Dawn in darkest Africa

by John H. Harris

The nearest approach to the Portuguese systems of cocoa production is to be found in Belgian Congo, where physical and climatic conditions are almost identical with those of the Portuguese islands. The first plantations are met with close to the mouth of the river in the Mayumbe country, but before reaching the next one has to traverse nearly a thousand miles. These are situated at the confluence of the Aruwimi river and the main Congo, and there are besides several small plantations on the Aruwimi itself. As cocoa-producing enterprises, the only ones to take into serious consideration are those of the Mayumbe country, south of the Chiloanga—the Portuguese river, which enters the sea at Landana. The plantations are run under three separate interests, and may be classified as State controlled, Roman Catholic and Merchant. The merchants complain that their difficulty in obtaining labour is greatly increased owing to the missions and the State using forced labour for their plantations. It seems incredible that this should be so, but these complaints are neither new nor isolated. The Commission of Enquiry sent to the Congo by King Leopold had evidence before it which shewed that the Mission farms at least were largely staffed with forced labour. The following passage is an extract from the report of that Commission in 1905:

“The greater part of the natives which people the chapel farms are neither orphans nor workmen engaged by contract. They are demanded of the Chiefs, who dare not refuse; and only force, more or less disguised, enables then to be retained.”

If the Belgian Government could concentrate upon a serious development of the Mayumbe country by laying down railways, making roads, building bridges, opening up creeks, and rivers, there is no reason why the Mayumbe country should not increase its yearly output of cocoa by many thousands of tons.

The Spanish contribution to the world’s supply is not yet or ever likely to be anything material, for as colonists in Africa the Spaniards have ceased to count.

GERMAN COCOA

In German colonies cocoa growing is extending rapidly and from a financial point of view satisfactorily. The German Administration in the Cameroons, however, seems to favour such enterprises mainly as European undertakings in which the natives are mere labourers. Within recent years, probably in view of the success of the Gold Coast production, some effort has been made to encourage the natives by gifts of seed and young plants to lay down their own plantations. But the prevailing German opinion has been set forth in a German report, published in Der Tropenpflanzer (No. 1, January, 1912), wherein it is stated:—

“What is required in the Cameroons is a more liberal policy on the part of the German Government towards the plantations, both as regards the terms for acquiring land, and on the part of the district officials to obtain better facilities for getting labour, in order to warrant and make possible a large and profitable extension of the cocoa-planting area. This will mean a material improvement in the prosperity of the colony, for it is evident that what the Gold Coast has achieved by means of an intelligent population, and under suitable climatic conditions, can and will never be done in Cameroons with such material as the Bakwiris, Dualas, etc.”

Whilst colonial Germans take this view, the native certainly will never emulate the Gold Coast tribes, for the African has a habit of acting up, or down, to European expectations. The Editor of Tropical Life truly remarked that whilst these views are held in Berlin, “Germany would never do any good with the Bakwiris and Dualas; neither did she with the Herreros, and so ‘punished’ them because they, poor wretches, could not understand the German method of ruling Africa as do the German Michels at home.”

There is some reason to believe that the cultivation of the cocoa bean began in Cameroons and Victoria some years earlier than that on the Gold Coast, and it is even claimed by some that the phenomenally successful industry of the British colony was commenced with a seed pod obtained from Ambas Bay.

A ROMANCE IN COCOA