I deplore atrocities, but I have often thought that, if I were a member of a race that was being improved by outside influences, I would rather they should kill me outright with bullet or with knife than subject me to the suffering of years in molding me to new ideas. In other words, I sometimes feel that flagrant outrage is less painful to the victim than well-meant direction, teaching, and elevation to their object.
Let us turn, however, to the whole subject of atrocities.
XI.
January 30, 1907.
MUCH has been said of flogging and the chicotte. There is no question that flogging is general throughout the Congo Free State. The English word “flogging” is one which is generally known and understood by officials of every nationality throughout the country; it is known, too, by a surprising number of natives. The chicotte is known to everybody within the state limits—its name is Portuguese. In all my journey in the Congo, while I frequently heard the word “flogging” and constantly heard the word “chicotte,” I never heard the French term for either. Nor do I think the native has. It is plain that neither flogging nor the chicotte was introduced by Belgians. These found them in the country on their arrival, introduced by English and Portuguese.
It is not the fact of flogging in itself that raises objections; not only the state and traders but the missionaries find it necessary to whip their black employés. In fact, at a missionary conference—I think it was—one missionary referred laughingly to the boys whom another (by the way, one of the chief witnesses against the state) “had flogged into the kingdom of heaven.” He did not mean the boys had died as a result of the flogging, but simply that they had found salvation through its means. It is, then, the amount, severity, and undeservedness of the whipping which are reprobated.
I saw, of course, plenty of flogging. Not, indeed, with such an instrument as has been recently shown throughout the United States by a complaining missionary. I was conversing recently with a friend who had been profoundly stirred in connection with Congo atrocities. He happened to mention the chicotte, then said: “Have you ever seen a chicotte? You know it is made of six thongs of hippopotamus skin, twisted tightly together.” I told him that I had seen hundreds of chicottes, but that I had never seen one such as he described. As a matter of fact, I have seen chicottes of a single thong, and of two or three twisted together, but I have never seen one composed of six. I do not know whether such an instrument would cause greater suffering in punishment, but it certainly is better suited for display to sympathetic audiences who want to be harrowed by dreadful reports. The first flogging that I happened to see was at a distance. I was busy measuring soldiers; hearing cries, I looked in the direction whence they came, and saw a black man being publicly whipped before the office of the commissaire. An officer of proper authority was present inspecting the punishment, which I presume was entirely legal.
In the second flogging which I witnessed, this time at close quarters, I was myself implicated to a degree. We were at a mission station. The mission force and practically all the people from the place were attending Sunday morning service. It was fruiting time for the mango trees, which were loaded with golden fruit. Suddenly we heard an outcry, and in a moment the mission sentry, delighted and excited, came up to our veranda with an unfortunate prisoner, whom he had taken in the act of stealing fruit. He insisted on leaving him with us for guarding. I turned him over to my companion, who set him on his veranda, telling him to stay there until the missionary should come from the service.
The prisoner squatted down upon the veranda without a word of discussion, laying the fruit, evidence of his guilt, upon the floor at his side. We were so angry at him that he made no attempt at escaping, and did not even eat the fruit which he had stolen, that we washed our hands of the whole affair, and believed he deserved all that might be coming. The service over, the missionary appeared, accompanied by the triumphant sentry. When the prisoner had admitted his guilt, the missionary asked whether he preferred to be sent to the state for punishment or to be whipped by him, to which the prisoner replied that he should prefer the mission flogging.
With great formality the instrument of punishment was produced; it consisted of two long and narrow boards, perhaps six feet in length and two or three inches wide; between them was fixed a board of the same width, but of half the length. At one end these were firmly screwed together, while the other end was left open. It will be seen that when a heavy blow was given with the instrument the free ends of the two long sticks would strike together, producing a resounding whack which, no doubt, produced a psychic suffering in the victim in addition to the true physical pain. However that may be, fifteen blows, I think, were administered, and the prisoner discharged.