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King Leopold's Ghost - Introduction - 2

It was several decades later that I encountered that footnote, and with it my own ignorance  of the Congo's early history. Then it occured to my that, like millions of other people, I had read something about that time and place after all: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. However, with my college lecture notes on the novel filled with scribbles about Freudian overtones, mythic echoes, and inward vision, I had mentally filed away the book under fiction, not fact.It was several decades later that I encountered that footnote, and with it my own ignorance  of the Congo's early history.

Then it occured to my that, like millions of other people, I had read something about that time and place after all: Joseph Conrad's heart of Darkness. However, with my college lecture notes on the novel filled with scribbles about Freudian overtones, mythic echoes, and inward vision, I had mentally filed away the book under fiction, not fact.I began to read more. The further I explored, the more it was clear that the Congo of a century ago had indeed seen a death toll of Holocaust dimensions. At the same time, I unexpectedly found myself absorbed by the extraordinary characters who had peopled this patch of history.

Although it was Edmund Dene Morel who had ignited a movement, he was not the first outsider to see King Leopold's Congo for what it was and to try hard to draw the world's attention to it. The role was played by George Washington Williams, a black American journalist and historian, who, unlike anyone before hime, interviewed Africans about their experience of their white conquerors. It was another black American, William Sheppard, who recorded a scene he came across in the Congo rain forest that would brand itself on the world's consciousness as a symbol of colonial brutality.

There were other heroes as well, one of the bravest of whom of whom ended his life on a London gallows. Then, of course, into the middle of the story sailed the young captain Joseph Conrad, expecting the exotic Africa of his childhood dreams but finding instead what he would call "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience." and looming above them all was King leopold II, a man as filled with greed and cunning, duplicity and charm, as any of the more complex villains of Shakespeare.

There were other heroes as well, one of the bravest of whom of whom ended his life on a London gallows. Then, of course, into the middle of the story sailed the young captain Joseph Conrad, expecting the exotic Africa of his childhood dreams but finding instead what he would call "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience." and looming above them all was King Leopold II, a man as filled with greed and cunning, duplicity and charm, as any of the more complex villains of Shakespeare.

As I followed the interesting lives of these men, I realized something else about the terror in the Congo and the controversy that came to surround it. It was the first major International atrocity scandal in the age of the telegraph and the camera. In its mixture of bloodshed on an industrial scale, royalty, sex, the power of celebrity, and rival lobbying and media campaigns raging in half a dozen countries on both sides of the Atlantic, it seemed strikingly close to our time.As I followed the interesting lives of these men, I realized something else about the terror in the Congo and the controversy that came to surround it. It was the first major International atrocity scandal in the age of the telegraph and the camera.

In its mixture of bloodshed on an industrial scale, royalty, sex, the power of celebrity, and rival lobbying and media campaigns raging in half a dozen countries on both sides of the Atlantic, it seemed strinkingly close to our time.Furthermore, unlike many other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King leopold ll never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. He never set foot in the Congo There is something very modern about that, too, as there is about the bomber pilot in the stratosphere, above the clouds, who never hears screams or sees shattered homes or torn flesh.

Although Europe has long forgotten the victims of Leopold's Congo, I found a vast supply orf raw material to work with in reconstructing theit fate: Congo memoirs by explorers, steamboat captains, military men; the records of mission stations; reports of government investigations; and those peculiarly Victorian phenomena, accounts by gentleman (or sometimes ladies) " travelers." The Victorian era was a golden age of letters and diaries; and often it seems as if every visitor or official in the Congo kept a voluminous jouranl and spent each evening on the riverbank writing letters home.

One problem, of course, is that nearly all of this vast river of words is by Europeans or Americans. There was no written language in the Congo when Europeans first arrived, and this is inevitably skewed the way that history was recorded. We have dozens of memoirs by the territory's white officials; we know the changing opinions of key people in the British Foreign Office, sometimes on a day-by-day basis. But we do not have a full-length memoir or complete oral history of a single Congolese during the period of the greatest terror.

Instead of African voices from this time is largely silence.One problem, of course, is that nearly all of this vast river of words is by Europeans or Americans. There was no written language in the Congo when Europeans first arrived, and this is inevitably skewed the way that history was recorded. We have dozens of memoirs by the territory's white officials; we know the changing opinions of key people in the British Foreign Office, sometimes on a day-by-day basis. But we do not have a full-length memoir or complete oral history of a single Congolese during the period of the greatest terror. Instead of African voices from this time is largely silence.

And yet, as i immersed muself in this material, I saw how revealing it was. The men who seized the Congo often trumpeted their killings, bragging about them in books and newspaper articles. Some kept surprisingly frank diaries that show far more than the writers intended, as does a voluminous and explict instruction book for colonial officals.And yet, as I immersed muself in this material, I saw how revealing it was. The men who seized the Congo often trumpeted their killings, bragging about them in books and newspaper articles.

Some kept surprisingly frank diaries that show far more than the writers intended, as does a voluminous and explict instruction book for colonial officals. Furthermore, several officers of the private army that occupied the Congo came to feel guilty about the blood on their hands. Their testimony, and the documents they smuggled out, helped to fuel the protest movement. Even on the part of the brutally suppressed Africans, the silence is not complete. Some of their actions and voices, though filtered through the records of their conquerors, we can still see and hear.

The worst of the bloodshed in the Congo took place between 1890 and 1910, but its origins lie much earlier, when Europeans and Africans first encountered each other there. And so to reach the headwaters of our story we must leap back more than five hundred years, to a time when a ship's captain saw the ocean change its color, and when a king received news of a strange apparition that had risen from inside the earth.The worst of the bloodshed in the Congo took place between 1890 and 1910, but its origins lie much earlier, when Europeans and Africans first encountered each other there.

And so to reach the headwaters of our story we must leap back more than five hundred years, to a time when a ship's captain saw the ocean change its color, and when a king received news of a strange apparition that had risen from inside the earth.

Reference: King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism In Colonial Africa