Part 14

Heard that L* came sometimes to M* from I*. I am now 100 miles (about) up-river from N*. Went into one of the M* country farm towns called B B*. Found on entering plantation two huts with five men and one woman, who I at once recognized by their head-dress as L*, like those at N*. The chief speaker, a young man named ... who lives at B B*. He seems about 22 or 23, and speaks with an air of frankness. He says: “The L* here and others who come to M*, come from a place C C*. It is connected with the lake by a stream. His own town in the district of C C* is D D*. C C* is a big district and had many people. They now bring the Government india-rubber, kwanga, and fowls, and work on broad paths connecting each village. His own village has to take 300 baskets of india-rubber. They get one piece of cotton cloth, called locally sanza, and no more.” (Note.--This cannot be true. He is doubtless exaggerating.) Four other men with him were wearing the rough palm-fibre cloth of the country looms, and they pointed to this as proof that they got no cloth for their labours. K K continuing said: “We were then killed for not bringing in enough rubber.”

_Q._ “You say you were killed for not bringing in rubber. Were you ever mutilated as proof that the soldiers had killed you?”

_A._ “When we were killed the white man was there himself. No proof was needed. Men and women were put in a line with a palm tree and were shot.”

Here he took three of the four men sitting down and put them one in line behind the other, and said: “The white men used to put us like that and shoot all with one cartridge. That was often done, and worse things.”

_Q._ “But how, if you now have to work so hard, are you yourselves able to come here to M* to see your friends?”

_A._ “We came away without the sentries or soldiers knowing, but when we get home we may have trouble.”

_Q._ “Do you know the L* who are now at N*?” (Here I gave the names of N N, O O, and P P.)

_A._ “Yes; many L* fled to that country. N N we know ran away on account of the things done to them by the Government white men. The K* and L* have always been friends. That is why the L* fled to them for refuge.”

_Q._ “Are there sentries or soldiers in your villages now?”

_A._ “In the chief villages there are always four soldiers with rifles. When natives go out into the forest to collect rubber they would leave one of their number behind to stay and protect the women. Sometimes the soldiers finding him thus refused to believe what he said, and killed him for shirking his work. This often happens.”

Asked how far it was from M* to their country they say three days’ journey, and then about two days more on to I* by water, or three if by land. They begged us to go to their country, they said: “We will show you the road, we will take you there, and you will see how things are, and that our country has been spoiled, and we are speaking the truth.”

Left them here and returned to the river bank.

* * * * *

The foregoing entries made at the time in my note-book seemed to me, if not false, greatly exaggerated, although the statements were made with every air of conviction and sincerity. I did not again meet with any more L* refugees, for on my return to G* I stayed only a few hours. A few days afterwards, while I was at Stanley Pool, I received further evidence in a letter of which the following is an extract:--

* * * * *

“I was sorry not to see you as you passed down, and so missed the opportunity of conveying to you personally a lot of evidence as to the terrible maladministration practised in the past in the district. I saw the official at the post of E E*. He is the successor of the infamous wretch D E, of whom you heard so much yourself from the refugees at N*. This D E was in this district in ..., ..., and ..., and he it was that depopulated the country. His successor, M N, is very vehement in his denunciations of him, and declares that he will leave nothing undone that he can do to bring him to justice. He is now stationed at G G*, near our station at H H*. Of M N I have nothing to say but praise. In a very difficult position he has done wonderfully. The people are beginning to show themselves and gathering about the many posts under his charge. M N told me that when he took over the station at E E* from D E he visited the prison, and almost fainted, so horrible was the condition of the place and the poor wretches in it. He told me of many things he had heard of from the soldiers. Of D E shooting with his own hand man after man who had come with an insufficient quantity of rubber. Of his putting several one behind the other and shooting them all with one cartridge. Those who accompanied me, also heard from the soldiers many frightful stories and abundant confirmation of what was told us at N* about the taking to D E of the organs of the men slain by the sentries of the various posts. I saw a letter from the present officer at F F* to M N, in which he upbraids him for not using more vigorous means, telling him to talk less and shoot more, and reprimanding him for not killing more than one in a district under his care where there was a little trouble. M N is due in Belgium in about three months, and says he will land one day and begin denouncing his predecessor the next. I received many favours from him, and should be sorry to injure him in any way.... He has already accepted a position in one of the Companies, being unable to continue longer in the service of the State. I have never seen in all the different parts of the State which I have visited a neater station, or a district more under control than that over which this M N presides. He is the M N the people of N* told us of, who they said was kind.

“If I can give you any more information, or if there are any questions you would like to put to me, I shall be glad to serve you, and through you these persecuted people.”

From a separate communication, I extract the following paragraphs:--

“...I heard of some half-dozen L* who were anxious to visit their old home, and would be willing to go with me; so, after procuring some necessary articles in the shape of provisions and barter, I started from our post at N*. It was the end of the dry season, and many of the water-courses were quite dry, and during some days we even found the lack of water somewhat trying. The first two days’ travelling was through alternating forest and grass plain, our guides, as far as possible, avoiding the villages.... Getting fresh guides from a little village, we got into a region almost entirely forested, and later descended into a gloomy valley still dripping from the rain. According to our guides we should soon be through this, but it was not until the afternoon of the second day after entering that we once more emerged from the gloom. Several times we lost the track, and I had little inclination to blame the guides, for several times the undergrowth and a species of thorn palm were trodden down in all directions by the elephants. It would seem to be a favourite hunting ground of theirs, and once we got very close to a large herd who went off at a furious pace, smashing down the small trees, trumpeting, and making altogether a most terrifying noise. The second night in this forest we came across, when looking for the track, a little village of runaways from the rubber district. When assured of our friendliness they took us in and gave us what shelter they could. During the night another tornado swept the country and blew down a rotten tree, some branches of which fell in amongst my tent and the little huts in which some of the boys were sleeping. It was another most narrow escape.

“Early the next day we were conducted by one of the men of this village to the right road, and very soon found ourselves travelling along a track which had evidently been, at only a recent date, opened up by a number of natives. ‘What was it?’ ‘Oh! it is the road along which we used to carry rubber to the white men.’ ‘But why used to?’ ‘Oh, all the people have either run away, or have been killed or died of starvation, and so there is no one to get rubber any longer.’

“That day we made a very long march, being nearly nine and a-half hours walking, and passing through several other large depopulated districts. On all sides were signs of a very recent large population, but all was as quiet as death, and buffaloes roamed at will amongst the still growing manioc and bananas. It was a sad day, and when, as the sun was setting, we came upon a large State post we were plunged into still greater grief. True, there was a comfortable house at our service, and houses for all the party; but we had not been long there before we found that we had reached the centre of what was once a very thickly populated region, known as C C*, from which many refugees in the neighbourhood of G* had come. It was here a white man, known by the name of D E, lived.... He came to the district, and, after seven months of diabolical work, left it a waste. Some of the stories current about him are not fit to record here, but the native evidence is so consistent and so universal that it is difficult to disbelieve that murder and rapine on a large scale were carried on here. His successor, a man of a different nature, and much liked by the people, after more than two and a-half years has succeeded in winning back to the side of the State post a few natives, and there I saw them in their wretched little huts, hardly able to call their lives their own in the presence of the new white man (myself), whose coming among them had set them all a-wondering. From this there was no fear of losing the track. For many miles it was a broad road, from 6 to 10 feet in width, and wherever there was a possibility of water settling logs were laid down. Some of these viaducts were miles in length, and must have entailed immense labour; whilst rejoicing in the great facility with which we could continue our journey, we could not help picturing the many cruel scenes which, in all probability, were a constant accompaniment to the laying of these huge logs. I wish to emphasize as much as possible the desolation and emptiness of the country we passed through. That it was only very recently a well-populated country, and, as things go out here, rather more densely than usual, was very evident. After a few hours we came to a State rubber post. In nearly every instance these posts are most imposing, some of them giving rise to the supposition that several white men were residing in them. But in only one did we find a white man--the successor of D E. At one place I saw lying about in the grass surrounding the post, which is built on the site of several very large towns, human bones, skulls, and, in some places, complete skeletons. On inquiring the reason for this unusual sight: ‘Oh!’ said my informant, ‘When the bambote (soldiers) were sent to make us cut rubber there were so many killed we got tired of burying, and sometimes when we wanted to bury we were not allowed to.’

“‘But why did they kill you so?’

“‘Oh! sometimes we were ordered to go, and the sentry would find us preparing food to eat while in the forest, and he would shoot two or three to hurry us along. Sometimes we would try and do a little work on our plantations, so that when the harvest time came we should have something to eat, and the sentry would shoot some of us to teach us that our business was not to plant but to get rubber. Sometimes we were driven off to live for a fortnight in the forest without any food and without anything to make a fire with, and many died of cold and hunger. Sometimes the quantity brought was not sufficient, and then several would be killed to frighten us to bring more. Some tried to run away, and died of hunger and privation in the forest in trying to avoid the State posts.’

“‘But,’ said I, ‘if the sentries killed you like that, what was the use? You could not bring more rubber when there were fewer people.’

“‘Oh! as to that, we do not understand it. These are the facts.’

“And looking around on the scene of desolation, on the untended farms and neglected palms, one could not but believe that in the main the story was true. From State sentries came confirmation and particulars even more horrifying, and the evidence of a white man as to the state of the country--the unspeakable condition of the prisons at the State posts--all combined to convince me over and over again that, during the last seven years, this ‘domaine privé’ of King Leopold has been a veritable ‘hell on earth.’

“The present régime seems to be more tolerable. A small payment is made for the rubber now brought in. A little salt--say a pennyworth--for 2 kilogrammes of rubber, worth in Europe from 6 to 8 fr. The collection is still compulsory, but, compared with what has gone before, the natives consider themselves fairly treated. There is a coming together of families and communities and the re-establishment of villages; but oh! in what sadly diminished numbers, and with what terrible gaps in the families.... Near a large State post we saw the only large and apparently normal village we came across in all the three weeks we spent in the district. One was able to form here some estimate of what the population was before the advent of the white man and the search for rubber....”

* * * * *

It will be observed that the devastated region whence had come the refugees I saw at N*, comprises a part of the “Domaine de la Couronne.”

Inclosure 2 in No. 3.

(See p. 29.)

(A.)

_The Rev. J. Whitehead to Governor-General of Congo State._

Dear Sir,

_Baptist Missionary Society, Lukolela, July 28, 1903._

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the Circular and the List of Questions respecting the sleep sickness sent through the Rev. J. L. Forfeitt.

I hasten to do my best in reply, for the matter is of paramount importance, and I trust that if I may seem to trespass beyond my limits in stating my opinions in reference to this awful sickness and matters kindred thereto, my zeal may be interpreted as arising from excessive sorrow and sympathy for a disappearing people. I believe I shall be discharging my duty to the State and His Majesty King Leopold II, whose desire for the facts in the interests of humanity have long been published, if I endeavour to express myself as clearly as I can regarding the necessities of the natives of Lukolela.

The population of the villages of Lukolela in January 1891 must have been not less than 6,000 people, but when I counted the whole population in Lukolela at the end of December 1896 I found it to be only 719, and I estimated from the decrease, as far as we could count up the number of known deaths during the year, that at the same rate of decrease in ten years the people would be reduced to about 400, but judge of my heartache when on counting them all again on Friday and Saturday last to find only a population of 352 people, and the death-rate rapidly increasing. I note also a decrease very appallingly apparent in the inland districts during the same number of years; three districts are well-nigh swept out (these are near to the river), and others are clearly diminished; so that if something is not soon done to give the people heart and remove their fear and trembling (conditions which generate fruitfully morbid conditions and proneness to attacks of disease), doubtless the whole place will be very soon denuded of its population. The pressure under which they live at present is crushing them; the food which they sadly need themselves very often must, under penalty, be carried to the State post, also grass, cane string, baskets for the “caoutchouc” (the last three items do not appear to be paid for); the “caoutchouc” must be brought in from the inland districts; their Chiefs are being weakened in their prestige and physique through imprisonment, which is often cruel, and thus weakened in their authority over their own people, they are put into chains for the shortage of manioc bread and “caoutchouc.”

In the riverine part of Lukolela we have done our very best as non-official members of the State to cope with disease in every way possible to us; but so far the officials of the State have never attempted even the feeblest effort to assist the natives of Lukolela to recover themselves or guard themselves in any way from disease. In times of small-pox, when no time can be lost in the interests of the community, I have, perhaps, gone sometimes beyond my rights as a private citizen in dealing with it. But there has always been the greatest difficulty in getting food for them (the patients) and nurses for them, even when the people were not compelled to take their food supply to the State post, but when food supplies and labour are compressed into one channel all voluntary philanthropy is paralyzed. It is quite in vain for us to teach these poor people the need of plenty of good food, for we appear to them as those who mock; they point to the food which must be taken to the post. A weekly tax of 900 brass rods’ worth of manioc bread from 160 women, half of whom are not capable of much hard and continuous work, does not leave much margin for them to listen to teaching concerning personal attention in matters of food. At present they are compelled to supply a number of workmen, and some of these are retained after their terms are completed against their will; the villages need the presence of their men, there are at present but eighty-two in the villages of Lukolela, and I can see the shadow of death over nearly twenty of them.[21]

The inland people and their Chiefs tremble when they must go down to the river, so much has been done latterly to shake their confidence, and this fear is not strengthening them physically, but undermining their constitutions, such as they are. They hate the compulsory “caoutchouc” business, and they naturally do their best to get away from it. If something is not quickly done to give these timid and disheartened people contentment and their home life assured to them, sickness will speedily remove many, and those who remain will look upon the white man, of whatever nation or position, as their natural enemy (it is not far from that now). Some have already sworn to die, be killed, or anything else rather than be forced to bring in “caoutchouc,” which spells imprisonment and subsequent death to them; what they hear as having been done they quite understand can be done to them, so they conclude they may as well die first as last. The State has fought with them twice already, if not more; but it is useless, they will not submit. A cave of Adullam is a thing not always easily reckoned with.

May I be permitted to seize the present opportunity of respectfully pleading on behalf of this people that their rights be respected, and that the attention as of a father to his children be sympathetically shown them? May I also be permitted to place before you a few suggestions which have been impelled into my mind face to face with this dying people of what is their need while medical inquiry goes forward, please God, to master this terrible scourge? I suggest the following as immediately needful for the riverine people:--

1. That the present small population of Lukolela be requested to vacate the present site of their dwellings, and form a community on the somewhat higher ground at present used for gardens, the soil of which has been impoverished by years of manioc growing. This is known by the name Ntomba; and that they be requested to clear the undergrowth on the beach, the sites of their present dwellings, and plant bananas, &c.

2. That no one known to have sleep-sickness be permitted to dwell on the new site; but all be removed to a site lower down the river; and that it shall be the duty of the people to supply their sick with the necessary food and caretakers. The islands are unsuitable, being uninhabitable for a large part of the year.

3. That they be compelled to bury their dead at a considerable distance from the dwellings, and to bury them in graves at least a fathom deep, and not as at present in shallow graves in close proximity to the houses.

4. That they be encouraged to build higher houses with more apertures for the ingress of sunshine and air in the daytime, and with floors considerably raised above the outside ground.

5. That a strong endeavour be made to get them to provide better latrine arrangements.

6. That they be encouraged to give up eating and drinking together from the same dish or vessel in common.

7. That the men be encouraged to follow their old practices of hunting, fishing, blacksmithing, &c., and with the women care for their gardens and homes, and that they be given every protection in these duties and in the holding of their property against the State soldiers and workmen and everybody else that wants to interfere with their rights.

8. All the foregoing they will not be able to do unless the present compulsory method of acquiring their labour and their food by the State is exchanged for a voluntary one.

9. That the Chiefs or present chief representatives of the deceased Chiefs among whom the land was divided before the State came into existence (I believe about three will be found at Lukolela itself) be recognized as the executive of these matters, and that they be requested to devote their levies (restored as of old) made on the produce, &c., of their lands to the betterment of their towns and district, by making roads through their lands, &c.

10. To appoint sentries to carry out either the above or any other beneficent rules in any of the villages would be to endeavour to mend the present deplorable condition with an evil a hundred-fold worse.

All the above suggestions adjusted to suit the locality are equally applicable to the inland districts.

In answering the list of questions I would say:--

1. Sleep-sickness is sadly only too well known at Lukolela. It is prevalent in the whole of the riverine and inland districts. In the inland districts I am not yet able to say whether it is more prevalent than in the riverine one; that can only be ascertained by a more prolonged residence there than as yet I have had opportunity to make. In the riverine district I estimate that quite half of the deaths are from sleep-sickness. The cases do not occur in batches like cases of small-pox and measles do; there are too many in a given place unaffected at one time. It will, however, gradually sweep away whole families. The common notion among the natives is that the sickness came from down-river; and it was prevalent, though not to such an extent as now, as far back as the oldest people I have met can remember. Before our Mission was founded here a suspected case would be thrown into the river; but inland I do not think there is any evidence to show that they did otherwise than to-day--nurse their sick perfectly, heedless of the contagion in respect of them (the nurses) or their friends, and, as they do on the beach, bury their dead close to their houses, and in some cases live on the top of the graves.

2. From my own observation (since January 1891) the sickness is endemic; in the riverine villages the death-rate slowly increased until 1894, when the people quite lost heart and felt their homes were no longer secure to them, and then hunger, improper food, fear, and homelessness appeared to increase the death-rate from sleep-sickness and other causes most appallingly, and the rate has still further increased, especially during the last two years. The fewer the population becomes the proportionate rate of death increases most fearfully.