its baptismal blessing.
A governor was elected. Under him were 15 district commissaries, who should govern so many districts, into which the whole country was divided.
Then, in 1887, an act was passed which declared that all lands that were not occupied by: natives were to be the property of the state.
No land in such a country is actually occupied by the natives save the actual site of the villages and the scanty fields of grain or manioc which surround them. Everywhere beyond these tiny patches extend the plains and forests which have been the ancestral wandering places of the natives, and which contain the rubber, the camwood, the copal, the ivory and the skins, which are the sole object of their commerce. At a single stroke of a pen in Brussels everything was taken from them, not only the country, but the produce of the country. How could they trade when the state had taken from them everything which they had to offer?
NEEDED LABOR
Having obtained possession of the land and its products, the next step was to obtain labor by which these products could be safely garnered.
An act for the "special protection of the black" was passed. It allows blacks to be bound over in terms of seven years' service to their masters in a manner which was in truth indistinguishable from slavery. As the negotiations were usually carried on with the capita or headman, the unfortunate servant was transferred with small profit to himself and little knowledge of the conditions of his servitude.
Under the same system the state also enlisted its employes, including the recruits for its small army. This army was supplemented by a wild militia, consisting of various barbarous tribes, many of them cannibals and all of them capable of any excess of cruelty or outrage.
King Leopold's wonderful system was perfected by employing 2000 agents, who worked under the commissaries. They were white men, and they had orders to secure a certain amount of rubber from their districts. These agents employed capitas, who were barbarians. These capitas were armed with guns, invariably, and were masters of the native district in which they resided. If the natives did not supply enough rubber, the capita was given beating; so to avoid the beating himself, he beat the natives.
Imagine the nightmare which lay upon each village while this barbarian squatted in the midst of it. Day or night they could never get away from him. He called for palm wine. He called for women. He beat them, mutilated them and shot them down at his pleasure! He enforced public incest in order to amuse himself by the sight. Sometimes they plucked up spirit and killed him. The Belgian commission records that 142 capitas had been killed in seven months in a single district.
In The Record tomorrow Dr. Doyle, will describe the cruelties inflicted on the natives in the Kongo.
