Slavery and the slave trade in Africa

by Henry M. Stanley

A SLAVER

In 1884, when I left the Congo, the total number of carriers thus employed did not exceed 300. But such has been the rapid progress of events, and the favor with which the carrier profession has been regarded by the natives, that the total number of carriers furnished by an area of not more than 30,000 square miles is now about 75,000. Yet this immense army is wholly insufficient to transport the vast quantity of material discharged every month from the ships.

It was calculated by the promoters of the Congo Railway, now in process of construction, that one train a week would be sufficient for some years for the necessities of the upper Congo, but the crowded magazines of Mataddi and the increasing demands for transport prove that a daily train will scarcely suffice. I have lately received a large supply of photographs of the railway cuttings and bridge-work, and one glance at them shows the serious nature of the undertaking. The engineers are still engaged in the rocky defiles, slowly laboring up the slopes to gain the altitude of the ancient plateau. Fifteen miles of the track, I have been told, are in running order, and the embankments extend for twenty-five miles farther. When the rails have been laid thus far, the progress will be much more rapid, and the engineers will be able to state with precision how long a time must elapse before its completion. It is scarcely necessary to add that the arrival of the railway at Stanley Pool will insure the salvation of two-thirds of the Congo basin. After that, attention will have to be drawn to Stanley Falls, 1100 miles higher, and a railway of thirty-two miles in length will enable us to pass the series of cataracts in that region, and to command the river for about 1700 miles of its course.[1]

[1] Last December (1891) the foreign population of the Congo State was as follows:

Belgians, 338; British, 72; Italians, 63; Portuguese, 56; Dutch, 47; Swedes, 35; Danes, 32; French, 18; other nationalities, 83. Total, 744.

Their professions are as follows:

State officials, 271; merchants and clerks, 175; consuls, 2; doctors, 4; missionaries, 80; captains and sailors, 43; engineers, 12; artisans, 157. Total, 744.

We must not omit to mention that while Livingstone was making his terrible disclosures respecting the havoc wrought by the slave-trader in east central Africa, Sir Samuel Baker was striving to effect in north central Africa what has been so successfully accomplished in the Congo State. During his expedition for the discovery of the Albert Nyanza, his explorations led him through one of the principal man-hunting regions, wherein murder and spoliation were the constant occupations of powerful bands from Egypt and Nubia. These revelations were followed by diplomatic pressure upon the Khedive Ismail, and through the personal influence of an august personage he was finally induced to delegate to Sir Samuel the task of arresting the destructive careers of the slavers in the region of the upper Nile. In his book Ismailïa we have the record of his operations by himself. The firman issued to him was to the effect that he “was to subdue to the Khedive’s authority the countries to the south of Gondokoro, to suppress the slave trade, to introduce a system of regular commerce, to open to navigation the great lakes of the equator, and to establish a chain of military stations and commercial depots throughout central Africa.” This mission began in 1869, and continued until 1874.

On Baker’s retirement from the command of the equatorial Soudan the work was intrusted to Colonel C. G. Gordon—commonly known as Chinese Gordon. Where Baker had broken ground, Gordon was to build; what his predecessor had commenced, Gordon was to perfect and to complete. If energy, determination, and self-sacrifice received their due, then had Gordon surely won for the Soudan that peace and security which it was his dear object to obtain for it. But slaving was an old institution in this part of the world. Every habit and custom of the people had some connection with it. They had always been divided from prehistoric time into enslavers and enslaved. How could two Englishmen, accompanied by only a handful of officers, removed 2000 miles from their base of supplies, change the nature of a race within a few years? Though much wrong had been avenged, many thousands of slaves released, many a slaver’s camp scattered, and many striking examples made to terrify the evil-doers, the region was wide and long; and though within reach of the Nile waters there was a faint promise of improvement, elsewhere, at Kordofan, Darfoor, and Sennaar, the trade flourished. After three years of wonderful work, Gordon resigned. A short time afterwards, however, he resumed his task, with the powers of a dictator, over a region covering 1,100,000 square miles. But the personal courage, energy, and devotion of one man opposed to a race can effect but little. His peculiar qualities shone forth conspicuously. He underwent the same trials as formerly. He signalized his detestation of the slavers by severe punishments, by summary dismissals of implicated pashas and mudirs, by disbandment of the suspected soldiery; but the land still suffered from waste, the roads in the interior were still being strewn with bones, and after another period of three years he again resigned.

Then followed a revulsion. The Khedivial government reverted to the old order of things, Gordon’s decrees were rescinded, the dismissed officers were reinstated, venality and oppression and demoralization replaced justice and equity and righteousness, until the sum of the enormities was so great that it provoked the great revolution in the Soudan. Then ended the attempt to suppress slavery in north central Africa. All traces of the work of Baker and Gordon have long ago been completely obliterated.