The White Terror in Bloodstained Kongo
The White Terror in Bloodstained Kongo is an article written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in Los Angeles Record on 29 october 1909.
This article is the second part of a slightly modified abstract of a part of Arthur Conan Doyle's essay : The Crime of the Congo (1909).
The White Terror in Bloodstained Kongo
| IF WAR WITH BELGIUM THEN LET THERE BE WAR — DOYLE
What shall be done? This is for the statesmen of Europe and America to determine. America hastened before all the rest of the world in 1884 to recognize this new state, and her recognition caused the rest of the world to follow suit. But since then she has done nothing to control what she created. To bring the matter to a head, the British government should act without delay. The obvious course would appear to be that, having prepared the ground by sounding each of the great powers, they should then lay before each of them the whole evidence and ask that a European congress should meet to discuss the situation. Such a congress would surely result in the partition of the Kongo lands. Let us suppose, however, that the powers refuse to act, and that we are deserted even by history, to grapple single-handed with that which should be a common task. A warning and a date must be fixed, and then we must 'decide our course of action. And what shall that action be? War with Belgium? On them must rest the responsibility for that. If Belgium takes up the quarrel, then so be it. |
Conan Doyle Writes of Dreadful Crimes Committed by White Man's Orders — Lopping Off Bight Hands for Failure to Produce Rubber That King Leopold Could Turn Into Gold
(Following is the second installment from Sir Conan Doyle's book, "Crime of the Kongo," which was published simultaneously in England and America this week. By special permission, The Record is enabled to print important extracts from this remarkable story of civilization's savage crime against civilization. — Editor.)
It is upon the king — King Leopold — that the guilt must lie.
Civilization knows no greater guilt, no greater crime-than this "Crime of the Kongo." Let us take testimony. First there is a man named Glave, who traveled with Stanley and who later traveled alone in Africa.
"In stations in charge of white man," says Glave, "one sees strings of poor, emaciated old women, some of them mere skeletons, working from 6 in the morning until noon, and from 2.30 until 6, carrying clay water jars, tramping about in gangs, with a rope around the neck. and connected by a rope, one and a half yards apart. They are prisoners of war. They are naked, except for a miserable patch of cloth of several parts held in place by a string around the waist. They form, indeed, a miserable spectacle.
| TERRIBLE WHIP OF THE KONGO
"The 'chicotte' of raw hippo hide, especially a new one, trimmed like a corkscrew, with edges like knife blades," says Glave, in Sir Conan Doyle's, book, "The Crime of the Kongo," is a terrible weapon, and a few blows bring blood. Generally the victim is in a state of insensibility after 25 or 30 blows have been struck. 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 that will endure a lifetime." A Belgian officer said: "One can hardly believe how difficult it is to administer the chicotte properly. One should spread out the blows so that each shall give a fresh pang. Then we have a law which forbids us to give more than 25 blows in one day, and to stop when the blood flows. One should, therefore, give 24 of the blows vigorously, but without risking to stop. Then, at the 25th, with a dexterous twist, one should make the blood spout." The chicotte was used on natives who did not bring in as much rubber as the capita ordered. |
"Mr. Harvey heard from Clarke," writes Glave, "in 1895, that the state soldiers have been fighting and taking prisoners. He himself had seen several men with bunches. of hands signifying their individual skill. These, I presume, they must produce to show their success. Among the hands were there those of men and women, and also of little children."
"In November, 1894," says Mr. Murphy, an American missionary, "there was heavy fighting on the Bosira because the people refused to give rubber. And I was told upon the authority of a state official that no less than 1800 people were killed.
"A chief of a certain town was. ordered to give up some fugitives. He replied the fugitives had not been in his town. But when he went to see the officer, he was wounded, his wife was killed before his eyes and her head was cut off that they might possess the brass bracelet that she wore. "The rubber question is accountable for most of the horrors in the Kongo. It is collected by force. The soldiers drive the people into the brush; if they will not go they are shot down, their left hands being cut off and taken to the commissary.
"These hands — the hands of men, women and children-are placed in rows before the commissary, who counts them to see that the soldiers have not wasted their cartridges. The commissary is paid a commission of about a penny a pound upon all the rubber he gets.
An old man was shot to death before the eyes of a missionary friend of the Rev. Sjoblom, while the missionary was preaching to the people. The soldier 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 labor, cut the hand off and laid it by a fallen tree. A little later the hand was put on the fire to smoke before being sent to the commissary.
I think that picture of a child hacking off the hand of a 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 Kongo could show. A pretty commentary upon the doctrine of Christ, which the missionary was there to preach!
Mr. Sjoblom, seeing a sentinel and a woman passing down a road with a basket of smoked hands, asked them to put out the hands that they might count them.
"We counted 18 right hands, smoked, and from the size of the hands we could judge they belonged to men, women and children."
It was in 1897 that the Kongo companies were reorganized, the Belgium government, meaning the king, taking half their stock. The profits of these companies, at this time, ranged from 50 per cent to 700 per cent a year.
"How huge were the operations which were carried on under the ferocious rule of Capt. Lothaire may be guessed from the fact that the profits of the company, which had been 120,000 franc in 1897, rose to 3,968,000 francs in 1899-a sum which is considerably more than twice the capital. M. Mille tells of a Belgium agent who showed 25,000 cartridges and remarked, 'I can turn those into 25,000 pounds. of rubber.'"
(The third installment Saturday of The Record's exclusive story of Sir Conan Doyle's new book, "The Crime of the Kongo," will be devoted to the author's further description of cruelties to the natives.).
