The Truth About the Congo: The Chicago Tribune Articles

by Frederick Starr

The place where we have seen most of rubber production is in the High Kasai, where the famous red rubber is produced, which sells for the highest price of any African caoutchouc. My missionary friends have told me that conditions in the Kasai are not bad and that they have no special fault to find with the Kasai company. While there were things that might be criticised, there was apparent fairness in the business. The natives waited several days after they had gathered their balls of rubber before bringing them in. This was for the reason that the company’s agent had but an unattractive stock of goods in his magazine at the moment; they preferred to wait until a new stock should come up on the expected steamer. As soon as it appeared they sent word that they might be expected the following day.

The old Bachoko chief, Maiila, was brought in state, in his blue hammock; his people came singing and dancing with the baskets full of balls of rubber on their heads. All proceeded to the magazine, where the great steelyards were suspended and the rubber weighed; each man looked carefully to see that his stock balanced evenly, and one of their number, who understood the instrument and could figure, stood by to see that all went fair. While the rubber was a demanded tax, a regular price of 1 franc and 25 centimes the kilo was paid. This was given in stuffs, of course, and the native selected what he pleased from the now abundant stock of cloths, blankets, graniteware, and so forth. It may truly be said that they came in singing gayly and went home glad.

At Mobandja we saw a large party setting out to the forest to gather rubber, different from any that we had seen before in that a considerable number of women formed a part of it. This feature I did not like, although I presume it is an effort to meet the criticisms of the report of the royal commission of investigation. The commission particularly criticised the fact that the men, in going into the forest, were deprived of the company of their women—a hardship strongly emphasized. It is surely a mistake, however well it may be meant, to send the women into the forest with the men to gather rubber. Such a procedure involves the neglect of her fields and interrupts the woman’s work.

And here we touch upon the thing which in my opinion is the worst feature of the whole Congo business. Anything that affects the woman’s work necessarily brings hardship. I have seen many heart-rending statements in regard to the loss of work time which the man suffers by going to the forest to gather rubber. We are told that by the time he has gone several days’ journey into the dense forest, gathered his balls of rubber, and returned again to his village, he has no time left for work, and his family and the whole community suffers as a consequence. But from what work does this gathering of rubber take the man?

We have already called attention to the fact that the support of the family and the actual work in any village fall upon the woman. The man, before he went into the forest to gather rubber, had no pressing duties. His wife supported him; he spent his time in visiting, dancing, lolling under shelters, drinking with his friends, or in palavers, sometimes of great importance but frequently of no consequence; in other words, he was an idler, or a man of leisure. I feel no sorrow on account of the labors from which he is restrained. Personally, I should have no objection to his idling. If he does not want to work and need not work, I see no reason why he should not idle. But my readers are practical men, who talk much of the dignity of labor and the elevation of the lazy negro. Very good; if work is dignified and the elevation of the negro necessary, let him collect rubber, but do not mourn over the fact that he is deprived of opportunity to earn a living for himself and family.

There is, indeed, one set of circumstances under which the man may really be deprived of opportunity to aid in the work of gaining a living. Where the men in a community are really fishermen—they are not always so—to take them from their fishing entails a hardship.

The thing which seems to me the worst is the kwanga tax on women and the fish tax on men. The former is at its worst, perhaps, in Leopoldville; the latter is bad enough at Nouvelle Anvers. Leopoldville is situated in a district which yields much less for food than necessary. It has always been so. Even in the days before the white man came, the people in the native villages on Stanley Pool were obliged to buy food supplies from outside, as they themselves, being devoted to trading, did no cultivation. With the coming of the white man, and the establishing of a great post at Leopoldville, with thousands of native workmen and soldiers to be fed, the food question became serious. The state has solved the problem by levying a food tax on the native villages for many miles around.

The women are required to bring a certain amount of kwanga—native cassava bread—to Leopoldville within a stated period of time. To do this involves almost continuous labor, and really leaves the women little time for attending to the needs of their own people. Some of them are forced to come many miles with the supply of bread. When they have cared for the growing plants in their fields, prepared the required stint of kwanga, brought it the weary distance over the trails, and again come back to their village, they must begin to prepare for the next installment. For this heavy burden there must certainly be found some remedy. Personally, it seems to me that the women belonging to the workmen and the soldiers might be utilized in cultivating extensive fields to supply the need. The condition of the men who pay the fish tax is analogous to that of these kwanga-taxed women.

The question of the population of the Congo is an unsettled one. Stanley estimated it at 29,000,000 people; Reclus, in 1888, estimated it at something over 20,000,000; Wagner and Supan claimed 17,000,000, and Vierkandt sets the figure at 11,000,000. The governor-general, Baron Wahis, who has several times made the inspection of the whole river, is inclined to think that even Stanley’s figure is below the true one. Between these limits of 11,000,000 and 29,000,000 any one may choose which he prefers. No one knows, or is likely for many years to know. Those who believe that Stanley’s figure was true in its time, and that Vierkandt’s is true at present, may well insist, as they do, that depopulation is taking place.

Personally, I have no doubt that depopulation is going on. Of course, the enemies of the Free State government attribute the diminution in population chiefly to the cruelties practiced by the state, but it is certain that many causes combine in the result.