The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

Grand Hotel, Boma.

In a later report—the last from which it will be necessary to quote—Baron Van Eetvelde reviews the complete work of the Congo Free State from its creation to the date of his writing (1897), and very ably sums up the situation then existing:

The Congo State [says Baron Van Eetvelde] inherited from its birth the heaviest and most perilous task in the anti-slavery work. The territories which fell to it had the sad privilege of being in their greater part handed over to the razzias, and of including the principal slave centres and the most important markets of human flesh. However willing were the Powers, who in the Berlin Act solemnly condemned the slave trade, the most optimistic only dared to hope for the disappearance of the abominable practices, like those Stanley had witnessed on the banks of the Upper Congo, in a distant future.

In truth, the crusade against the slave trade, in some measure ordered by the Berlin Conference, remained in the following years in the condition of a mere vow; and the Congo Government, which on its own account had then already organised a chain of posts of defence against the invasions of the slave-hunters, was condemned to deplore that, despite some partial successes, a great part of its provinces still remained in their power. Such were at that epoch the horrors and cruelties denounced to the civilised world, such was the deplorable situation in which the people of Central Africa, decimated and massacred by their oppressors, passed an agonising existence, that, struck by a sentiment of legitimate indignation, the Powers again decided by the Act of Brussels (1890) to deal a decisive blow at the slave trade.

The Brussels Conference characterised the part reserved to the Congo State in the anti-slavery campaign, the importance of the undertakings which devolved upon it, the difficulties of the task which assigned it the perilous honour of being the advance guard on the battle-field. The number of enemies to be fought, the organisation of their bands, their installation from a remote date in the regions which they terrorised, their supply in firearms and munitions, the subjection even of the natives, were so many grounds of apprehension and disquietude as to the final issue of the struggle undertaken, and as to the fate ultimately reserved for the African populations. It really seemed, in that encounter between civilisation and slavery, of which the stake was the life and liberty of millions of human beings, as if failure would dispel for ever the hope of a better future. Thus it was that circumstances had placed in the hands of the Congo State the destiny of Central Africa and its tribes, and the situation was tersely defined by an English missionary when, with the experience acquired during a long residence in Africa, he wrote in 1893, during the progress of the military campaign: “I am convinced that, unless the Arabs be annihilated, a general massacre will ensue. This is the moment for the Europeans to play their last card against the Arabs. Whether they will carry the day or not, I cannot say.”

Civilisation did carry the day. And has not history to register that this victory for the Congo State, due to the bravery of Belgian officers, entitled it to merit well of those interested in the fate of the native populations? If to-day there opens for them a new era of liberty and regeneration, if the amelioration of their material and moral condition can now be pursued, they owe it to the annihilation of the promoters of slavery.

Elsewhere has been told at the price of what sacrifices of men and money, at the price of what valour in every case, these results have been attained. The facts are there to attest that these sacrifices have not been in vain. The men-hunters reduced to impotence, their bands dispersed, their chiefs disappeared, the fortresses of slavery laid level with the ground, the natives rebuilding their villages under the shadow of the posts of the State, giving themselves up to the peaceful pursuits of cultivation of the soil—an era of tranquillity succeeding the sombre and sanguinary episodes of the old régime. Every mail from Africa brings proof of the progress of this period of pacification, and shows the natives, delivered from an odious yoke, recovering confidence, and living peaceably in their own abodes.

A Gratifying Retrospect.

That the problem of the suppression of slavery in Central Africa had now been solved, we have had abundant incontrovertible evidence. That its solution was effected with a minimum of bloodshed, and in a marvellously short period of time for the accomplishment of so gigantic a task, we have also seen. The first and greatest of the objects for which King Leopold had so long laboured was at length realised. The applause of all civilised peoples had been justly earned, and was ungrudgingly given, and substantial reward was soon to follow.