Part 12

As I was leaving Bongandanga, on the 3rd September, several elderly Headmen of the neighbouring villages were putting off in their canoes to the opposite forest, to get meat wherewith to redeem their wives, whom I had seen arrested the previous day. I learned later that the husband of one of these women brought in, two days afterwards, to the Mission-station, his infant daughter, who, being deprived of her mother, had fallen seriously ill, and whom he could not feed. At the request of the missionary this woman was released on the 5th September. I took occasion to say to the agent of the A.B.I.R. Company, before leaving, that the practice of imprisoning women for impositions said to be due by their husbands was to my mind unquestionably illegal, and that I should not fail to draw the attention of the Governor-General of the Congo State to what I had seen. The excuse offered, both on this occasion as on others when I had ventured to allude to the condition of the natives around Bongandanga, was that the station compared most favourably with all others within the A.B.I.R. Concession, which were run, I was assured, on much sterner lines than those which caused me pain at Bongandanga. I later made official communication to the local Government at Boma on these points, in so far as the system I had seen at work affected the English missionaries within the A.B.I.R. Concession, and in that letter I sought to show that neither the local agent nor his subordinate were responsible for a state of affairs which greatly wounded the feelings of my countrymen at Bongandanga, and which had filled me with a pained surprise. My attention, it was true, had been drawn to the systematic imprisonment of women in parts of the Upper Congo some two years previously, in a case wherein a British coloured subject--a native of Lagos--along with three Europeans, all of them in the service of the Compagnie Anversoise du Commerce au Congo--a Concession Company--had been charged with various acts of cruelty and oppression which had caused much loss of life to the natives in the Mongala region. These men had been arrested by the authorities in the summer of 1900, and had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, against which they had made appeal. The facts charged against the British coloured subject (who sought my help) were, among others, that he had illegally arrested women and kept them in illegal detention at his trading station, and it was alleged that many of these women had died of starvation while thus confined. This man himself, when I had visited him in Boma gaol in March 1901, said that more than 100 women and children had died of starvation at his hands, but that the responsibility for both their arrest and his own lack of food to give them was due to his superiors’ orders and neglect. The Court of Appeal at Boma gave final Judgment in the case on the 13th February, 1901; and in connection with the Lagos man’s degree of guilt, a copy of this Judgment, in so far as it affected him, at my request had been communicated to me by the Governor-General. From this Judgment I learned that the case against the accused had been clearly proved. Among other extenuating circumstances, which secured, however, a marked reduction of the first sentence imposed on the coloured man, the Court of Appeal cited the following:--

“That it is just to take into account that, by the correspondence produced in the case, the chiefs of the Concession Company have, if not by formal orders, at least by their example and their tolerance, induced their agents to take no account whatever of the rights, property, and lives of the natives; to use the arms and the soldiers which should have served for their defence and the maintenance of order to force the natives to furnish them with produce and to work for the Company, as also to pursue as rebels and outlaws those who sought to escape from the requisitions imposed upon them.... That, above all, the fact that the arrest of women and their detention, to compel the villages to furnish both produce and workmen, was tolerated and admitted even by certain of the administrative authorities of the region.”

I had gathered at the time of this finding of the Boma High Court that steps had then been taken to make it everywhere effective and to insure obedience to the law in this respect, and that a recurrence of the illegalities brought to light in the Mongala region had been rendered impossible in any part of the Congo State. From what I saw during the few days spent in the A.B.I.R. Concession, and again outside its limits in the Lower Lulongo, it seemed to be clear that the action taken by the authorities nearly three years ago could not have produced the results undoubtedly then desired.

On my leaving Bongandanga on the 3rd September I returned down the Lopori and Lulongo Rivers, arriving at J**. The following day, about 9 at night, some natives of the neighbourhood came to see me, bringing with them a lad of about 16 years of age whose right hand was missing. His name was X and his relatives said they came from K**, a village on the opposite side of the river some few miles away. As it was late at night there was some difficulty in obtaining a translation of their statements, but I gathered that X’s hand had been cut off in K** by a sentry of the La Lulanga Company, who was, or had been, quartered there. They said that this sentry, at the time that he had mutilated X, had also shot dead one of the chief men of the town. X, in addition to this mutilation, had been shot in the shoulder blade, and, as a consequence, was deformed. On being shot it was said he had fallen down insensible, and the sentry had then cut off his hand, alleging that he would take it to the Director of the Company at Mampoko. When I asked if this had been done the natives replied that they believed that the hand had only been carried part of the way to Mampoko and then thrown away. They did not think the white man had seen it. They went on to say that they had not hitherto made any complaint of this. They declared they had seen no good object in complaining of a case of this kind since they did not hope any good would result to them. They then went on to say that a younger boy than X, at the beginning of this year (as near as they could fix the date at either the end of January or the beginning of February), had been mutilated in a similar way by a sentry of the same trading Company, who was still quartered in their town, and that when they had wished to bring this latter victim with them the sentry had threatened to kill him and that the boy was now in hiding. They begged that I would myself go back with them to their village and ascertain that they were speaking the truth. I thought it my duty to listen to this appeal, and decided to return with them on the morrow to their town. In the morning, when about to start for K**, many people from the surrounding country came in to see me. They brought with them three individuals who had been shockingly wounded by gun fire, two men and a very small boy, not more than 6 years of age, and a fourth--a boy child of 6 or 7--whose right hand was cut off at the wrist. One of the men, who had been shot through the arm, declared that he was Y of L**, a village situated some miles away. He declared that he had been shot as I saw under the following circumstances: the soldiers had entered his town, he alleged, to enforce the due fulfilment of the rubber tax due by the community. These men had tied him up and said that unless he paid 1,000 brass rods to them they would shoot him. Having no rods to give them they had shot him through the arm and had left him. The soldiers implicated he said were four whose names were given me. They were, he believed, all employés of the La Lulanga Company and had come from Mampoko. At the time when he, Y, was shot through the arm the Chief of his town came up and begged the soldiers not to hurt him, but one of them, a man called Z, shot the Chief dead. No white man was with these sentries, or soldiers, at the time. Two of them, Y said, he believed had been sent or taken to Coquilhatville. Two of them--whom he named--he said were still at Mampoko. The people of L** had sent to tell the white man at Mampoko of what his soldiers had done. He did not know what punishment, if any, the soldiers had received, for no inquiry had since been made in L**, nor had any persons in that town been required to testify against their aggressors. This man was accompanied by four other men of his town. These four men all corroborated Y’s statement.

These people were at once followed by two men of M**, situated, they said, close to K**, and only a few miles distant. They brought with them a full-grown man named A A, whose arm was shattered and greatly swollen through the discharge of a gun, and a small boy named B B, whose left arm was broken in two places from two separate gun shots--the wrist being shattered and the hand wobbling about loose and quite useless. The two men made the following statement: That their town, like all the others in the neighbourhood, was required to furnish a certain quantity of india-rubber fortnightly to the head-quarters of the La Lulanga Company at Mampoko; that at the time these outrages were committed, which they put at less than a year previously, a man named C C was a sentry of that Company quartered in their village; that they two now before me had taken the usual fortnight’s rubber to Mampoko. On returning to M** they found that C C, the sentry, had shot dead two men of the town named D D and E E, and had tied up this man A A and the boy B B, now before me, to two trees. The sentry said that this was to punish the two men for having taken the rubber to Mampoko without having first shown it to him and paid him a commission on it. The two men asserted that they had at once returned to Mampoko, and had begged the Director of the Company to return with them to M** and see what his servants had done. But, they alleged, he had refused to comply with their request. On getting back to their town they then found that the man A A and the child B B were still tied to the trees, and had been shot in the arms as I now saw. On pleading with the sentry to release these two wounded individuals, he had required a payment of 2,000 brass rods (100 fr.). One of the two men stayed to collect this money, and another returned to Mampoko to again inform the Director of what had been done. The two men declared that nothing was done to the sentry C C, but that the white man said that if the people behaved badly again he was to punish them. The sentry C C, they declared, remained some time longer in M**, and they do not now know where he is.

These people were immediately followed by a number of natives who came before me bringing a small boy of not more than 7 years of age, whose right hand was gone at the wrist. This child, whose name was F F, they had brought from the village of N**. They stated that some years ago (they could not even approximately fix the date save by indicating that F F was only just able to run) N** had been attacked by several sentries of the La Lulanga Company. This was owing to their failure in supplying a sufficiency of india-rubber. They did not know whether these sentries had been sent by any European, but they knew all their names, and the Chief of them was one called G G. G G had shot dead the Chief of their town, and the people had run into the forest. The sentries pursued them, and G G had knocked down the child F F with the butt of his gun and had then cut off his hand. They declared that the hand of the dead man and of this boy F F had then been carried away by the sentries. The sentries who did this belonged to the La Lulanga Company’s factory at O**. The man who appeared with F F went on to say that they had never complained about it, save to the white man who had then been that Company’s agent at O**. They had not thought of complaining to the Commissaire of the district. Not only was he far away, but they were afraid they would not be believed, and they thought the white men only wished for rubber, and that no good could come of pleading with them.

At the same time a number of men followed, with the request that I would listen to them. W declared that their town P**, which had formerly been on the north bank of the X** River (where I had myself seen it), had now been transferred by force to the south bank, close to the factory at Q**. He said that this act of compulsory transference was the direct act of the Commissaire-Général of the ... district. The Commissaire had visited P** on his steamer, and had ordered the people of that town to work daily at Q** for the La Lulanga factory. W had replied that it was too far for the women of P** to go daily to Q** as was required; but the Commissaire, in reply, had taken fifty women and carried them away with him. The women were taken to Q**. Two men were taken at the same time. To get these women back, W went on to say, he and his people had to pay a fine of 10,000 brass rods (500 fr.). They had paid this money to the Commissaire-Général himself. They had then been ordered by the Commissaire to abandon their town, since it lay too far from the factory, and build a fresh town close to Q**, so that they might be at hand for the white man’s needs. This they had been forced to do--many of them were taken across by force. It was about two years ago W thought that this deportation had been effected, and they now came to beg that I would use my influence with the local authorities to permit their return to their abandoned home. Where they were now situated close to Q** they were most unhappy, and they only desired to be allowed to return to the former site of P**. They have to take daily to Q** the following:--

10 baskets gum-copal. 1,000 long canes (termed “ngodji”), which grow in the swamps, and are used in thatching and roofing. 500 bamboos for building.

Each week they are required to deliver at the factory--

200 rations of kwanga. 120 rations of fish.

In addition, fifty women are required each morning to go to the factory and work there all day. They complained that the remuneration given for these services was most inadequate, and that they were continually beaten. When I asked the Chief W why he had not gone to D F to complain if the sentries beat him or his people, opening his mouth he pointed to one of the teeth which was just dropping out, and said: “That is what I got from the D F four days ago when I went to tell him what I now say to you.” He added that he was frequently beaten, along with others of his people, by the white man.

One of the men with him, who gave his name as H H, said that two weeks ago the white man at Q** had ordered him to serve as one of the porters of his hammock on a journey he proposed taking inland. H H was then just completing the building of a new house, and excused himself on this ground, but offered to fetch a friend as a substitute. The Director of the Company had, in answer to this excuse, burnt down his house, alleging that he was insolent. He had had a box of cloth and some ducks in the house--in fact, all his goods, and they were destroyed in the fire. The white man then caused him to be tied up, and took him with him inland, and loosed him when he had to carry the hammock.

Other people were waiting, desirous of speaking with me, but so much time was taken in noting the statements already made that I had to leave, if I hoped to reach K** at a reasonable hour. I proceeded in a canoe across the Lulongo and up a tributary to a landing-place which seemed to be about ... miles from I**. Here, leaving the canoes, we walked for a couple of miles through a flooded forest to reach the village. I found here a sentry of the La Lulanga Company and a considerable number of natives. After some little delay a boy of about 15 years of age appeared, whose left arm was wrapped up in a dirty rag. Removing this, I found the left hand had been hacked off by the wrist, and that a shot hole appeared in the fleshy part of the forearm. The boy, who gave his name as I I, in answer to my inquiry, said that a sentry of the La Lulanga Company now in the town had cut off his hand. I proceeded to look for this man, who at first could not be found, the natives to a considerable number gathering behind me as I walked through the town. After some delay the sentry appeared, carrying a cap-gun. The boy, whom I placed before him, then accused him to his face of having mutilated him. The men of the town, who were questioned in succession, corroborated the boy’s statement. The sentry, who gave his name as K K, could make no answer to the charge. He met it by vaguely saying some other sentry of the Company had mutilated I I; his predecessor, he said, had cut off several hands, and probably this was one of the victims. The natives around said that there were two other sentries at present in the town, who were not so bad as K K, but that he was a villain. As the evidence against him was perfectly clear, man after man standing out and declaring he had seen the act committed, I informed him and the people present that I should appeal to the local authorities for his immediate arrest and trial. In the course of my interrogatory several other charges transpired against him. These were of a minor nature, consisting of the usual characteristic acts of blackmailing, only too commonly reported on all sides. One man said that K K had tied up his wife and only released her on payment of 1,000 rods. Another man said that K K had robbed him of two ducks and a dog. These minor offences K K equally demurred to, and again said that I I had been mutilated by some other sentry, naming several. I took the boy back with me and later brought him to Coquilhatville, where he formally charged K K with the crime, alleging to the Commandant, who took his statement, through a special Government interpreter, in my presence, that it had been done “on account of rubber.” I have since been informed that, acting on my request, the authorities at Coquilhatville had arrested K K, who presumably will be tried in due course. A copy of my notes taken in K**, where I I charged K K before me, is appended (Inclosure 6).[18]

It was obviously impossible that I should visit all the villages of the natives who came to beg me to do so at J** or elsewhere during my journey, or to verify on the spot, as in the case of the boy, the statements they made. In that one case the truth of the charges preferred was amply demonstrated, and their significance was not diminished by the fact that, whereas this act of mutilation had been committed within a few miles of Q**, the head-quarters of a European civilizing agency, and the guilty man was still in their midst, armed with the gun with which he had first shot his victim (for which he could produce no licence when I asked for it, saying it was his employers’), no one of the natives of the terrorized town had attempted to report the occurrence. They had in the interval visited Mampoko each fortnight with the india-rubber from their district. There was also in their midst another mutilated boy X, whose hand had been cut off either by this or another sentry. The main waterway of the Lulongo River lay at their doors, and on it well nigh every fortnight a Government steamer had passed up and down stream on its way to bring the india-rubber of the A.B.I.R. Company to Coquilhatville. They possessed, too, some canoes; and, if all other agencies of relief were closed, the territorial tribunal at Coquilhatville lay open to them, and the journey to it down stream from their village could have been accomplished in some twelve hours. It was no greater journey, indeed, than many of the towns I had elsewhere visited were forced to undertake each week or fortnight to deliver supplies to their local tax collectors. The fact that no effort had been made by these people to secure relief from their unhappy situation impelled me to believe that a very real fear of reporting such occurrences actually existed among them. That everything asserted by such a people, under such circumstances, is strictly true I should in no wise assert. That discrepancies must be found in much alleged by such rude savages, to one whose sympathies they sought to awaken, must equally be admitted. But the broad fact remained that their previous silence said more than their present speech. In spite of contradictions, and even seeming misstatements, it was clear that these men were stating either what they had actually seen with their eyes or firmly believed in their hearts. No one viewing their unhappy surroundings or hearing their appeals, no one at all cognizant of African native life or character, could doubt that they were speaking, in the main, truly; and the unhappy conviction was forced upon me that in the many forest towns behind the screen of trees, which I could not visit, these people were entitled to expect that a civilized administration should be represented among them by other agents than the savages euphemistically termed “forest guards.”

The number of these “forest guards” employed in the service of the various Concession Companies on the Congo must be very considerable; but it is not only the Concession Companies which employ “forest guards,” for I found many of these men in the service of the La Lulanga Company, which is neither a Concession Company nor endowed with any “rights of police,” so far as I am aware. In the A.B.I.R. Concession there must be at least twenty stations directed by one or more European agents.

Each one of these “factories” has, with the permission of the Government, an armament of twenty-five rifles. According to this estimate of the A.B.I.R. factories, and adding the armament of the two steamers that Company possesses, it will be found that this one Concession Company employs 550 rifles, with a supply of cartridges not, I believe, as yet legally fixed. These rifles are supposed by law not to be taken from the limits of the factories, whereas the “sentries” or “forest guards” are quartered in well-nigh every rubber-producing village of the entire Concession.

These men are each armed with a cap-gun, and the amount of ammunition they may individually expend would seem to have no legal limits. These cap-guns can be very effective weapons. On the Lower Lulongo I bought the skin of a fine leopard from a native hunter who had shot the animal the previous day. He produced a cap-gun and his ammunition for my inspection, and I learned from all the men around him that he alone had killed the beast with his own gun. This gun, he informed me, he had purchased some years ago from a former Commissaire of the Government at Coquilhatville, whose name he gave me.

It would be, I think, a moderate computation to put the number of cap-guns issued by the A.B.I.R. Company to its “sentries” as being in the proportion of six to one to the number of rifles allowed to each factory. These figures could be easily verified, but whatever the proportion may be of cap-guns to rifles, it is clear that the A.B.I.R. Society alone controls a force of some 500 rifles and a very large stock of cap-guns.

The other Concession Companies on the Congo have similar privileges, so that it might not be an excessive estimate to say that these Companies and the subsidiary ones (not enjoying rights of police) between them, direct an armed force of not less than 10,000 men.