The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

American Aid Wanted.

But, inasmuch as it is vital to the enemies of the Congo Free State that our country should be with them in their crusade, the Rev. Mr. W. M. Morrison, of Lexington, Virginia, a gentleman whose Christianity is liberally leavened with business acumen, was brought to the front and set upon a pedestal. The light of publicity was turned upon the reverend gentleman, who then proceeded to relate stories of outrage and oppression, examples of which he had seen and heard—chiefly heard—during six years’ residence in the Congo Free State as a missionary of the American Presbyterians.

Mr. Morrison’s stories are of the stock variety, and include looted villages, wholesale deportations, mutilations, burnings, State slavery, and refusal of land concessions to missionaries—in brief, the whole catalogue of infamies without which, real or alleged, men such as Mr. Fox Bourne, the Secretary of the Aborigines’ Protection Society in England, and Mr. Morel, who built the Congo Reform Association around himself, would find their occupation gone. The italics are mine. Why I have used them will at once appear.

A Morrisonian Jeremiad.

“Concessions or grants of land, however small,” wails Mr. Morrison, “can now no longer be obtained from the State by other than favoured individuals or corporations... Not only are concessions refused to traders, they are also refused to missionaries.” Alas! yes, in the case of a missionary who demands, as Mr. Morrison did, “that no taxes shall be levied, and no soldiers drawn from certain populations around Luebo.”[46]

The refusal of Mr. Morrison’s demand for the creation of an Alsatia which should be equally attractive to the idle and the thrifty, from which the State was to receive no support, and which, in the circumstances, would certainly at once become the most populous district in all the Congo Free State, seems to have angered the reverend gentleman, for thereafter followed his discovery of atrocities committed by State officials against natives. Land was offered to Mr. Morrison upon equitable terms, identical with those agreed upon between the State and numerous other missions.

A Belated Discovery.

When Mr. Morrison was in Brussels in the spring of 1903, negotiating with the Congo Government concerning the concession of land, and in constant touch with officials of that Government, he said not one word about any atrocities which he had seen or heard of in Congoland; but a few weeks later, he was in London, associating with the English Congophobes, and calling upon the Government of the United States to combine with that of Great Britain to coerce the Congo Government, though in what manner and to what effect is not quite clear. What, however, is perfectly clear, is the bad faith of the men who make it their business to vilify and misrepresent the Congo Administration. For example, here is Mr. Morrison’s statement about the almost impossibility of obtaining concessions of land for missions, when up to May, 1903, there had been fifteen grants of land conceded in the Congo State to the American Baptist Missionary Union; two to the American Congo Mission; fifteen to the British Baptist Society Corporation; seven to the Bishop Taylor’s Self-Supporting Mission; seven to the Congo Balolo Mission; eleven to the International Missionary Alliance; nine to the Swedish Missionary Society, and forty-four to the Roman Catholic Mission.

Few Facts in Many Words.

The campaign against the Congo in this country was opened on the 19th of April, 1904, by the presentation to Congress of a huge inflated memorial, accompanied by numerous substantiating documents of great length. It was gotten up by the Rev. Thomas S. Barbour, Chairman of the Conference of Missionary Societies and Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, Boston, with the assistance of the Rev. W. M. Morrison and six other gentlemen interested in missionary work. Senator Morgan, of Alabama, undertook the work of presentation, and performed his task with as much moderation and grace as its nature permitted. The memorial was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed.