IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 26, 1884—Ordered to be printed
Mr. Morgan, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the following
REPORT
(To accompany S. Res. 68 and Mis. Doc. 59)
The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom were referred Senate Mis. Doc. No. 59 and Senate Joint Resolution 68, relating to the occupation of the Congo Country, in Africa, have had the same under consideration, and report a substitute for the same, and recommend its passage.
The President, in his annual message to this Congress, expresses the sentiment of the people of the United States on the subject of our future relations with the inhabitants of the valley of the Congo, in Africa.
Our attitude towards that country is exceptional, and our interest in its people is greatly enhanced by the fact that more than one-tenth of our population is descended from the negro races in Africa.
The people of the United States, with but little assistance from the Government, have established a free republic in Liberia, with a constitution modelled after our own, and under the control of the negro race. Its area is 14,300 square miles; its population is about 1,200,000 souls; its commerce is valuable; its government is successful, and its people are prosperous.
The necessity for a negro colony in Liberia was suggested by the fact that slaves found in vessels captured for violations of the slave-trade laws and treaties were required to be returned to Africa when that was practicable, and it was impossible, and it would have been useless and cruel, to send them back to the localities where they were first enslaved. Humanity prompted certain private citizens of the United States to organise the American Colonisation Society in aid of the return of captured slaves to Africa and to find a congenial asylum and home for negroes who were emancipated in the United States.
Henry Clay was, for many years, president of this association, and assisted it with the influence of his great name and broad philanthropy.
The success of the Liberian colony has demonstrated the usefulness of that system of dealing with a social question which is, to the people of the United States, of the highest importance. It has also established a recognised precedent in favour of the right of untitled individuals to found states in the interests of civilisation in barbarous countries, through the consent of the local authorities, and it has given confidence to those who look to the justice of the nations for a restoration of the emancipated Africans to their own country, if they choose to return to it.
This great duty has, so far, been left entirely to the efforts of citizens of the United States, and it has been supported almost exclusively by their personal contributions. The governments of the world have been slow even to recognise the state thus founded by the courage and means of private citizens, but it is now firmly established in the family of nations and is everywhere recognised as a free and independent nation.
This pleasing history of progress, attended with peace and prosperity in Liberia, has given rise to a feeling of earnest interest amongst the people of the United States in the questions which arise from the recent discovery by their countryman, H. M. Stanley, of the great river which drains equatorial Africa. They rejoice in the revelation that this natural highway affords navigation for steamers extending more than half the distance across the continent, and opens to civilisation the valley of the Congo, with its 900,000 square miles of fertile territory and its 50,000,000 of people, who are soon to become most useful factors in the increase of the productions of the earth and in swelling the volume of commerce.
The movements of the International African Association which, with a statement of its purposes, are referred to in the letter of the Secretary of State, appended to this report, are in the direction of the civilisation of the negro population of Africa, by opening up their country to free commercial relations with foreign countries.
As a necessary incident of this praiseworthy work, which is intended, in the broadest sense, for the equal advantage of all foreign nations seeking trade and commerce in the Congo country, the African International Association has acquired, by purchase from the native chiefs, the right of occupancy of several places for their stations and depots. The property so acquired is claimed only for the association, which is composed of persons from various countries, and it could not, therefore, be placed under the shelter of any single foreign flag.
From the time when the people of Christian countries began to export slaves from Africa, the custom grew up of locating “barracoons” or slave depots along the African coasts and rivers, and they were each placed under the shelter of the flag of the country to which the slave merchants belonged. In this way certain settlements were made along the shores of the Congo River as far inland as Yellalla Falls, and were claimed and held under the protection of the respective flags of the countries from which these traders came.
This was, generally, a mere personal adventure, and had no relation to any governmental authority of those countries over the barracoons. When this traffic took the shape of legitimate commerce with the natives, these places were called factories, and they gradually assumed certain powers of self-government as their necessities required. Each factory was independent of the control of all others, and established for itself such regulations, having really the effect of laws, as were necessary to protect life and property. To this day those settlements are held in the same way, and while the governments, whose flags are thus displayed over them, claim no sovereignty there, they do not recognise the rights of their people at such places as entitling them to protection, and they require their flags to be respected.
In some instances the native chiefs sold the lands on which the factories were situated, with the privileges of trade to foreign companies, and these in turn sold them to persons of still other nationalities.
The African International Association established its stations, and opened roads leading from one to another around the falls of the Congo in the same way that the older factories had been established, with the additional fact in their favour that their settlements were always preceded by an open agreement with the local government in the form of a treaty. A flag was as necessary for the purposes of their settlement and as an indication of their right and to designate the places under their control, as it was to the slave-traders, whose only advantage is that they have been in possession a long time for the purposes of nefarious traffic in slaves, while the Association has been in possession only a short time for the benign purposes of introducing civilisation into that country.
Having no foreign flag that they could justly claim, they adopted a flag and displayed it, a golden star in a field of blue, the symbol of hope to a strong but ignorant people, and of prosperity through peace. The native people instinctively regarded that as the first banner they had seen that promised them goodwill and security, and they readily yielded to it their confidence.
There is no historical record to be found of such a rapid and general assembling of separate and independent rulers under a banner that was raised by the hands of strangers, as that which took place amongst the chiefs and people of the Free States of the Congo. Within five years from the time the banner of this Association was first displayed on the Congo, its agents have made nearly one hundred treaties with the chiefs of the different tribes in the Congo country. In each of these treaties there are valuable commercial agreements and regulations touching law and order and certain delegations of limited powers, all of which are intended for the better government of the country.
The powers are not ceded to a new and usurping sovereignty seeking to destroy existing governments, but are delegated to a common agent for the common welfare. In the language of the first treaty, concluded at Vivi June 13, 1880, and which is the plan after which nearly one hundred subsequent treaties have been modelled:
“The aforesaid chiefs of the district of Vivi recognise that it is highly desirable that the Comité d’Études of the Congo should create and develop in their states establishments calculated to foster commerce and trade, and to assure to the country and its inhabitants the advantages which are the consequence thereof.
“With this object in view they cede and abandon, in full property (fee-simple) to the Comité d’Études, the territory comprised within the following limits,” etc.
A copy of this treaty is appended to the report of the committee.
If these local governments had the right to make these concessions, so much sovereign power as they confer upon the African International Association is entitled to recognition by other nations as justifying its claim to existence as a government de jure. Or, if there is still a question as to its sovereignty, affecting either its territorial extent or the subjects as to which it may legislate, there is still enough of concert amongst the native tribes, in placing themselves in treaty relations with this Association, to warrant other nations in recognising its existence as a government de facto. In either case, it is our duty so to recognise it, because its purposes, as avowed in those treaties, are peaceful, and commend themselves strongly to the sympathies of our people.
The golden star of the banner of the International Association represents hospitality to the people and commerce of all nations in the Free States of the Congo; civilisation, order, peace, and security to the persons and property of those who visit the Congo country, as well as to its inhabitants; and if, in the promotion of these good purposes, it lawfully represents powers ceded or delegated to the Association by the local governments necessary to make them effectual, it does not thereby offend against humanity nor unlawfully usurp authority in derogation of the rights of any nation upon the earth.
Powers asserted in good faith, and with a reasonable show of ability to maintain them, even by rebels, within a state that denounces their assertion as treasonable, are often recognised as being lawful, as well in the interests of humanity, as to give to the alleged rebels an opportunity to make good their pretensions by arms.
The history of our recent civil war discloses the recognition of the belligerent rights of the Confederate States by all nations, including the United States, which wholly denied the lawfulness of the acts of secession which led to hostilities and denounced them as treasonable.
If the flag of the Confederate States could protect its armed citizens against the penalties of piracy while destroying the ships and commerce of the United States, it would be difficult to state a reason why the flag of the International African Association should not protect its ships from capture and condemnation while carrying on peaceful commerce on the Congo. It would be still more difficult for any Christian nation to assign a reason founded in the principles of international law why it should refuse to recognise this flag. The Congo River has been for centuries, and is now, the common resort of the ships and flags of all countries, and it requires a total change of the political conditions in that country to destroy this right, and either to declare the waters and shores of the Congo as being neutral territory or as being under the sovereignty of any one or more of the foreign nations.
These reasons, and others which appear in the papers appended to this report, are a just and sufficient foundation for the declaration by the United States which individualises the flag of the African International Association as a national flag, entitled to our recognition and respect.
The precedents in our own history to justify our recognition of states while in the process of early development are numerous and conclusive. They are cited in the papers appended to this report, and are sustained by many other references which show that in Europe, Asia, and Africa civil power, exerted by commercial associations, and by religious orders, and by propagandas of civilisation, and by groups of Hospitallers, has owned large war fleets and raised armies, fought great battles, levied taxes, and performed every function of government. They did all this without claiming to possess sovereign power as organised nations; and they submitted themselves to the authority of the state after they had prepared the country where they ruled for that final act of establishment of sovereign power, and then they ceased to exist.
It is not necessary to go further in order to find a justification of the action suggested in the message of the President, and of the resolution which the Committee on Foreign Relations recommend as a proper means of carrying into effect this policy concerning the Free States of the Congo.
It is, however, proper to make some examination of the alleged claim of Portugal to the sovereignty of the mouth of the Congo, and of the riparian country as far into the interior as the first falls of Yellalla.
Portugal’s pretensions to this sovereignty are completely refuted by the fact that it has not been heretofore acknowledged by the five great powers whose flags have been flying for more than a century in the country now claimed by that Government. On the contrary, these powers have constantly refused to make any such concession on all occasions since 1786, and some of them previous to that time.
The claim of Portugal, based on discovery of the mouth of the Congo by Diego Cam in 1485, and by his having erected a monument on the shore to testify to his landing there, only establishes its antiquity and not its rightfulness under modern interpretations of the laws of nations.
If the laws of Christian nations give any effect to the discovery by the subjects of a Christian power, of a country inhabited even by savages, they also require that discovery shall be followed by continuous subsequent occupation. If such occupation ceases, it is justly considered as being abandoned, since the only foundation of reason or of justice that can support the occupation of an inhabited country by a foreign power is, that it is better that the savages should have the advantages of Christian instruction and laws, than that they should continue in darkness to rule the country in their own way. If, therefore, the Christian ruler should cease to occupy the country, it must be considered that he abandons his duty, and, with it, the sovereignty of the country.
Portugal did not exert continuous or exclusive authority on the Congo for any great while; her possessions there, as well as those of the other Christian powers, fluctuated with the supply of slaves, the capture or purchase of which was the chief inducement to these settlements. They all followed up the supply of slaves from the interior of Africa, along the coast, according to its abundance, as the fishermen visit different localities in search of better fishing grounds.
In 1786, disputes having arisen between France and Portugal, as to the sovereignty of the latter over the mouth of the Congo, under the mediation of the King of Spain, Portugal conceded the point that her rights in that country were not exclusive. Since that time England has repeatedly denied, in the most formal and solemn manner, that Portugal had any sovereignty or suzerainty over the Congo country. None of the great powers claimed such sovereignty for themselves, nor have they conceded it to Portugal; their occupancy has not been such as implied any right to rule the country, but only such as was necessary to carry on trade. That is equally free to all nations. In the papers appended to this report, and especially in the valuable testimony of Earl Mayo, based upon his personal observations in the Congo country in 1882, we find the most conclusive proof upon all the points above stated, and unquestionable evidence that Portugal’s northernmost boundary on the West Coast of Africa, south of the Equator, for many years past, has been the river Loge.
The attitude of Great Britain towards the pretensions of Portugal to the sovereignty of the Lower Congo has been that of decided, frequent, and stern denial, accompanied with distinct orders to her fleets to repel any advance of Portugal to assert her authority north of Ambriz. This record, so repeatedly reaffirmed, is by no means changed by the fact that Great Britain may now be ready to admit Portugal, in alliance with her, to sovereign rights in the Lower Congo. Her change of policy cannot change the facts, especially when Great Britain obtains from Portugal the cession of Wydha in consideration that she will acknowledge the rights of Portugal to the sovereignty of the Lower Congo. Great Britain has also made treaties with fifteen tribes in the Lower Congo country, paying no attention to Portugal’s claims of sovereignty there.
In like manner France has disregarded these pretensions, and has made treaties with tribes north of the Congo. De Brazza, an enterprising explorer, went into that region of Africa as an agent of the African International Association, and also as an agent of the French Government, and was supported with money from the French treasury. He made these treaties in the name of France, and the Chamber of Deputies has ratified them. In view of these facts it can scarcely be denied that the native chiefs have the right to make treaties. The able and exhaustive statements and arguments of Sir Travers Twiss, the eminent English jurist, and of Professor Arntz, the no less distinguished Belgian publicist, which are appended to this report, leave no doubt upon the question of the legal capacity of the African International Association, in view of the laws of nations, to accept any powers belonging to these native chiefs and governments which they may choose to delegate or cede to them.
The practical question to which they give an affirmative answer, for reasons which appear to be indisputable, is this: Can independent chiefs of savage tribes cede to private citizens (persons) the whole or part of their states, with the sovereign rights which pertain to them, conformably to the traditional customs of the country?
The doctrine advanced in this proposition, and so well sustained by these writers, accords with that held by the Government of the United States, that the occupants of a country at the time of its discovery by other and more powerful nations have the right to make the treaties for its disposal, and that private persons, when associated in such country, for self-protection or self-government, may treat with the inhabitants for any purpose that does not violate the laws of nations.
The following incidents, mentioned in Bancroft’s History of the United States, show how much we owe, as a people, to the early recognition of these doctrines:
“MASSACHUSETTS
“One day in March, 1621, Samoset, an Indian, who had learned a little English of the fishermen at Penobscot, entered the town, and, passing to the rendezvous, exclaimed in English, ‘Welcome, Englishmen!’ He was the envoy of Massasoit himself, the greatest commander of the country, sachem of the tribe possessing the land north of Narragansett Bay, and between the rivers of Providence and Taunton. After some little negotiation, in which an Indian who had been carried to England acted as interpreter, the chieftain came in person to visit the Pilgrims. With their wives and children they amounted to no more than fifty. He was received with due ceremonies, and a treaty of friendship was completed in few and unequivocal terms. Both parties promised to abstain from mutual injuries, and to deliver up offenders; the colonists were to receive assistance, if attacked; to render it, if Massasoit should be attacked unjustly. The treaty included the confederates of the sachem; it is the oldest act of diplomacy recorded in New England; it was concluded in a day, and was sacredly kept for more than half a century.”—(Bancroft’s History of the United States, p. 210.)
“The men of Plymouth exercised self-government without the sanction of a royal charter, which it was ever impossible for them to obtain.”—(Ibid., p. 213.)
“The attempt to acquire the land on Narragansett Bay was less deserving of success.... In 1641 a minority of the inhabitants, wearied with harassing disputes, requested the interference of the magistrates of Massachusetts, and two sachems near Providence surrendered the soil to the jurisdiction of that State.”—(Ibid., p. 287.)
“PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS AND RHODE ISLAND
“In June (1636) the law-giver of Rhode Island (Roger Williams), with five companies, embarked on the stream; a frail Indian canoe contained the founder of an independent State and its earliest citizens. Tradition has marked the spring of water near which they landed. To express unbroken confidence in the mercies of God, he called the place Providence.... The land which he occupied was within the territory of the Narragansetts. In March, 1636, an Indian deed from Canonicus and Miantonomoh made him the undisputed possessor of an extensive domain; but he ‘always stood for liberty and equality both in land and government.’ The soil became his ‘own as truly as any man’s coat upon his back’; and he ‘reserved to himself not one foot of land, not one tittle of political power, more than he granted to servants and strangers.’ He gave away his lands and other estates to them that he thought most in want until he gave away all.”—(Ibid., p. 254.)
“Before the month (March, 1638) was at an end, the influence of Roger Williams and the name of Henry Vane prevailed with Miantonomoh, the chief of the Narragansetts, to make them a gift of the beautiful island of Rhode Island.... A patent from England was necessary for their security; and in September they obtained it through the now powerful Henry Vane.”—(Ibid., p. 263.)
“CONNECTICUT
“In equal independence a Puritan colony sprang up at New Haven, under the guidance of John Davenport as its pastor, and of his friend the excellent Theophilus Eaton.... In April, 1638, the colonists held their first gathering under a branching oak.... A title to lands was obtained by a treaty with the natives whom they protected against the Mohawks.”—(Ibid., p. 271.)
“NEW HAMPSHIRE
“At the fall of the leaf in 1635, a band of twelve families, toiling through thickets of ragged bushes and clambering over crossed trees, made their way along Indian paths to the green meadows of Concord. A tract of land six miles square was purchased for the planters of the squaw sachem and a chief, to whom, according to Indian laws of property, it belonged.”—(Ibid., p. 271.)
“NORTH CAROLINA
“In 1660 or 1661 New England men had found their way into the Cape Fear River, had purchased of the Indian chief a title to the soil, and had planted a little colony of herdsmen far to the south of any English settlement on the continent.”—(Ibid., p. 409.)
“It is known that in 1662 the chief of a tribe of Indians granted to George Durant the neck of land which still bears his name.”—(Ibid., p. 410.)
We owe it as a duty to our African population that we should endeavour to secure to them the right to freely return to their fatherland, and as freely to agree with their kindred people upon any concessions they may choose to make to them as individuals or as associated colonists, looking to their re-establishment in their own country. The deportation of their ancestors from Africa in slavery was contrary to the now accepted canons of the laws of nations, and now they may return under those laws to their natural inheritance. In exercising this right they should not be obstructed by a power that had more to do with their enslavement and expulsion, in bondage, from their own country than any other, and that never held a claim upon that country for any purpose of advantage to the people there, but held it chiefly, if not entirely, for the mere purpose of enslaving them.
It is stated, with the support of strong testimony, that Portugal is still protecting the slave trade on the West Coast of Africa under a thin guise of the voluntary emigration of the negroes to other countries.
Extracts appended to this report, from Earl Mayo’s De Rebus Africanus, in which he gives an account of his personal examination, in 1882, of the Portuguese trading posts, supported by the report of M. du Verge, our United States consul at St. Paul de Loando, show that slavery still exists in the country claimed by Portugal on the Congo, and is fostered there and at St. Paul de Loando by the Portuguese residents.
This violation of the slave-trade treaties renders the occupancy by Portugal of any African territory at the mouth of the Congo dangerous to all the tribes of the interior, and cannot be sanctioned by the treaty powers while it is attended with such incidents without an abandonment of all treaty obligations and duties relating to the slave trade.
The importance of the Congo River to the continent of Africa as a channel through which civilisation and all its attendant advantages will be introduced into a region inhabited by 50,000,000 of people cannot be too highly estimated.
After Stanley had made his journey of exploration of nearly 7000 miles across the continent of Africa, and had revealed to the world the extent and importance of this great river Congo, all the great commercial nations at once began to look earnestly in that direction for a new and most inviting field of commerce, and with the high and noble purpose of opening it freely to the equal enjoyment of all nations alike.
The merchants of Europe and America insist upon this equal and universal right of free trade with that country, and their Chambers of Commerce have earnestly pressed upon their respective Governments the duty and necessity of such international agreements as would secure these blessings to the people of Africa and of the entire commercial world.
The enlightened King of the Belgians has supplied the means from his private purse to inaugurate civilisation in the Congo country under the authority of its native rulers. He has no thought of extending the power of his realm over that country, but has engaged in this movement only as any citizen might.
Its progress is thus further described by an agent of the African International Association in a letter within the past month:
“Brussels, February 25.
“Our territories are extending now on a very rich coast south and north of the mouths of the Quillou, a distance of more than 350 kilometres (about 300 miles).
“That coast has given itself to us by unanimous acclamation of the natives, who hoisted our flag and refused our presents.
“Our territories are going to be divided into three provinces: (1) Coast and Quillou Madi; (2) Lower Congo, Vivi, Stanley Pool; (3) Upper Congo.
“Our governmental organisations will then be complete: in Africa, a head chief and governors administering the country and justice: in Europe, the association providing for the financial wants of the new State, and representing the new state and many native sovereigns who have confederated with us and hoisted our flag.
“This is the present situation and prospects of the enterprise.”
It may be safely asserted that no barbarous people have ever so readily adopted the fostering care of benevolent enterprise as have the tribes of the Congo, and never was there a more honest and practical effort made to increase their knowledge and secure their welfare.
The people of the Congo country and their benefactors alike deserve the friendly recognition of the United States in their new national character.
Your committee, therefore, report a substitute for the resolutions referred to them by the Senate, and recommend its passage.
(From the Revue de Droit International)