King Leopold's Ghost

by Adam Hochschild

  The rebel militias, the Congo's African neighbors, and many of their corporate allies have little interest in ending the country's Balkanization. They prefer a cash-in-suitcases economy to a taxed and regulated one that would give all citizens a real share of the profits from natural resources. For the Congo, the combination of being a great mineral treasure house and in effect having no working government has been catastrophic. When there is no money in the public till, armies become self-financing networks of miners and smugglers. When there are few schools or jobs, they can easily recruit children. When the millions of small arms circulating in Africa can be bought at street bazaars or from policemen who've received no pay, there are guns for all.

  Tragically, no powerful outside constituency, like Morel's Congo reformers, exists to lobby for measures that would help. Nor, to be sure, is it clear what the most effective help would be. But some things should still be tried. One would be to stop pouring arms into Africa so thoughtlessly. During the 1990s alone, the United States gave more than $200 million worth of equipment and training to African armies, including six of the seven that have had troops in the Congo's civil war.

  A sufficiently large and empowered United Nations peacekeeping force could also make a huge difference. We should have no illusions that such a force would solve the Congo's vast problem of having no functioning central government. International intervention in the country is like asking security guards to patrol a bank in mid-robbery. The guards may end up robbing or running the bank, whether at the level of a sergeant smuggling diamonds or a major power contributing troops while demanding favors for its mining companies. But the alternatives are worse. A strong intervention force could ultimately save lives, millions of them. And finally, for all of Africa, ending the subsidies and trade barriers that make it so difficult for farmers in the world's South to sell crops to Europe or North America would be one step in leveling an international economic playing field that remains tilted against the poor.

  ***

  One reason I wrote this book was to show how profoundly European colonialism has shaped the world we live in. And, remembering how the United States and Europe have protected their investments by supporting rapacious African dictators like Mobutu, we must speak of neocolonialism as well. But I want to end on a note of caution. Despite the thievery of Leopold and his successors, it is wrong to blame the problems of today's Africa entirely on colonialism. Much of history consists of peoples conquering or colonizing each other. Yet, from Ireland to South Korea, countries that were once ruthlessly colonized have nonetheless managed to build reasonably just, prosperous, and democratic societies.

  The reasons most of Africa has not done so go far beyond the colonial heritage. One factor is the abysmal position of women and all of the violence, repression, and prejudices that go with that. Another is the deep-seated cultural tolerance and even hero-worship of strongmen like Mobutu, for whom politics is largely a matter of enriching themselves and their extended clan or ethnic group. Finally, perhaps above all, is the way the long history of indigenous slavery is still deeply and disastrously woven into the African social fabric. These same handicaps exist elsewhere. Discrimination against women retards social and economic progress in many countries. Many societies, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, have had trouble building nation-states when power-hungry demagogues inflame ethnic chauvinism. And Africa is not alone in its heritage of slavery: Chekhov, knowing the weight of his own country's history of serfdom, spoke of how Russians must squeeze the slave out of themselves, drop by drop. Russia's continuing troubles show how long and hard a task this is.

  Even without the problems of being colonized, the birth of a viable, truly democratic civil society is usually a slow and difficult business. For western Europe to move from the Holy Roman Empire and the panoply of duchies and principalities and mini-kingdoms to its current patchwork of nations took centuries of bloodshed, including the deadly Thirty Years' War, whose anarchic multisidedness and array of plundering outsiders remind one of the Congo today. Africa cannot afford those centuries. Its path will not be an easy one, and nowhere will it be harder than in the Congo.

  September 2005

  * * *

  NOTES

  Sources are given for direct quotations, which are identified by their closing words, for most numbers and statistics, and for many other points of information. I have not identified sources when the facts involved are not in dispute and can easily be found in one—or usually several—of the key books acknowledged at the beginning of the Bibliography.

  Some works cited only once or twice are referred to in the source notes but are not listed in the Bibliography.

  For abbreviated references to one of several books by the same author—as in Morel 5, Stengers 2, Marchal 3—consult the Bibliography.

  INTRODUCTION

  page

  [>] Morel in Antwerp: Morel 5, chapters 4 and 5.

  [>] nearly three hundred a year: in 1907, for example. Official Organ... April 1908, p. 24.

  [>] letter of protest to the Times: 23 Dec. 1908, Morel 5, p. 208.

  [>] "so strongly and so vehemently": Morel 5, p. xiv.

  [>] "history of human conscience": "Geography and Some Explorers," Last Essays, ed. Richard Curle (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1926), p. 17, excerpted in Conrad, p. 187.

  PROLOGUE: "THE TRADERS ARE KIDNAPPING OUR PEOPLE"

  [>] early European maps and images of Africa: See Klemp.

  [>] "edge of the world": Forbath, p. 41.

  [>] "without resistance": Forbath, p. 73.

  [>] "in his household": Forbath, p. 73.

  [>] Mbanza Kongo: Balandier, p. 30 ff.

  [>] ManiKongo: Vansina 1, pp. 41–45.

  [>] sophisticated and well-developed state: see Balandier; Cuvelier; Hilton, chapters 1–3; and Vansina 1, chapter 2.

  [>] "of their faith": Relations sur le Congo du père Laurent de Lucques (1700–1717), ed. Jean Cuvelier (Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge, 1953), p. 338, quoted in Balandier, p. 81.

  [>] fifteen thousand slaves a year: Vansina 1, p. 149.

  [>] "she is dying": Miller, p. xiii. This list of slaves is from 1736.

  [>] Atlantic slave trade and the Kongo kingdom: Miller is the best source, although he concentrates on a later period.

  [>] "that of Affonso": quoted in Davidson 1, p. 138.

  [>] "speaking of our Savior": Rui de Aguiar to King Manuel I, 25 May 1516, quoted in Affonso, p. 117.

  [>] selective modernizer: Vansina 1, pp. 45–58.

  [>] first known documents: Albert'S. Gérard, African Language Literature: An Introduction to the Literary History of Sub-Saharan Africa (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1981), p. 287.

  [>] "transport of slaves": Affonso to João III, 6 July 1526, Affonso, p. 156.

  [>] "red-hot iron": Affonso I to João III, 18 Oct. 1526, Affonso, p. 167.

  [>] "selling them as captives": Affonso I to João III, 25 Aug. 1526, Affonso, p. 159.

  [>] "obedient to us and content": Affonso I to João III, 6 July 1526, Affonso, pp. 155–156.

  [>] "no slave has ever left": João III to Affonso, 1529 (n. d.), Affonso, p. 175.

  [>] "He is again crucified": Affonso to Manuel I, 31 May 1515, Affonso, p. 103.

  [>] "their fathers and mothers": Affonso I to João III, 25 Mar. 1539, Affonso, p. 210.

  [>] ancestral ghosts: see, for instance, Harms 2, p. 210.

  [>] "wars and miseries": Haveaux, p. 47.

  [>] deadly transformations began: Miller, pp. 4–5.

  [>] "sold them to the white men": Weeks, pp. 294–295.

  [>] "of this animal": Instructions to Mr. Tudor, 7 Feb. 1816, quoted in Anstey 1, p. 5.

  [>] "masses of quartz": Forbath, p. 177.

  [>] "of the Thames": Narrative of the Expedition to explore the River Zaire, usually called the Congo... (London: 1818), p. 342, quoted in Anstey 1, p. 9.

  1. "I SHALL NOT GIVE UP THE CHASE"

  [>] John Rowlands/Henry Morton Stanley: I hav
e relied largely on the biographies by John Bierman and Frank McLynn. Far too late for me to use has appeared Tim Jeal's 2007 Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer, which uses previously closed archives to mount a vigorous but not entirely convincing defense of Stanley against earlier debunkers.

  [>] "sound whipping": Stanley 5, p. 8.

  [>] "utter desolateness": Stanley 5, p. 10.

  [>] "things they should not": Bierman, p. 8.

  [>] "as with a snap": Stanley 5, p. 29.

  [>] "to sail in this ship?": Stanley 5, p. 67.

  [>] "want a boy, sir?": Stanley 5, p. 87.

  [>] "big talk and telling stories": New Orleans Daily States, 16 Apr. 1891, quoted in Bierman, p. 29.

  [>] "almost broke my spine": Stanley 5, p. 33.

  [>] "God bless you!": Stanley 5, p. 113.

  [>] "you are to bear my name": Stanley 5, p. 121.

  [>] "esteemed him as he deserved?": Draft for Stanley's unfinished autobiography, quoted in McLynn 1, pp. 37-38.

  [>] "through excess of sentiment, into folly": Stanley 5, pp. 107–111.

  [>] "debauchery ... whirlpool of sin": Bierman, p. 48.

  [>] "on the warpath": Newspaper dispatch of 25 May 1867, quoted in Bierman, p. 47.

  [>] "we were here all the time": reportedly said by Dr. Hastings Banda of Malawi, quoted in McLynn 3, p. ix.

  [>] too vile to be spoken of: West, pp. 22–23.

  [>] "in the emancipation of slaves": Honour, p. 264.

  [>] "BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!": Stanley 1, pp. xvi–xvii.

  [>] "all the subsequent professional travel writers": George Martelli, Leopold to Lumumba: A History of the Belgian Congo 1877–1960 (London: Chapman & Hall, 1962), p. 10.

  [>] "bring his bones to you": Stanley's Despatches to the New York Herald 1871–72, 1874–77, ed. Norman R. Bennett (Boston: Boston University Press, 1970), p. 23, quoted in Bierman, p. 101.

  [>] "the Arab ... the Banyan ... the half-castes": Stanley 1, p. 6.

  [>] "too ungrateful to suit my fancy": Slade 2, p. 23.

  [>] "sometimes to an extravagant—activity": Bierman, p. 97.

  [>] "well flogged and chained": Stanley 1, p. 318.

  [>] "thorn clumps and gum trees!": Stanley's Despatches to the New York Herald, p. 76, quoted in Bierman, p. 109.

  [>] "their next resting place?": Stanley 1, pp. 112–113.

  [>] march to the sea: McLynn 1, p. 204.

  [>] "fellow Missourian": Hall, p. 99.

  2. THE FOX CROSSES THE STREAM

  [>] Leopold II: Emerson is the standard scholarly biography of Leopold. Ascherson does a better job of capturing the spirit of the man but is scantily footnoted.

  [>] "by this last report": Queen Marie-Louise to Leopold, 28 June 1849, reprinted in Freddy, p. 27.

  [>] "That is Leopold's way!": Emerson, p. 23.

  [>] "saying disagreeable things to people": Aronson, p. 35.

  [>] "by nun I mean the Duke of Brabant": Madame de Metternich, quoted in Ascherson, p. 34.

  [>] "I shall not go on living much longer": Joanna Richardson, My Dearest Uncle. Leopold I of the Belgians (London: Jonathan Cape, 1961), p. 188, quoted in Ascherson, p. 36.

  [>] "has now borne fruit": Leopold to Albert, 19 Nov. 1857, quoted in Emerson, p. 56.

  [>] "richest countries in the world": Emerson, p. 19.

  [>] "makes now out of her colonies": Leopold to Brialmont, quoted in Ascherson, p. 46.

  [>] "corrupt peoples of the Far East": L. Le Febve de Vivy, Documents d'histoire précoloniale belge (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales, 1955), p. 20, quoted in Stengers 7, p. 19. On Money, also see Money, Stengers 1, p. 145 fn., and Marchal 1, pp. 40–41.

  [>] "times as big as Belgium": Leopold to Lambermont, 11 June 1861, quoted in Roeykens, pp. 413–414 fn.

  [>] "let such a fine prey escape": Leopold to Brialmont, 16 May 1861, quoted in Stengers 7, p. 21.

  [>] "got to make her learn": L. le Febve de Vivy, Documents d'histoire précoloniale belge (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales, 1955), p. 23, quoted in Ascherson, p. 58.

  [>] "'a great veterinarian'?": Daye, pp. 438–439.

  [>] "without knowing how to wear it": Marshal Canrobert, quoted in Daye, p. 92.

  [>] "banned by a malignant fairy": Aronson, pp. 34–35.

  [>] "his admirable wife": Louise, p. 34.

  [>] "to me or my sisters": Louise, p. 29.

  [>] Laeken and its greenhouses: Goedleven, pp. 69–75.

  [>] "Little?": Stinglhamber and Dresse, p. 256.

  [>] "Muchachos, aim well": Hyde, p. 291.

  [>] "I am starving, literally starving!": Hyde, p. 226. See also O'Connor, pp. 271–273.

  [>] "anything to be done in Africa": Leopold to Lambermont, 22 Aug. 1875, quoted in Roeykens, pp. 95–96.

  [>] 100,000 francs: Roeykens, p. 73.

  [>] "letters must be written after the names": Vandewoude, p. 434.

  [>] "even the Ink and the Ammunition": Rawlinson to Lady Rawlinson, 11 Sept. 1876, quoted in Pakenham, p. 21.

  [>] Leopold's speech to the Geographical Conference: reprinted in P. A. Roeykens, Leopold II et la Conférence géographique de Bruxelles (1876) (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales, 1956), pp. 197–199. See Bederman for a short treatment of the conference.

  [>] "greatest humanitarian work of this time": Pakenham, p. 22.

  3. THE MAGNIFICENT CAKE

  [>] wielding the whip and the gun: And much worse; see Marchal 1, pp. 28–32.

  [>] "Exploration of Africa": Stanley 2, vol. 2, pp. 346–347.

  [>] "'we shall call Stanley Pool!'": Stanley 5, p. 329.

  [>] "three or four score villages": Stanley 7, p. 199.

  [>] "quiet the mocking": Stanley 7, p. 125.

  [>] "as if they were monkeys": Bierman, p. 182.

  [>] "safe in London": McLynn 2, p. 11.

  [>] "species of human vermin": New York Herald, 17 Sept. 1877, quoted in McLynn, vol. 2, p. 11.

  [>] "for they are the envoys of God": McLynn 1, p. 257.

  [>] "in chains for 6 months": Stanley 7, p. 87.

  [>] "such miserable slaves": Stanley 7, p. 195.

  [>] "until death relieves them": Stanley to Alice Pike, 25 Dec. 1874, quoted in Bierman, p. 163.

  [>] "angry with Central Africa": Alice Pike to Stanley, 13 Oct. 1874, quoted in McLynn 1, p. 248.

  [>] "attend you in your sleep!": Stanley 2, vol. 2, pp. 148–152.

  [>] "the poor young man was dead": Stanley 2, vol. 1, p. 190.

  [>] "take his last gasp": Stanley 2, vol. 1, p. 91.

  [>] "and not disturb him": Stanley 7, p. 130.

  [>] "the strong Basoko with jeers": Ward, p. 110.

  [>] part of white anatomy: Hulstaert, p. 52.

  [>] "commerce to West Central Africa": Daily Telegraph, 12 Nov. 1877, quoted in Stanley 3, vol. 1, p. vi.

  [>] "through a rock tunnel": Stanley 2, vol. 2, p. 261–262.

  [>] "until I meet you": Stanley to Alice Pike, 14 Aug. 1876, quoted in Bierman, p. 189.

  [>] footnote: quoted in Bierman, p. 214.

  [>] "indecency of their nakedness": Stanley 2, vol. 2, p. 59.

  [>] "western half of the Dark Continent": Stanley 2, vol. 2, p. 99.

  [>] "commerce with Central Africa": Stanley 7, p. 40.

  [>] "reached the Lualaba": Leopold to Greindl, 30 May 1877, quoted in Roeykens, p. 235.

  [>] "this magnificent African cake": Leopold to Solvyns, 17 Nov. 1877, quoted in part in Pakenham, p. 38, and in part in Ascherson, p. 104.

  [>] Sanford's business troubles: Fry 1, esp. pp. 78–89.

  [>] "loves and appreciates you": Greindl to Sanford, 28 Nov. 1877, quoted in Fry 1, p. 133.

  [>] "called a pirate": Hall, p. 245.

  4. "THE TREATIES MUST GRANT US EVERYTHING"

  [>] time spent in Africa: Marchal 1, p. 49.

  [>] "has been a nose-bleed?": Stanley 5, p. 351.

  [>] the real purpose of their work: Marchal 1,
p. 49.

  [>] "explorations are intended": "The Whitehall Review and the King of the Belgians," in The Whitehall Review, 2 Aug. 1879, p. 269. Quoted in Stengers 3, p. 122.

  [>] "doesn't grasp that": Leopold to Strauch, 8 Jan. 1884, quoted in Stanley 6, pp. 20–21.

  [>] the elephants: Anstey 1, p. 75.

  [>] "traffic in slaves": speech of 6 Mar. 1879, reprinted in Bontinck, p. 74.

  [>] "to the cause of progress": Stengers 3, p. 144.

  [>] "believe in Kings forever": William T. Hornaday, Free Rum on the Congo (Chicago: Women's Temperance Publication Association, 1887), pp. 44–45, quoted in Stengers 4, p. 260.

  [>] "free negro republics": Col. Maximilien Strauch, quoted in Bierman, p. 225.

  [>] "Some in the Congo?": Eugène Beyens to Léon Lambert, 3 Nov. 1882, quoted in Stengers 3, p. 142.

  [>] "retain all the powers": Strauch to Stanley, undated, Stanley 6, pp. 22–23.

  [>] "shame and discomfort": Stanley to Strauch, 12 June 1881, Stanley 6, p. 49.

  [>] "able to use it as before": Stanley 6, p. 44.

  [>] "the ranks of soldier-laborers": Stanley 3, vol. 2, pp. 93–94.

  [>] "Breaker of Rocks": Stanley 3, vol. 1, pp. 147–148, p. 237. See also Marchal 1, p. 52, for a corrective.

  [>] "weak-minded ... so many idle hands": Stanley 3, vol. 2, pp. 376–377.

  [>] "clothesless ... unabashed nudity": Stanley 3, vol. 2, p. 100.

  [>] "chieftainship to wear them": Stanley 3, vol. 1, pp. 130–131.

  [>] "entrusted to me": Pakenham, p. 150.

  [>] "underbred ... white children": Stanley 3, vol. 1, p. 459.

  [>] "when I most need you?": Frank Hird, H. M. Stanley: The Authorized Life (London: S. Paul & Co., 1935), p. 186, quoted in Bierman, p. 235.

  [>] "perhaps Chinese coolies": Leopold to Stanley, 31 Dec. 1881, quoted in Emerson, p. 96.

  [>] "carry on trade": FO 84/1802, 15 Nov. 1882, quoted in Stengers 3, p. 133.

  [>] "custom of every country": Leopold to Stanley, 31 Dec. 1881, quoted in Emerson, p. 96.

  [>] "claim to manhood": Stanley 3, vol. 1, p. 466.

  [>] "mustgrant us everything": Leopold to Strauch, 16 Oct. 1882, reprinted in Stanley 6, p. 161.