The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

M. Ernest Nys, Professor of International Law of the University of Brussels, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal (Conseiller à la Cour d’Appel de Bruxelles); member of the Institute of International Law, a distinguished Belgian, and writer on several branches of the law, sets forth with greater detail the precise form of the recognition of the Congo Free State by the Senate of the United States. M. Nys relates:

In his annual message to Congress the President of the United States raised the question of the relations which were henceforth to be established between the Republic and “the inhabitants of the Congo Valley in Africa.” On 26th May, 1884, Mr. Morgan (Alabama) reported to the Senate in the name of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

On 18th January, 1884, a communication from Mr. Frelinghuysen, Secretary of the State Department, explained to Mr. Morgan how along the Congo the African International Association had created important establishments. On 13th March of the same year a further communication from Mr. Frelinghuysen set forth the opportuneness and the usefulness of recognising the flag of the Association, and added that no principle of international law was opposed to the creation of a State by a philanthropical society.

In his report of 26th March Mr. Morgan recalled the fact that Stanley had concluded at Vivi on 13th June, 1880, the first convention with a native chief, and that since that date nearly a hundred other treaties between tribal chiefs and the agents of the Association had been concluded, in which important commercial arrangements and stipulations relative to law, the maintenance of order, and the delegation of power figured among the provisions. Consequently two hypotheses presented themselves. “If the local rulers,” said Mr. Morgan, “were qualified to make the cession they did, the sovereign power that they conferred on the African International Association might obtain recognition on the part of other nations precisely because that Association thus proves its existence as a Government by law. If,” he added, “there exists any doubt concerning the sovereignty or the territory or the subjects, the understanding among the native tribes who conclude treaties with the Association offers a sufficient guarantee to other peoples for recognising the Association as a Government in fact.”

The Committee on Foreign Relations made a motion in favour of the recognition of the Association. It is permissible to affirm that at this moment a juridical person already existed, which could claim the principal rights of a State, and which found itself prepared to fulfil the duties of one. The first direction of the efforts of the Committee for studying the Upper Congo had been indicated in July, 1879, in the instructions given to Stanley. “It would be wise,” wrote Colonel Strauch, “to extend the influence of the stations over the chiefs and tribes inhabiting the neighbourhood. There might be made out of them a republican confederation of free Negroes, an independent confederation under this reservation, that the King, to whom its conception and creation would be due, should nominate its President who was to reside in Europe.... A confederacy thus formed might of its own authority grant concessions to companies for the construction of works of public utility, or issue loans, as Liberia and Sarawak do, and also itself execute public works. Our enterprise does not tend to the creation of a Belgian Colony but to the establishment of a powerful Negro State.”[5] But the political idea was not slow in taking a precise form. If in Mr. Morgan’s report there is still question of the Free States of the Congo the conclusion did not the less relate, as we have just seen, to the African International Association.

Europeans at Stanleyville, 1902.

It was it which was [sic], according to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, in law or in fact a “Government” qualified to claim international recognition.

Besides, the solution was very soon effected. The Government of the United States recorded the existence of The International Association of the Congo, managing the interests of the Free States established in that region, and gave orders to all United States officials on sea and on land to recognise the flag of the International Association as the equal of that of a friendly Government.

The following is the text of the declarations which were exchanged on 22d April, 1884: