Henry M. Stanley

“ On February 25, 1885, the powers of Europe and America gave their cordial recognition to the Congo Free State, and sanctioned the employment of all civilized means for the preservation of order, the introduction of civilization and lawful commerce, for the guarantees of the safety of its people and efficient administration. It was markedly stipulated that the new state should watch over the preservation of the native races and the moral and material conditions of their existence, should suppress slavery, and, above all, the slave trade, and punish those engaged in it ”

“ The exploration of the interior of the continent, accompanied as it has been by revelations respecting the appalling sufferings of innocent peoples, of the wholesale destruction of tribal communities, [Pg 3] and the annihilation of their humble industries, has so cleared the way to the right comprehension of the worst features of the slave trade that we begin now to see pretty clearly the measures that must be adopted not only for its thorough suppression in the continent, but to obliterate all traces of its past horrors. ”

“ But meantime the importation of negroes from the Nigritian basin and southwestern Soudan into the public slave markets of Morocco will continue until for very shame it will irritate Europe into taking more decided steps in the name of humanity to force the ever-maundering authorities to decree the abolition of the slave trade, and to carry the decree into immediate effect. ”

“ Clarkson long ago said that legitimate trade would kill the slave traffic; Buxton repeated it. Wherever honest trade has been instituted and fairly tried, as in the southern part of the United States, in Jamaica and Brazil, as in Sierra Leone and Lagos, in Old Calabar, in Egypt and the lower Congo, always and everywhere it has been proved that lawful commerce is a great blessing to a land by the peace it brings, by its power of creating scores of little channels [Pg 86] for thrifty industry, by the force of attraction it possesses to draw the marketable products into the general mart. ”

“ Finally, and only four years ago, Brazil, after long and laborious efforts of her most enlightened men, heard that the law of abolition of slavery had passed through her Senate—and thus the cruel and inhuman system of man holding fellow-man as a chattel and barterable property was extinguished throughout all America. ”

“ No caravan is permitted to leave without search; gunpowder and arms are confiscated; slave-traders are tried, and hanged after conviction (the chief judge on the German coast lately sentenced seventeen Arabs to be hanged at Lindi) . The trading depots of the African Lakes Company are pre-eminently [Pg 21] successful in subserving the antislavery cause by suppressing the odious trade in slaves. Had the British done then what is being done now, no other power could have usurped her rights in the immense territory lately abandoned to the Germans. ”

“ Our impatience is excited at the portentously large figures of expense, compared to which the figures of profit seem so infinitesimal, and the rate of progress so insignificant. My endeavor shall be to lessen this feeling of disappointment, and to show how we have been steadily advancing, even in mid-Africa, to extinguish the traffic, and what prospects we have of eventually seeing it abolished altogether from the face of the earth. ”

“ The British territory extended north from Wanga on the sea as far as the mouth of the Juba River, a distance of about 450 miles, thence inland as far as the Congo State. These two great divisions of Africa, now converted into British and German territory, included the major part of the area wherein the slave trade of the east central part of the continent so long flourished. The countries west of Lake Nyassa, extending westward to Portuguese territory and south to the Zambezi, conceded to the great South African Company, absorbed the remainder of the slavery area. ”

“ It has since been attempted by more than one power to continue the trade under the disguised form of cooly and contract labor. Were it honestly conducted, and the contracts punctually executed on the part of the employers, there can be no doubt that it would be a means of elevating the benighted people into a higher standard by the contact with and example of a superior or, rather, more advanced race. But it requires a strong and enlightened government to act as umpire in such cases, and governments, unless they find their influence remunerative, do not care to take too much trouble. ”

“ The maritime exploration of the African coasts by the Portuguese navigators in the fifteenth century was the direct cause of the first inception of the traffic in negroes, and first started the no less inhuman system of slave-holding which this century has seen expiated by one of the most sanguinary wars of which we have any full record. ”

“ Within fifteen months he had gathered nine hundred tusks. He proposed now to the Mtotilas that they should muster carriers to convey his treasure to Kasongo, another country which, according to his reports, he owned, where he had great houses and great estates. In this manner he succeeded in obtaining vast wealth, and the Arabs of the Manyuema settlements, when they viewed his vast store of ivory and innumerable retinue, hailed him as a genius, and recognized his superiority. ”

“ Those, however, who expected too much from the treaty were greatly disappointed when, a few months later, reports reached England that the slave trade was as flourishing as ever. No suspicion was entertained of the sincerity of the Zanzibar prince, for upon every occasion involving the punishment of the slavers he proved his honesty by permitting the law, without protest, to be applied. ”

“ Wheresoever exploration has revealed a slave-hunter’s route, wherever the pioneer has indicated the objective of the [Pg 46] raider, wherever it has been supposed danger might arise from northern or eastern Arab, the state has done its best to put a barrier in the shape of a military station; but there is an extent of country 500 miles in length between the sources of the Aruwimi and the Lukuga affluent, and an area of 200,000 square miles, wholly at the mercy of the Arabs of the east coast, and southwestern Tanganika and Rua are not yet under surveillance. ”

“ The partition of Africa among the European powers, as will have been seen, was the first effective blow dealt to the slave trade in inner Africa. The east coast, whence a few years ago the slavers marched in battalions to scatter over the wide interior of the continent for pillage and devastation, is to-day guarded by garrisons of German and British troops. The island of Zanzibar, where they were equipped for their murderous enterprises, is under the British flag. Trading steamers run up and down the coast ”

“ Manyuema is surpassingly beautiful, the soil is exceedingly fertile, and the people, though troubled by tribal feuds, are industrious cultivators. By the time Livingstone had penetrated the country the Arabs had assumed lordship over it, and each chief was compelled to pay tribute to them in ivory. The Arabs not only monopolized the ivory, but the fear of them was so great among the Manyuema that, to protect themselves from too many masters, they elected to serve some one powerful Arab, to whom they surrendered themselves, their liberties, as well as their properties of all kinds. ”

“ A wonderfully encouraging evidence to my mind that the labor and thoughtfulness [Pg 50] of good men in behalf of Africa is not in vain may be found in the vast army of carriers now employed in the transport of European goods to Stanley Pool, past the cataract region. Ocean steamers ascend the Lower Congo for over a hundred miles, and discharge their miscellaneous cargoes at Mataddi. The loads for transport overland are of sixty and seventy pounds weight. As they are discharged by the ships, they are stacked in warehouses until the human burden-bearers demand their freight. ”

“ That the slave trade must have been a lucrative commerce there can be no doubt, when we consider that from 1777 to 1807 upwards of 3,000,000 Africans had been sold in the West Indies. All those forts which may be seen lining the west coast of Africa to-day were constructed principally by means of the revenue derived from the slave tax. ”

“ An apprenticeship with men who had grown gray in the arts of slave-catching and ivory-raiding had taught them that it was a waste of time to pretend to barter cloth and beads as practised in lands east of Lake Tanganika. ”

“ Europe will not hold the British East African [Pg 81] Company, but England, responsible for not suppressing the slave trade and slave hunt. The agreement with Europe was not made by the company, but by Great Britain through her official and duly appointed representatives. When her official representatives signed the act of the Brussels Antislavery Conference, they undertook in the name of Great Britain the important responsibilities and duties specified within the act. The representatives of all Europe and the United States were witnesses to the signing of the act. ”

“ There was no intention to launch out into any enterprise of conquest, but each power proposed to make its title good by renting or leasing tracts within its sphere from the native princes or tribal chiefs, by making treaties with them for the sovereignty of their lands, in return for annual subsidies and protection from violence, meanwhile being certain of immunity from all interference or opposition from its neighbor. ”

“ Since the Anglo-German Convention the Germans have shown themselves ready and willing to do their part towards the suppression of the slave trade in the same thorough manner that they met the rising of the Arabs. The coast towns are fortified and garrisoned; they are marking their advance towards Lake Tanganika by the erection of military stations; severe regulations have been issued against the importation of arms and gunpowder ”

“ To make these great benefits possible, the Victorian lake must be connected with the Indian Ocean by a railway. That narrow iron track will command effectively 150,000 square miles of British territory. It is the one remedy for the present disgraceful condition of British East Africa. It will enable the company to devote the [Pg 85] thousands now spent wastefully upon porterage to stimulating legitimate traffic, and to employ its immense caravans in more remunerative work than starving and perishing on British soil; to grace the surroundings of its many stations with cornfields and gardens ”

“ The Germans have crushed the slave-traders, have built fortified stations in the interior, have supplied their portion of the east coast with a powerful flotilla [Pg 74] of steamers, are engaged in transporting cruisers to the three great lakes on their borders, have surveyed and are extending surveys for several railways in the interior, have not lost time in discovering ways of evading the territorial wants, but have set about to supply these wants as indicated by the International Conference of Brussels ”

“ The partition of Southwest Africa among France, Portugal and Belgium inspired the Germans to seek territorial possessions in the Dark Continent, and the movement of Germany excited Great Britain to action, and thus public attention was once more diverted to eastern Africa. ”

“ It is pledged to insure the protection of British subjects in Uganda, to protect the Waganda from internecine and factional wars, to place steamers on Lake Victoria for the protection of the lake coasts, and to prevent the wholesale importation of fire-arms. But in the attempt to do what Europe expects to be done the company has been involved in an expense which has been disastrous to its interests. It has established adequate authority in Uganda, but the maintenance of the communication between [Pg 80] Uganda and the coast is absolutely ruinous. ”

“ In a village there would probably be found, on an average, ten tusks, good, bad, and indifferent, thirty full-grown women, and fifty children above five years old, besides a few infants. At the first alarm, a scream from a child or a woman, the warriors and their families dash frantically and pell-mell out of their huts. ”

“ We may now see that the progress of the world in philanthropic feeling and sentiment has been continuous, and as satisfactory as its progress in the adoption and use of the mechanical inventions of the age. ”

“ These strategic efforts to the west and southwest of German East Africa, and the continuous upward advance of the stations and flotillas of King Leopold towards the east, limit the operations of the slave-traders to that narrowing and untravelled area lying between Stanley Falls and Lake Tanganika, and will have the effect of determining the Arabs to seek outlets eastward through British East Africa, which, in its present state, is most backward in fulfilling the objects of united Europe. ”

“ Then from the ambuscade a volley [Pg 28] is fired, and a score fall dead or wounded to the ground, whereat the unseen foes leap out of their coverts to despatch the struggling and groaning victims with knife and spear; and some make mad rushes at a group of terrified children; others dart for a likely-looking woman; a few leap in pursuit of a girl who is flying naked from the scene; some chase a lad who bounds like an antelope over the obstructions. Those not engaged in the fierce chase enter the village, and collect to argue over the rights to this or that child. ”

“ She will prove that she does not mean to be excelled by Germany, France, or Belgium in the suppression of the slave trade and the man hunt, nor is averse to do justice to the Africans whom she has taken under her wing. ”

“ When four or five hundred men rise upon a village whose inhabitants are numerically inferior to them, the event is followed by much fierce discussion of the kind which is not always amicably or easily settled, even when the matter is submitted to the arbitration of the leaders. ”