Stanley in Africa

The above refers to Stanley’s Emin Pasha expedition, details of which are given further on. But it is introduced here as showing what he had to contend with every time he struck the confluence of the two great rivers, and how difficult it was for him to pursue any other policy than he did, as it is a bewildering spot in nature, and in its human forces, so it is in its diplomancy.

One of the writers above mentioned goes on to discuss the question of cannibalism whose existence on the Upper Congo, and in other parts of Africa, has been asserted by correspondents. He says his own description of these practices on the Aruwimi and the Congo are in no way connected with the reports which are criticised in Mr. Stanley’s letter from Msalala, on Lake Victoria, in August 1889. Mr. Ward in none of his letters has ever mentioned or suggested that the Manyuemas were cannibals, or in any way justified the extraordinary statement of the Rev. William Brooke in the Times to the effect that it was common in the Manyuema camp to see “human hands and feet sticking out of cooking-pots.” This is evidently a canard. Perhaps it would be well for Mr. Brooke to give his authorities, since Mr. Stanley asks who they are that have seen these extraordinary sights. The Manyuemas are a fierce race; but, personally, Mr. Stanley has found them loyal and true to his service, and they are not cannibals, so far as I can learn. The instances of cannibalism mentioned in letters from the Aruwimi camp refer to the natives of the district outside the camp, and against whom the camp was fortified. But if Mr. Brooke has been misled, so also has Mr. Stanley in regard to the report he seems to have found in his bundles of newspaper cuttings to the effect that an execution of a woman was delayed by Jameson or Barttelot in order that a photographer might make ready his apparatus for taking a negative of the incident. This gruesome anecdote does not belong to Africa at all; it comes from a different part of the world altogether; was discussed in Parliament as an allegation made against an English Consul; and turned out to be either untrue or a gross exaggeration. When Mr. Stanley has learnt all that was said and conjectured about his doings in the long intervals of the silence and mystery that enshrouded him he will find less and less material for serious criticism in the other packets of press extracts he may yet have to unfold: but he need hardly be told that those who knew him and those who have trusted him would not, whatever happened, be led into thinking for a moment that he would break his promise or neglect his duty.

Stanley’s upward bound steamers now pass several devastated districts which in 1877 were peopled by ferocious beings ready with their canoes to sweep down upon his descending flotilla. At length the island tribe of the Wenya is reached. These are expert fishermen, and had been left unharmed by the Arabs, – and for policy sake too, since their acquaintance with Stanley Falls had been turned to practical account. Their knowledge of the intricate channels had enabled them to pilot the Arab canoes down over the obstructions and return them in the same way, the owners making the portage afoot.

Here the steamers were at the foot of Stanley Falls. These Falls consist of seven distinct cataracts extending over a distance of fifty-six miles. The lower or seventh cataract is simply a rough interruption to navigation for a distance of two miles. Above this is a navigable stretch of twenty-six miles, when the sixth cataract is reached. This, on the left side, is an impassable fall, but on the right is a succession of rapids. From the sixth to the fifth cataract is a twenty-two mile stretch of navigable water. The fifth, fourth, third, second and first cataracts come in quick succession, and within a space of nine miles. They appear to be impassable, but the fact that the natives manage to pass the Arab canoes up and down them proves that there are channels which are open to light craft when dexterously handled.

The width of the Congo at the seventh cataract is 1330 yards, divided into several broken channels by islands and rocks. The inhabitants of the islands above and below are skillful fishermen belonging to two or three different tribes. They obstruct even the swiftest channels with poles from which are appended nets for catching fish and these are visited daily in their canoes, over waters of clashing swiftness and ever threatening peril. Portions of their catch they use for food, the rest is converted into smoked food with which they buy women and children slaves, canoes and weapons. They are impregnably situated as to enemies. Their villages are scenes of industry. Long lines of fish-curers may be seen spreading fish on the platforms; old men weave nets and sieves; able-bodied men are basket makers and implement makers of various fantastic designs; the women prepare meal and bread, etc., or make crockery; the watermen are skillful canoe builders.

This was the spot upon which Stanley desired to erect a trading station and these were the people with whom he was to negotiate for a possession. He had no fears of the result, for it was evident that the Arabs and the half-castes of Nyangwe, beyond, would find advantage in a station at which they could obtain cloth, guns, knives and all articles of European manufacture at a much cheaper rate than from the Eastern coast. A palaver was opened with the assembled chiefs, in which Stanley was formally received and stated his object. Receptions by African chiefs are always very formal. Altogether, they are not uninteresting. Livingstone mentions one with King Chitapangwa, in which he was ushered into an enormous hut where the dignitary sat before three drummers and ten more men with rattles in their hands. The drummers beat fearfully on their drums, and the rattlers kept time, two of them advancing and retreating in a stooping posture, with their rattles near the ground, as if doing the chief obeisance, but still keeping time with the others. After a debate of three days duration the chiefs came to terms and ceded sovereignty over the islands and adjacent shores, with the right to build and trade. The large island of Wané Rusari was selected as the site of the station and a clearing was made for building. The question of a supply of vegetable food was settled by Siwa-Siwa, an inland chief, who promised to make the garrison his children and guaranteed them plenty of garden products. Binnie, engineer of the Royal, a plucky little Scotchman of diminutive stature, was appointed chief of the new Stanley Falls Station, and left in full authority. The boat’s crews cleared four acres of ground for him, and furnished him with axes, hoes, hammers, nails, flour, meats, coffee, tea, sugar, cloths, rods, beads, mugs, pans, and all the etceteras of a mid-African equipment. He was given thirty one armed men and plenty of ammunition. Then with full instructions as to his duty he was left to the care of Providence.

On December 10th the steamers began their return journey, having reached the full geographic limit marked out by the Brussels Committee. The return was to be signalized by obtaining the protectorship of the districts intervening between the stations thus far established on the Congo, so that the authority of the new State should be unbroken from Vivi to Stanley Falls. But this work, on second thought, could well be left to others with more time at their disposal than had Stanley. Therefore the steamers, taking advantage of the current, and bearing ten selected men of the native tribes about Stanley Falls, each in possession of three ivory tusks, made a speedy downward trip.

Tribe after tribe was passed, some of which had not been seen on the ascent, because the steamers were constantly seeking out new channels. Whenever it was deemed politic, stops were made and treaties entered into. All on board suffered much from the river breezes, heightened by the velocity of the steamers. These breezes checked perspiration too suddenly, and some severe prostrations occurred. By Christmas the flotilla was back to Iboko, where thieving was so rampant as to necessitate the seizure of one of the offenders and his imprisonment in a steamer. The chief, Kokoro, came alongside in a canoe to commend Stanley for ridding the tribe of a fellow who could bring such disgrace upon it; and he was really very earnest in his morality till he looked in upon the prisoner and found it was his son. Then there was lamentation and offers to buy the boy back. Stanley’s terms were a restitution of the stolen articles, and these not being met, he sailed away with the offender, promising to return in ten days to insist upon his conditions.

The populous districts of Usimbi and Ubengo were passed. At Ukumiri the whole population came out to greet the steamers, as it did at Bungata and Uranga. As many of these places had not been visited on the upward journey, it was manifest that word of the treaties and the impression made were being gradually and favorably disseminated by the canoe-traders. Equator Station was found in a flourishing condition. It was January 1st, 1884, when the steamers began an upward journey again to Iboko, in order to keep faith with Kokoro by returning his son. The old chief, Mata Bwyki, was indignant at the seizure of one of his subjects, but seeing that Stanley had returned and was acquainted with the tribal custom that a thief could be held till the stolen goods were restored, he fell in with his idea of justice, and went so far as to insist on a return of the stolen articles, or else the imprisonment which Stanley had inflicted. This attitude resulted in a restoration of the property and the temporary shame of the culprits.

Again the steamers arrived at Equator Station, where the commandant had a harrowing tale to tell of how the neighboring Bakuti had lost their chief and had come to the station to buy the soldier laborers to the extent of fifty, thinking they were slaves, in order that they might sacrifice them over the dead chieftain’s grave. It is needless to say that they were driven out of the station and given to understand that rites so horrid were not sanctioned by civilized people. But they succeeded in getting fourteen slaves elsewhere, and had them ready for execution on the day of burial. Some of the garrison went out to witness the cruel rite. They found the doomed men kneeling, with their arms bound behind them. Near by was a tree with a rope dangling from it. One of the captives was selected, and the rope was fastened round his neck. The tree, which had been bent down by the weight of several men, was permitted to assume its natural position, and in doing so it carried the victim off his feet. The executioner approached with a short, sharp falchion, and striking at the neck, severed the head from the body. The remaining captives were dispatched in similar manner. Their heads were boiled and the skin was taken off, in order that the skulls might ornament the poles around the grave. The soil saturated with their blood was buried with the dead chief, and the bodies were thrown into the Congo. Revolting as it all was, there was no preventive except the rifles, and they would have meant war.

On January 13th the steamers left Equator Station and soon arrived at Usindi, where the guide, Yumbila, was paid and dismissed. The next day Lukolela was reached, where some progress at station building had gone on, and a healthy condition prevailed. Bolobo was the next station but arrival there revealed only a wreck. It had been burned a second time, with all the guns, and a terrific explosion of the ammunition. The firing was due to the freak of a man delirious with fever, who imagined that a conflagration would provide him with a burial-scene far more honorable than the butchery of slaves indulged in by native African potentates. Stanley had his suspicions of the story, and could with difficulty believe that the destruction was not due to some sinister influences which pervaded the Bolobo atmosphere.

By January 20th the flotilla was back at Kinshassa, in Stanley Pool, where much progress had been made. In two hours they were at Leopoldville, after an absence of 146 days and a sail of 3,050 miles. Here everything was flourishing. The houses stood in comfortable rows, and the gardens were bringing forth vegetables in abundance. The natives were peaceable and ready to trade, the magazines were full, and as a depot it was adequate for the supply of all the up-river stations. Not so, however, with the down river stations. They were confused and required attention. Stanley therefore prepared a caravan for Vivi. Good-byes were given to the friends at Leopoldville, and the huge caravan started on its long journey over hills and prairie stretches, through dales and across streams, skirting forests here and piercing them there, past happy, peaceful villages, too far from the Congo to be annoyed by its ravines. The promising uplands of Ngombe are passed, ruled by Luteté, he who in 1882 requested the gift of a white man that he might have the pleasure of cutting his throat! But Luteté has been transformed from a ferocious chief into quite a decent citizen. Ngombe Station is a peaceable one, and Luteté furnishes the servants and carriers for it, besides sending his children to the Baptist school. The caravan then passes the Bokongo and Iyenzi people, noted for their good behaviour. All the land is fertile and the valleys exceedingly rich. Manyanga is reached. The station has not advanced, but is confused and ruinous, though probably a cool $100,000 has been expended upon it by the Association of the Congo.

Again the caravan takes up its march through the Ndunga people and thence down into the broad valley of the Lukunga, where Stanley is hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Ingham of the Livingstone Mission, at their pretty little cottage and school, surrounded by a spacious and well tended garden. Westward of the Lukunga are plateau lands, like the American prairies, covered with tall grass, and capable of raising the richest crops of wheat and corn. The plateaus passed, a descent is made into the valley of the Kwilu, and then into those of the Luima and Lunionzo, where the Station of Banza Manteka is reached, close by which is a Livingstone Mission house. The prospect from the hilltops here is a grand, embracing sight of nearly a dozen native villages whose dwellers are devoted to the cultivation of ground-nuts.

In six hours the caravan is at Isangila, sight of which station filled Stanley with grief, so backward had improvement been. Hundreds of bales of stock were rotting there through neglect of the commandant to keep the thatched roofs of the houses in repair. The country now becomes broken and rugged, and the way obstructed with large boulders. All nature here is a counterpart of that rough tumultuous channel where thunders the Congo in its last furious charges to the sea. It is now five miles to Vivi. The height is 1700 feet above the sea. The air is cool and delicious. The natives are peaceful and industrious. There is an English mission on those highlands, in the midst of peace and plenty.

Once at Vivi, Stanley is again grieved, for the commandants had done nothing to make it either ornamental or useful. All is barren, like the surrounding hills. Not a road had been cut, not a cottage thatched. The gardens were in waste, the fences broken. The twenty-five whites there were lazily indifferent to their surroundings, and without any energy or vivacity except that inspired by European wine. The native sick list was fearfully large and there was a general demand for medicines, till Stanley made an inspection and found that they were only feigning sickness as an excuse for idleness. Shocked at all this Stanley resolved to move the station up and away to the larger plateau. He did so, and left it with a reorganized staff and force, writing home, meanwhile, an account of his work. The old and new Vivi stations were connected by a railroad, and by June 1884, the new station had five comfortable houses, surrounded by a freshly planted banana orchard.

On June 6th Stanley left Vivi for Boma, and took passage on the British and African steamer Kinsembo, on the 10th, for an inspection of the West African coast. The steamer stopped at Landana, a factory town, with a French mission peeping out of a banana grove on an elevation. It next touched at Black Point to take on produce, and then at Loango and Mayumbo. It then entered the Gaboon country, and stopped off at the town of that name, which is the seat of government of the French colony. At Gaboon are several brick buildings, stores, hotels, a Catholic and American Protestant mission, ten factories and a stone pier. It is a neat place, and almost picturesque with its hill-dotted houses and tropical vegetation.

The steamer then passed the Spanish town of Elobey, on an island of that name, off the mouth of the Muni river. Rounding Cape St. Juan, it next touched at the celebrated island of Fernando-Po, whose centre is a peak 10,000 feet high. The country of the Cammaroons now begins – a people even more degraded than those of the Congo. Skirting this country, Duke Town, or old Calabar, was reached on June 21st. This is the “Oil river” region of Africa and 300 barrels of palm-oil awaited the Kinsembo. Stanley took a trip inland to Creek Town, where is a Scottish mission. He was struck with the similarity of what he saw to scenes on the Congo – the same palms, density of forest, green verdure, reddish loam, hut architecture. Only one thing differed, and that was that the residences of the native chiefs were of European manufacture. Palm-oil has brought them luxurious homes, modernly furnished. The ivory, oil, rubber, gum, camwood powder, orchilla, beeswax, grains and spices would do the same for Congo at no distant day.

The steamer next anchored in Bonny river, off the town of Bonny, where there is a well-to-do white population and an equally well-to-do native population, with many factories and a large traffic. These people seem to have solved the difficult problem of African climate, and to have dissipated much of the fear which clung to a residence on and about the rivers which find their way to the sea in the Bight of Benin. Passing New Calabar, anchor is cast off the Benin river, in a roadstead where clustered ships from all the principal ports of Europe. The Kinsembo is now fully loaded and makes for Quettah and then Sierra Leone. Thence sail was set for London. Stanley got off at Plymouth on July 29th, 1884, and four days later presented a report of his expedition and his mission to the king of Belgium at Ostend.

Some part of the work of founding the Congo Free State had now been done. Stanley and his expedition had been instrumental in clearing ground, leveling sites, reducing approaches, laying foundations and building walls. The Bureau of the Association had contributed means and supplied tools and mortar. But windows were now to be placed and roofs put on. Then the fabric must be furnished and equipped within. The finishing work could only be done through the agency of its royal founder. He took it up where Stanley laid it down, and applied to the Governments of Europe and America for recognition of what had been done, and for a guarantee of such limits as were foreshadowed by the new State. The border lands were those of France and Portugal. Treaties, fixing boundaries, were made with these countries. Precedents were formed in the case of the Puritan Fathers, the New Hampshire Colonists, the British East India Company, the Liberian Republic, the Colonists of Borneo, establishing the right of individuals to build States upon cessions of territory and surrenders of sovereignty by chiefs and rulers who hold as original owners.

Stanley’s present to the Association was a series of treaties duly ratified by 450 independent African chiefs, who held land by undisturbed possession, ancient usage and divine right. They had not been intimidated or coerced, but of their own free will and for valuable considerations had transferred their sovereignty and ownership to the Association. The time had now come for cementing these grants and cohering these sovereignties, so that they should stand forth as a grand entirety and prove worthy of the name of solid empire.

And just here occurs one of the most interesting chapters in the founding of the Congo Free State. As it was to the Welsh-American Stanley, that the initial work of the grand enterprise was due, so it was to his country, the United States of America, that that work was preserved and its results turned to the account of the world. England, with her usual disregard of international sentiment, and in that spirit which implies that her ipse dixit is all there is of importance in diplomacy, had made a treaty with Portugal, signed February 26th, 1884, recognizing the mouth of the Congo as Portuguese territory, and this in the face of the fact that the mouth of that great river had been regarded as neutral territory, and of the further fact that for half a century England herself had peremptorily refused to recognize Portuguese claims to it.

This action on the part of England awakened emphatic protest on the part of France and Germany, and commercial men in England denounced it through fear that Portuguese restrictions on trade would destroy Congo commerce entirely. It remained for the United States to speak. Her Minister to Belgium, General H. S. Sanford, had all along been a faithful coadjutor of the Committee of the International Association, and he began to call attention to the danger of the step just taken by England. He also reminded the American people that to their philanthropy was due the Free States of Liberia, founded at a cost of $2,500,000, and to which 20,00 °Colored Americans had been sent. He also reminded them that one of their citizens had rescued Livingstone and thereby called the attention of the world to the Congo basin and Central African enterprise. By means of these and other arguments he induced on Congress to examine thoroughly the subject of the Congo Free State and Anglo-Portuguese treaty.

The Committee on Foreign relations reported to the Senate as follows: —

“It can scarcely be denied that the native chiefs have the right to make the treaties they have made with Stanley, acting as the representative of the International Association. The able and exhaustive statements of Sir Travis Twiss, the eminent English jurist, and of Prof. Arntz, the no less distinguished Belgian publicist, leave no doubt upon the question of the legal capacity of the African International Association, in view of the law of nations, to accept any powers belonging to these native chiefs and governments, which they may choose to delegate or cede to them.

“The practical question to which they give an affirmative answer, for reasons which appear to be indisputable, is this: Can independent chiefs of several tribes cede to private citizens the whole or part of their State, with the sovereign rights which pertain to them, conformably to the traditional customs of the country?

“The doctrine advanced in this proposition, and so well sustained by these writers, accords with that held by the Government of the United States, that the occupants of a country, at the time of its discovery by other and more powerful nations, have the right to make the treaties for its disposal, and that private persons when associated in such a country for self protection, or self government, may treat with the inhabitants for any purpose that does not violate the laws of nations.”

After a patient investigation of all the facts bearing upon the Congo question, the United States Senate passed a resolution, April 10th, 1884, authorizing the President to recognize the International African Association as a governing power on the Congo River. This recognition by the United States was a new birth for the Association, whose existence had been menaced by England’s treaty with Portugal. The European powers, whose protest had thus far been impotent, now ably seconded the position taken by this country, and the result was a re-action in English sentiment, which bade fair to secure such modification or interpretation of the Portuguese treaty as would secure to the Congo Free State the outlet of the Congo River.

A conference of the nations interested in the new State, and the trade of the Congo, was called at Berlin, November 15, 1884. The German Empire, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Turkey and the United States, were represented. Prince Bismarck formally opened the Conference by declaring that it had met to solve three problems.