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Annex

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St. PAUL DE LOANDA,
Province of Angola, (S. W. Africa).
October 14th 1390.

To the President of the Republic of the United
States of America:

I have the honor to submit herewith a Report upon the
condition of the State of Congo, and the country and people
over which it claims jurisdiction.

During my interview with you at the Execution Mansion,
Washington, D. C., Monday morning December 23d 1889, 1 pro-
mised to prepare for you a Memorandum of the International Law
and sentimental reasons why the Government of the Republic of
the United States should ratify the General Act of the Confe-
rence of Berlin, (1884—1885) recognizing ISEtat Independant
du Congo, and assume certain obligations in regard to it,
especially as to neutrality.

In an interview with the Honorable JOHN SHERMAN,
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I
learned that he entertained the same views as yourself, in
regard to the danger of annulling the traditions of a century ;
of violation the Monroe Doctrine, and of approaching the
stormy circle of European politics. The Senator seemed
pleased that I was going to furnish a Memorandum on

500 •"•

- 4 -

,,1'Acte Ge"ne"ral de la Conference de Berlin," and promised to
suspend action on the act until I had completed my investi-
gations. Two days later I sailed for Europe, on my way to
the Congo, (Southwest-Africa).

Upon my return to Brussels, early in January, I found
the atmosphere about the Palace rather cool. Officials, \vlio
formerly greeted me cordially, now avoided me , and wrapped
themselves in an impenetrable reserve. It had become known that
I was going to visit the Congo, and every possible influence was
exerted to turn me aside from my mission. An officer of the King's
Household was dispatched to me for the purpose of persuading
me not to visit the Congo. He dwelt upon the deadly cha-
racter of the climate during the rainy seasons, the perils and
hardships of travelling by caravans, and the heavy expenses
of the voyage, which would cost, he said, £ 400 (Dollar 2,000).
I simply replied, that I was going. — After this the King sent
for me, and received me very cordially. I did not care to lead
up to a conversation on the Congo, and consequently I strove
to turn the conversation to other topics. But I soon saw that
there was but one thing about which His Majesty cared to
converse, and I made up my mind to allow him to do all the
talking, as far as was possible. He said that STANLEY had
told him the Congo would not be worth a shilling without
a railway; that it was difficult to travel in the country, and
more difficult to obtain wholesome food for white men; that
he hoped I would postpone my visit to the Congo for at least
five years; and that all necessary information would be fur-
nished me in Brussels. In reply I told His Majesty that I
was going to the Congo now, and would start within a few
days. nThen you cannot go on the State-Steamers, and must
rely upon the Mission-Steamers," responded His Majesty in
an impatient tone of voice. I made no reply, but simply turned
the conversation to the Anti-Slavery Conference of the
Powers. At a convenient moment I took my leave of His
Majesty and quitted the Palace. A young nobleman of Belgium
with whom I had been on terms of good fellowship, and who

- 5 -

knew all the political gossip of the Court, told me that Mr.
HENRY S. SANFOBD, an American citizen, who has resided in
Belgium for twenty-five or thirty years, suspected one of
two things in connection with my mission to the Congo, viz :
that I came as the representative of an American company to
open up trade and commerce in the Congo, or that I was the
agent of his enemies in America who wished to prove the fal-
sity of his statements in reference to the fertility of the country
and the volume of trade.

I crossed the Channel to England on the night of the
21st day of January 1890, and arrived in London the following
morning. I purchased my African travellers-outfit at the Army
and Navy Store, and on the 28th of January I left for Liver-
pool, from which port I sailed for the Congo on the 30th of
January, in the British and African Steam Navigation C°'s
steamer wGaboon." I wrote you a brief letter from Liverpool,
intimating the opposition my mission met with in Brussels.

The voyage from Liverpool to the capital of the State of
Congo, (Boma) occupied fifty three days; but I was afforded
abundant time and opportunity of visiting all the important
ports on the West Coast of the African Continent.

Permit me, at this point, to make a statement personal
to my-self, but not irrelevant to this Report. I was among the
very first of public men in America to espouse the cause of
I' Association Internationale du Congo. I wrote a series of articles
on African geography, during the winter of 1883 — 1884, in which
I combated Portugal's claim to the Congo. In April 1884,
I presented an argument before the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, urging the passage of a resolution
recognizing the flag of I' Association Internationale du Congo,
as the flag of a friendly Government. The resolution
passed on the 10th of April, and on the 22nd the Secretary of
State, the Honorable FREDERICK J. FRELINGHUYSEN, sent an
order instructing the officers of the army and navy of the
Republic to salute the flag of I' Association Internationale du
Congo as the flag of a friendly Government.

- 6 -

Shortly after this I went to Belgium to place before the
King certain plans for the perfection of the labor-system in
the Congo; and they met the approbation both of the King
and HENRY M. STANLEY. On the 21 st of August 1889, I pu-
blished an elaborate historical paper on the Congo; and a
few weeks later, at the reunion of the Anti-Slavery Leaders
at Boston, I offered a resolution, requesting the President of
the Republic of the United States to accept the invitation of
the King of the Belgians to be represented in an Anti-Slavery-
Conference of the Powers of Europe, to unify action upon
the land and sea looking towards the abatement of the slave-
trade, around and upon the African Continent. Within a few
days a representative was appointed, and I sailed for Europe
to do whatever I could to promote the success of this notable
Conference. I remained at Brussels two months.

Thus much to prove how deeply I have been interested
in the success of the Congo State, the overthrow of the
African Slave-Power, and the spread of civilization. I have
never entertained any other than friendly feelings towards
the King of the Belgians and his African State ; and my report
deals only with those matters which have come under my
personal observation, or the truth of which has been established
by the testimony of competent and veracious witnesses.

The establishment of a State in the Valley of the Congo
is due to His Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians. On
the 13th and 14th days of September 1876, he convened, at
his Palace at Brussels, a company of distinguished African
travellers who represented Germany, Austria-Hungary, France,
England, Italy, Russia and Belgium. The object of this Confe-
rence was to devise the best means of opening the Congo-
country to commerce and civilization. On the 20th and 21st
days of June 1877, another meeting was held at Brussels,
when the Conference took definite shape, and V Association
Internationale du Congo was formed under the Presidency of the
King of the Belgians. He employed HENRY M. STANLEY as his
Chief- Agent to proceed to the Congo and secure the country

as His Majesty's personal possession. Mr. STANLEY was sup-
posed to have made treaties with more than four hundred
native Kings and Chiefs, by which they surrendered their
rights to the soil. And yet many of these people declare
that they never made a treaty with STANLEY, or any
other white man; that their lands have been -taken from
them by force, and that they suffer the greatest wrongs
at the hands of the Belgians. I have never met a chief or
tribe or native, man, woman or child, from Banana, the
mouth of the Congo Kiver, to Stanley-Falls at its headwaters,
who expressed any other sentiment towards the Congo State
than that of hatred, deeply rooted in an abiding sense of
injury, injustice and oppression. "In Russia, Greta and Ireland
the constituted authorities have some support from among the
people; but in the Congo State there is not one solitary native
who would put out his hand to aid the Congo State Government.
Although the majority of the treaties alleged to have
been made by Mr. STANLEY, were only witnessed by his
servantboy ,,Dualla," they were accepted as genuine in Europe
and America. Having possessed itself of a vast tract of land
in the Congo, I' Association Internationale du Congo, of which
the King of the Belgians was President and treasurer, now
sought to obtain recognition in Europe. Failing to secure the
countenance of a single Power, the Association appealed to
the Republic of the United States of America. Its representa-
tive was the Hon. HENRY S. SANFORD. a citizen of the United
States, who had resided in Belgium for twenty- five or thirty
years. Mr. SANFOKD had been many years in the diplomatic
service, and was well qualified for this delicate mission. He
was fortunate to find at Washington a President who was
the son of a Baptist clergyman, whose fame chiefly arose from
his extreme anti-slavery sentiments and work for the slave
in ante-bellum days. Moreover, the Secretary of State was the
son of one of the earliest and most eminent of the Presidents
of the American Colonization Society. Mr. SANFORD'S course was
plain, he appealed to American sentiment and commercial

- 8 -

interest ; and the manner in which the flag of the Association
was recognized, I have already described.

Germany and France now saw that it was the moment
to call for a Conference of European Powers, engaged in the
unseemly scramble for commerce upon the African Continent.
But, after several private conferences between Germany
and France, it was decided to invite the Republic of the
United States of America on account of its supposed relations
to Liberia; and at length the programme was so extended
as to include all the Great-Powers and the Scandinavian States.
The Republic of the United States received an invitation to
join the Congo Conference at Berlin on the 10th of October,
1884, presented by Baron VON ALVENSLEBEN, Envoy Extraor-
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Em-
peror of Germany. The invitation declared that pthe Govern-
ments of Germany and France are of opinion, that it would
be well to form an agreement on the following principles:

1st. Freedom of commerce in the basin and the mouths
of the Congo ;

2nd. Application to the Congo and the Niger of the prin-
ciples adopted by the Vienna Congres, with a view to sanc-
tioning free navigation on several international rivers, which
principles were afterwards applied to the Danube;

3rd. Definition of the formalities to be observed, in order
that new occupations on the coast of Africa may be considered
effective.

On the l?th of October Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN, Secretary of
State, adressed a reply to Baron VON ALVENSLEBEN'S note of
invitation, and said:

/.The Government of the United States views in this an-
nouncement and invitation an expression of the wish of the
German Government to recognize the importance of the unim-
peded traffic of the Congo Valley and the West Coast of Africa,
and to secure its free enjoyment to all countries. This Govern-
ment, entertaining the same views, to which it has given effect
by its recognition of the flag of the International Association

g

of the Congo, will have pleasure in accepting the invitation
of His Imperial Majesty's Government, and will instruct the
1. c. Representative of the United States at Berlin to take part in
the proposed Conference, on the understanding (so far as this
Government is concerned) that the business to be brought
before the Conference is to be limited to the three heads
mentioned in your note, dealing solely with the commercial
interests of the Congo region and of Western Africa, and that while
taking cognizance of such establishment of limits to international
territorial claims in that region as may be brought before it
as matters of fact, the Conference is itself not to assume to
decide such questions. The object of the Conference being
simply discussion and accord, the Government of the United
States, in taking part therein, reserves the right to decline to
accept the conclusions of the Conference."

This then was a clear statement of the views and attitude
of the Government of the Republic of the United States in
regard to the proposed Conference of Berlin upon Congo and
West African affairs. The Secretary of State never altered
his views or position from first to last; and he never per-
mitted his Government to become a party to a scheme of
seizing and dividing the Congo-country among certain European
Powers, one of the foulest crimes of modern diplomatic history!
One plenipotentiary told me that when he went to a certain
European Statesman, and asked that his Government be given
more territory, this Chairman of the Committee on „ Distri-
bution" exclaimed: „! have given away all the territory that
is on the map!" This was not in reference to the Congo-State
alone, for there is the French Congo and the Portuguese
Congo as well; and the amount of territory passed upon at
Berlin was 2,400,000 square miles.

The Conference met at Berlin on the 15th of November 1884,
and, under the Presidency of Prince BISMARCK, continued in
session , excepting a few adjournments , until the 26th February
1885; and after signing the General Act, the august Conference
adjourned.

- 10 -

JSEtat Independant du Congo was created and became
the successor of V Association Internationale du Congo. The
King of the Belgians was now requested, or rather bcc;um>
the natural chief of the new State, as he had been of the
Association ; but there was a constitutional obstacle in the way
of his Majesty assuming the legal headship of this African State.
Article LXII (62) of the Belgian Constitution provides, — nThe
King cannot be at the same time chief of another State, without
the consent of the two Chambers. Neither of the two Chambres
can discuss this subject unless two-. thirds at last of the members
composing it be present, and the resolutions can only be passed
providing it is supported by two-thirds of the votes." I trans-
late and insert here the record of the proceeding by which
LEOPOLD II became the Sovereign of the Congo State. ,The Belgian
Legislative Chamber, by a resolution, adopted in the Chamber of
Representatives the 28th of April 1885, and in the Senate April
30th 1885, authorized His Majesty LEOPOLD II, King of the
Belgians, to become the Chief of another State, in conformity
with article 62 of the Belgian Constitution." The resolution is as
follows: ,,His Majesty LEOPOLD II, King of the Belgians, is au-
thorized to become the Chief of the State founded in Africa by
V Association Internationale du Congo. The union between Belgium
and the new State shall remain exclusively personal."

On the Is* of August 1885, His Majesty notified the Powers
that the possessions of V Association Internationale du Congo
would in the future constitute VEtat Independent du Congo;
that he had assumed, in accord with the Association, the title
of wSouverain de 1'Etat Independant du Congo ;" that the rela-
tion between Belgium and this State was exclusively personal,
and that it was to remain perpetually neutral.

On the 30*h Of October 1885, His Majesty, as Sovereign of
the Congo State, issued a Decree creating three Departments
for his new State Government, and naming three chiefs, 1st
Department of Foreign Affairs, incliiding Justice, with three
Bureaux: a. Foreign Affairs, &. Postal and Maritime, c. Judicial
affairs; 2nd Department of Finance: a. General taxes, b. Land

11 -

Department, c. Pay and Auditor's Department; 3rd Departe-
ment of Interior: a. Administration, b. Roads and communica-
tions, c. Army and Navy.

The three heads of departments constituted a council,
under the Presidency of the Sovereign, who is the absolute
Ruler. His councelors may recommend but can never share
his authority. He makes all the laws under the title of ^Decrees,"
and from his decisions there is no appeal. His Government
is denominated as local, the European portion of the Congo-State.

In the Congo there is a Governor-General, in charge
of the State, who issues such laws as he feels are necessary
under the title of nordonnances," but except they are reissued
as a „ Decree" by the Sovereign within six months, they are
null and void. There are an Inspector- General, Secretary-
General, Procurer-General, Finance-General, Judges and Com-
missaires of Districts. There are postmasters, transport-officers
and clerks of various kinds.

A small portion of the country, claimed by the Independant
State of Congo, is divided into Military Districts; the rest is
dominated by natives whose lawful possession it is. There are
eleven Military Districts, viz: 1. Banana, 2. Boma, 3. Matadi,
4. Manyanga, 5. Lukunga, 6. Leopoldville, 7. The Kassai River,
8. Bangala, 9. Basoko, 10. Lumani, 11. Stanley Falls. There
are two „ Military and Commercial Expeditions" on the Itimberi
and Welle Rivers, and a third has just started.

Each one of these military districts is commanded by an
officer of the Belgian Army, supported by other officers and
non-commissioned officers. The ,,Commissaire of District" is
of one of three classes, and needs not always be an army
officer, for he deals with civil affairs only. All disputes and
native palavers are settled by the military commander, and
sometimes by the commissaire of the district, and their decision
is final. When an offence has been committed against the
State, the native may be fined, emprisoned or enslaved. In the
Upper-Congo the State officials generally demand slaves for
settling natives palavers. They promise to liberate these people

- 12 -

after seven years service. As far as I have been able to in-
vestigate, this system of Government is unjust, capricious and
absolutely cruel. There is scarcely one percent of the State
officials, military and civil, who know the native language;
and frequently the interpreter, an uneducated negro from
Zanzibar or the East-Coast, knows little French, and puts ques-
tions indistinctly, or translates the testimony of the nati-
ves indifferently. I have seen this in the Supreme Court at
Boma also. I called the attention of the Clerk of the Court
to the poor French of the Interpreter, and he told me that,
if that were all, it would not be so bad; but that the fellow
was a notorious liar into the bargain! And yet upon this
stammering patois hangs the bondage or liberty, the peace
and property of many a native.

In addition to these military districts there are more
than fifty (50) posts of from two to ten black soldiers in the
Upper-Congo. They have no white commissioned officer, and
act to suit their own fancy. They receive no supplies from
the State, and are expected to levy tribute upon the natives.
They seize fish, goats, fowls, eggs, vegetables &c. for their
nourishment; and when the natives demur or refuse to be
^spoiled," these black pirates burn their villages and confiscate
their property. I have been an unwilling and mournfull witness
to these atrocities. It is almost impossible for a traveller to
buy food, an account to the ravages committed by these buc-
caneers of the State of Congo, who are guilty of murder,
arson and robbery. Often the natives move their towns miles
away rather than submit to the indignities inflicted by an
unfeeling mercenary soldiery.

The entire military force of the State of Congo is less
than three-thousand (3,000) men, and hundred of miles of
the country is without a single soldier. In this country, disti-
tute of a military police and semblance of constituted authority,
the most revolting crimes are committed by the natives. They
practice the most barbarous religious and funeral rites; they
torture, murder and eat each other. Against these shocking

- 13 -

crimes the State puts forth no effort; indeed it systemati-
cally abandons thousands of victims to the slaughter every
year. Human hands and feet and limbs, smoked and dried,
are offered and exposed for sale in many of the native vil-
lage markets.

From the mouth of the Loumami-River to Stanley-Falls
there are thirteen armed Arab camps; and in them I have
seen many skulls of murdered slaves pendant from poles
and over these camps floating their blood-red flag. I saw no-
where the Congo-State flag, and I know that it would be torn
down if it were displayed among these ivory and slave raiders.
Here the State has no authority, can redress no wrong, protect
no life or property.

The tribes of the Congo are numerous and interesting
people, and may be divided as follows: 1. The Mussurongo
are on the Lower Congo River; 2. The Ki-Congo inhabit
the Cataract Region ; 3. The Ki-Teke or Batike people
reside around Stanley-Pool and up as far as the mouth
of the Kwa River; 4. Ki Bangi or Bobangi people extend from
the mouth of the Kwa River to the mouth of the Mobangi
River; 5. The Irebu (Kilolo?) or Balolo people occupy the
banks of the Lulonga, Ruki and Ikelemba rivers; 6. The Lulanga,
Bangala and Mekiba people speak the Bangala language;

7. The Upoto, N'Dobbe, Ebunda, Bumba and Jambinga people
speak the Langa-Langa language, as far as the Itimberi River;

8. The Jalulema language is spoken as far as Basoko; 9. The
Wakumu and Wakenia languages are spoken from Basoko to
Stanley-Falls.

These various peoples are differentiated by their environs
and occupations. In the Lower Congo, where the natives have been
in contact with Europeans for centuries, felt the shock of the
slave-trade and the degrading influence of rum, they are
diminutive in form, obsequious, deceitful, untrustworthy, unmanly
and unreliable. Their villages are the abodes of wretchedness,
misery and common vice. Their huts, poorly constructed of bad
material, and their uncleanness breed the most pestilential

— 14 -

diseases, which often devastate whole communities of these
hapless victims of their own filth.

Passing from the coast inland I found a slight improve-
ment, a stronger and more active people, in the Cataract
Region ; and yet these pastoral people are surely falling under
the destructive influence of poisonous liquor. Under the effect
of this deadly liquor I found the old people looking older, and
the young men weary and prematurely decaying; and villages,
formerly the scenes of content and activity, at present rent
by brawling disorders.

At Stanley-Pool, where the natives cannot obtain liquor,
I found them an industrious and prosperous people. They are
fisherman and traders, and live in neat and comfortable
villages. And as I continued my journey up the river, I
noticed the native type improving in feature, size, complexion
and even in character. Among the people around Bolobo,
Bangala and Equator I beheld the most splendid types of
physical manhood I had seen in any land or among any
people I have travelled; I found them brave, frank and gene-
rous; but how long they will be able to keep this character
if rum is once introduced among them, I cannot say. They
have only been in contact with the white men for a few
years, and thus far they are eager for trade, industrious and
peaceable. And with practical missionary work, or industrialism,
these people would soon become civilized.

From Iringi until some distance above Upoto, the natives
are in a deep state of degradation. Their villages are built in cir-
cular form of grass and small bamboopoles, and their food is
scanty and almost entirely vegetable. They suffer from cuta-
neous diseases; their eyes are jaundiced, and by constant inter-
marriage heartdisease is a tribal affliction. The women wear
nothing but a string of beads around their loins, and the loss
of life among infants is great, from lack of proper nursing
and nourishment. The faces and bodies of these people are
covered with the most revolting looking scares, made with
sharp knives. There is not one half square inch of space upon

- 15 -

the face that is not cut and scared; and often a piece of
Ivory or Iron is passed through a hole in the upper lip or
nose, and is worne as an ornament. Holes are made in the
ears large enough to run an ordinary walking stick through, and
large pieces of rope tied in them. The arms and breast are
cut and tattooed, and around the neck and , ankles are
worn large brass and iron rings. These people practise human
sacrifices ; and I have examined the skulls of their victims in
their villages, where they display them with an almost fun-
dish pleasure. From the mouth of the Aruwimi to the
mouth of the Lumani river, there is quite a different people
from those I had previously met with. They were a people
without a country or a village. I called them Water-gypsies,
for they live in large boats with their families. They fish
and trade along the river with the natives. They are a strong,
healthy and contented people, taking pleasure in their work,
and with spirit to fight, when assailed by the more warlike
tribes inhabiting the rivertowns.

I have noticed that wherever the African has sufficient
food and labor, he presents a splendid type of man, tall, well
and closely knit, muscular, agil and cheerful. He is also less
cruel and superstitious.

I found a strange and striking variety of types. I have had
among my carriers perfect types of the North- American Indian,
the flat head, broad chin, large eyes, thin lips and wide mouth.
Their hair is long, reaching below their shoulders, and which
they always keep plaited in long braids. Their voice is shrill
and far-reaching, and they run with the same skill and speed
of the Indians, I have served against in Southwestern and
Western America and Mexico.

I have come across the Japanese type, the eyes, head,
face and size of body, identical with those of our eastern
neighbours. I have seen tribes, destitute of every negroid
characteristic, being light copper-color, with pronounced Euro-
pean features, a gentle and generous people.

As to the population in the Valley of the Congo, I would

- 16 -

say it is many millions less than the figures furnished by
H. M. STANLEY or the State of Congo. These figures give a
population of from 49,000,000 to 51,000,000, while I give it
as my honest and candid judgment that there are not more
than 15,000,000 people in the entire country. I have tra-
velled over the same route Mr. STANLEY took, and stopped at
the same towns. I had the same or as good facilities for
finding out the population, and with his book in my hand I
endeavoured to test his figures. First of all it must be under-
stood that the towns are numerous but thinly populated;
and where he found ten thousand, (10,000) I found only 4,000
people, and so on in proportion.

Many of the towns, mentioned in his book on the Congo,
have been moved away or destroyed by war or small pox
epidimic. Nothing is so deceptive as estimating a population
in a heathen country. The villages are often built along the
river bank for miles, with small spaces between them. To see
the people along the fronts of their villages creates the
impression that the population is numerous; but when you
begin your investigation you will find two hundred people in
one village, one hundred and fifty in another, four hundred
in another, and so on. In three miles of villages you may
find two thousand (2.000) souls. Nothing concerning Africa
is so constantly overestimated and exagerated as its popula-
tion, and I must warn lexicographers and map-makers that the
population of Africa, as set down at 250,000,000. is pure and
simple fiction. I do not believe it is 100,000,000, and no one
will even know, untill we shall be able to have a census by
the European Powers occupying territory upon the African
Continent, and then it will only be approximate. From Banana
to Boma the Congo-country is composed of Islands, available
for rice, coffee, and grazing ; and from Boma to Matadi it is
absolutely sterile. From Matadi to Leopoldville - the Cata-
ract Region - - there is but little good soil, and the vegetable
life is small and precarious. Around Stanley-Pool there is some
fertile land, and it is cultivated by the natives to some extent.

- 17 -

From the Pool through the Channel, - as I have decided
to call it, three days steaming, the country is perfectly
barren. From the mouth of the Pool to the mouth of the
Kassa'i Eiver the banks are steep and of white clay, and the
channel narrow, through which rushes a current at 4 knots an
hour. At the mouth of the Kassa'i the high bluffs give way to
low lands, fertile, open, green, wide and beautiful. At Bolobo
and Lokolela, tobacco, beans, corn-manioc, &c. are raised in large
quantities. On the Equator and at Bangala, nearly every vege-
table found in Europe can be grown. The country conti-
nues fairly good until the Lumani river, and from thence to
the seventh cataract (Stanley-Falls) it is poor. The Congo-
country has been overestimated and its fertility exagera-
led by the advertising agents of persons who wished to
promote financial schemes. The commerce of the Congo
has always been misrepresented. There are only two arti-
cles exported from the Upper- Congo, Ivory and Rubber,
and these only in small quantities. I have no doubt but that
many other valuable products of the country could be exported,
and would find a ready market; but the native must be
taught. — and he is a very conservative individual, --to
bring other things to the white trader. And if it require labor
to put the new products before the trader, it will be a long
time before it will be forth-coming.

There are five houses of the Dutch Trading Company
between Stanley-Pool and Stanley-Falls; the Belgians have
five; the French three. All the goods and supplies for trading
purposes, which these Companies use, are carried from Matadi
and Loango, two hundred and seventy and three hundred
miles respectively, on the heads of natives. While it is true
that the native does not care to work, that custom has made
the African woman the producer while the man is the con-
sumer, it should not be forgotten that within ten years
or more seventy five thousand (75,000) blacks are engaged
in the transport-system. This is one of the brightest and most
significant pages in African history, and deserves our admi-

- 18 -

ration and praise. These men make from three to four trips a
year, 810 to 1,080 miles, and carry from 65 to 80 pounds
burden. They are faithful and reliable, and without their service
no trade could be conduced upon the Upper-Congo; neither
missionary nor trader could exist. But while the transport
system is admirable and adequate, it is also costly. Every
load costs from £ 1.— to £ 1.10.— from Matadi to the
Pool, and from Loango to Brazzaville. The carriers take up to
the Pool bales of cloth, salt, powder, brass rods, beads,
and canned food for the European traders and missionaries.
They carry back to the Coast ivory and rubber. The
transport is the great burden to commerce and missions at
present, for it costs from ten to fifteen percent of the cost-
price of goods to get them from the Coast to the Upper- Congo
River. After all that is said about the fertility of African soil
there is very little at present that an European can rely upon
as food. He must import lard, butter, sardines, ham, sausages,
corned-beef, tea, coffee, sugar, condensed milk, pickles, peaches,
pears, strawberries, salt, pepper, crackers, flour, cheese, rice,
macaroni, tapioca, spices &c. Flour, rice and sugar are heavy
articles, and cost the consumer dearly. In fact all the articles
I have enumerated have to be packed securely and are con-
sequently bulky.

Last year the State of Congo sent 35,000 loads from Ma-
tadi to Leopoldville across the Cataract Region. It is hoped
that the Congo-railway will remedy the difficulties of the
transport-system; but this road is not yet built, nor will it be
for some eight years to come. Even when completed it will
not pay for years, untill the native brings into the market
some thing else besides Ivory and Rubber.

There must be organized industrialism by which cotton,
rice, sugar, tobacco, coffee &c. can be cultivated for export.

In addition to the burdens of the transport system, the
Congo-State has unwisely imposed burdensome taxes and
duties upon the produce exported from the Congo. These duty
on ivory of every quality is 2,000 francs = £ 80-/- per ton,

- 19 -

enough to destroy the trade, and drive the trading companies
into bankruptcy. The fact is, the State of Congo is engaged in
trade, and while it taxes other traders exempts itself from all
financial burdens, in direct violation of the provisions of the
General- Act of the Conference of Berlin.

Timber is taxed to such an extent that a missionary
cannot cut a stick three feet long without securing written
permission, and even then a tax must be paid. The State
steadfastly refuses to give a clear title to land; and every
trader and missonary may be ousted by the railway com-
pany under the law of expropriation. Every servant, carrier
and laborer, of whatsoever description, is taxed, and thus
the State represses the spirit of progress and retards the
development of the country. It is in a state of chronic con-
troversy with the traders, and the most unfriendly relations
subsist between them. No one has a voice in the Government.
A carefully organized system of import-taxes has been esta-
blished and goes into effect in Oct. 1890. Nothing in the
history of political economy and tariff-legislation can equal
these laws for their inequality, injustice and repressive
character.

The State recruits its soldiers and employs its laborers
on the East and West-coast of Africa ; to transport them from
the former coast costs «£ 10 = $ 50 per capita, and to bring them
from the latter coast costs «£ 1 to £ 1.101- == $ 5 to $ 7.

The soldiers serve three years, the workmen one year;
and the loss by desertion, sickness, death and reshipment is
about £. 12,000 == f 60,000 per annum. The natives of the
Congo serve in the transport corps because there are no
Belgians to cruelly treat them; but they will not enter the
service of te State. Kindness, firmness and justice to the
natives would soon secure a large and reliable native labor
force. But violence and injustice drive these poor children
of nature away from the white man. Emigration cannot be
invited to the Congo for a quarter of a century, and then
only educated blacks from the Southern United states, who

- 20 -

have health, courage, morals and means. They must come
only in small companies, not as laborers, but as landed
proprietors. One hundred families in ten years would be quite
enough and not for twenty five years yet. White labor can
never hope to get a foot-hold here.

The climate is too severe for northern people. There are
the dry and the rainy season in the Lower-Congo, but above
the Equator there is no dry, no rainy season; it rains at
intervals all the time. I rather enjoyed the climate of the
Equator more than the West- Africa climate. The climate above
the Lumani and at Stanley-Falls is the severest I experienced.
I have recorded a change of thirty degrees in the mercury of my
thermometre at Stanley-Falls in one day of sixteen hours ; and
I have noted frequent changes of fifteen degrees. The rains
fall frequently and the mists from the Falls are very heavy
morning and evening. I found the five white men residing
there either sick or convalescent.

Although the State of Congo promised the Powers of
Europe to use all its abilities to suppress the slave-trade, the
traffic goes on beneath its flag and upon its territory. At
Stanley-Falls slaves were offered to me in broad day-light;
and at night I discovered canoe loads of slaves, bound strongly
together. When I complained of this I was told by the
„ Resident" of the Congo-State that he had no power to pre-
vent it. which is quite true, for he had a garrison of thirty men
of whom only seventeen were effectives.

But the State not only suffers the trade in slaves to
continue, it buys the slaves of natives, and pays to its mili-
tary officers £ 3-/- per capita for every able-bodied slave he
procures. Every military post in the Upper- Congo thus becomes
a slave-market; the native is encouraged to sell slaves by the
State, which is always ready to buy them. This buying of
slaves is called ^redemption," and it is said that after seven
years the slave may have his liberty. But it is my opinion
that these hapless creatures are the perpetual slaves of the
State of Congo.

After thirteen years of occupation by the International
Association and State of Congo; no map has been made of
the Upper-Congo River; no school has been erected; no
hospital founded and nothing contributed to science or
geography. At first the Government was international in
character, but of late years it has degenerated into a narrow
Belgian Colony, with a determined purpose to drive all other
nations out of the Congo that are now represented by
trade. In a letter of instructions to the representative
of the Government of the Republic of the United States at
Berlin, the Secretary of State wrote on the 17*h of October
1884: nAs far as the administration of the Congo- Valley is con-
cerned, this Government has shown its preference for a neutral
control, such as is promised by the Free-States of the Congo,
the nuclens of which has been already created through the
organized efforts of the International Association. Whether the
approaching Conference can give further shape and scope to
this project of creating a great State in the heart of Western
Africa, whose organization and administration shall afford a
guarantee that it is to be held for all time, as it were, intrust
for the benefit of all peoples, remains to be seen."

This singularly lucid statement carries with it a prophetic
influence, and I clearly see how the promises and pledges of the
Association and State have been violated. It would be vain to
endeavour to hide the fact that the Congo-State is a Belgian
Colony as much as the Cape of Good Hope is an English
Colony. The difference is that every body knew when England
went to the Cape she intended to built a colony that should
wear the British Colonial stamp. Belgians invited the world to
enjoy free-trade in the Congo, and now, after Englishmen, French-
men, Portuguese and Dutch have invested thousands of pounds
in the venture, they are to be taxed to death by a purely Belgian
Colonial Government. The mask is cast off and every provi-
sion of the General Act of the Conference of Berlin has been
violated; and the written and sealed pledge made to the Go-
vernment of the Republic of the United States, that no import-

- 22 -

or export-duties would be levied, has long since been torn up
and given to the winds. Please see Senate Executive Document
No. 196, p.p. 348 and 355-357.

There is one ray of hope for the Congo, and that is in
the character of the Christian Missions.

No foreign missionary field was ever so quickly occupied
by Christian workers as the Congo. The American Baptist
Missionary Union has eight stations, the English Baptists
seven, and the Congo Bololo Mission three; Catholic missions
three, one just abandoned, which made four, three Bishop-Taylor-
missions, one nfaithcure," ^Simpson mission," two Swedish
missions, twenty-seven (27) in all. Some of them are eminently
useful, and several of them are conspiciously helpless. The
missionaries have great influence with the natives, and they go
and come among the fiercest cannibalistic tribes without fear
of being molested. Whenever the Mends at home, who sup-
port and regulate these missions, will add an industrial feature
to each one of them, their efficiency will be increased tenfold.

My travels extended from the mouth of the Congo at
Banana, where it empties into the South Atlantic, to its
headwaters at the Seventh Cataract, at Stanley-Falls; and from
Brazzaville, on Stanley-Pool, to the South Atlantic Ocean at
Loango, I passed through the French-Congo, via Comba,
Bouenza and Loudima. In four months, or in one hundred
and twinty five days I travelled 3,266 miles, passing from
Southwestern Africa to East Central Africa, and back to the
sea. I camped in the bushes seventy-six times, and on
other occasions received hospitilaty of traders, missionaries
and natives. Of my eighty-five natives I lost not a life, although
we sometimes suffered from fatigue, hunger and heat.

Although America has no commercial interests in the
Congo it was the Government of the Republic of the United
States which introduced this African Government into the
sisterhood of States. It was the American Republic which
stood sponsor to this young State, which has disappointed the
most glowing hopes of its most ardent friends and most

- 23 -

zealous promoters. Whatever the Government of the Repu-
blic of the United States did for the Independant State of
Congo, was inspired and guided by noble and unselfish motives.
And whatever it refrains from doing, will be on account of
its elevated sentiments of humanity, and its sense of the
sacredness of agreements and compacts, in their letter and
spirit. The people of the United States of America have a just
right to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, respecting the Independant State of Congo, an absolute
monarchy, an oppressive and cruel Government, an exclusive
Belgian colony, now tottering to its fall. I indulge the hope
that when a new Government shall rise upon the ruins of
the old, it will be simple, not complicated ; local, not European ;
international, not national; just, not cruel; and, casting its
shield alike over black and white, trader and missionary, en-
dure for centuries.

GEO. W. WILLIAMS.