King Leopold's Ghost

by Adam Hochschild

  [>] "precious trickle of ivory": Conrad, p. 21.

  [>] "The word 'ivory'...could earn percentages": Conrad, pp. 26–27.

  [>] famed for his harem: Marchal i, p. 284.

  [>] captured and beheaded him: Times of London, 8 Dec. 1892, quoted in Sherry, pp. 110—iii.

  [>] December 17, 1898: Lindqvist (p. 29) seems the first to notice this.

  [>] "a flower-bed in front of his house!": E. J. Glave, "Cruelty in the Congo Free State," in The Century Magazine, Sept. 1897, p. 706.

  [>] Rom: see biographical references on p. 329.

  [>] a young officer he had met: Any meeting between Conrad and Rom would have taken place at the beginning of August, when Conrad passed through Leopoldville, or in the next day or two, before his boat left neighboring Kinshasa. Conrad was again at Leopoldville/Kinshasa from late September to late October and would have had ample opportunity to hear stories of Rom then. Rom himself had left for his next post while Conrad was upriver. For other boastful white collectors of Congolese heads Conrad may have heard about, see p. 99 and pp. 196–197. For one he probably met, see p. 166 (at the time of Conrad's trip, Léon Fiévez had just taken command of the strategic, heavily fortified post of Basoko, a likely overnight stop for the Roi des Belges going both up and downriver). For a later head collector, see p. 228.

  [>] "The horror! The horror!": Conrad, p. 68.

  [>] "when you look into it too much": Conrad, p. 10.

  [>] "real work is done in there": Conrad, p. 13.

  [>] "spark from the sacred fire": Conrad, p. 8.

  [>] "under the English flag all over the world": Frances B. Singh, "The Colonialistic Bias of Heart of Darkness," in Conradiana 10 (1978), reprinted in Conrad, p. 278.

  [>] "less savage than the other savages": Mark Twain, More Tramps Abroad (London: Chatto & Windus, 1897) pp. 137–138, quoted in C. P Sarvan, "Racism and the Heart of Darkness," International Fiction Review 7 (1980), reprinted in Conrad, p. 284.

  [>] "weird incantations": Conrad, p. 65.

  [>] "passionate uproar": Conrad, p. 38.

  [>] "some satanic litany": Conrad, p. 66.

  [>] "lo! the darkness found him out": Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," reprinted in Conrad, p. 261.

  [>] "the Company was run for profit": Conrad, p. 16.

  [>] footnote: Conrad and Hueffer, p. 165.

  [>] "the noble cause": Conrad, p. 12.

  [>] "science and progress": Conrad, p. 28.

  [>] "sketch in oils": Conrad, p. 27.

  [>] "vibrating with eloquence ... Exterminate all the brutes!": Conrad, pp. 50–51.

  [>] in a Belgian museum: the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale at Tervuren.

  [>] "he generally responds with something stupid": Rom, Le Nègre du Congo, pp. 5–6.

  [>] "they will have at the next stop": Rom, Le Nègre du Congo, p. 84.

  [>] "getting himself adored": Conrad, p. 56.

  [>] "He makes his agents ... the role of a second Rom": Leclercq, p. 264.

  [>] "in front of the station!": Wahis to Van Eetvelde, 2 Nov. 1896, quoted in Marchal 1, p. 298.

  10. THE WOOD THAT WEEPS

  [>] "burns like the altar flame": Tennant to Stanley, 6 May 1890 and 9 May 1890, quoted in McLynn 2, pp. 328–329.

  [>] "like a monkey in a cage": Stanley's journal, 9 Sept. 1890, quoted in McLynn 2, p. 334.

  [>] "he considered sex for the beasts": McLynn 2, p. 334.

  [>] "general mediocrity": McLynn 2, p. 376.

  [>] "untrained, undisciplined, loutish and ill-bred": Stanley to Mackinnon, 25 Dec. 1890, quoted in McLynn 2, p. 337.

  [>] William Sheppard: The most thorough study of Sheppard is Phipps. See also Schall, Shaloff, Roth, Walter Williams, Sheppard, and numerous articles by and about Sheppard in the Southern Workman.

  [>] "to the homes of their ancestors": Shaloff, p. 15.

  [>] in the process: The Missionary, vol. xxvi, no. 6, pp. 219–220.

  [>] as much as he did other visitors: Lapsley, p. 44.

  [>] "furnishes a handle I hope to use on him": Lapsley to his "Aunt Elsie," in Lapsley, p. 83. A misprint in Lapsley erroneously dates this letter 1891.

  [>] "black white man, as they call Sheppard": Lapsley to "Aunt Elsie," Lapsley, p. 83.

  [>] "thankful to God for Sheppard": Lapsley to his mother, 22 Dec. 1890, Lapsley, p. 94.

  [>] "I let him do most of the buying": Lapsley, p. 108.

  [>] "the dense darkness ... filled with superstition and sin": William Sheppard in the Southern Workman 44 (1915), pp. 166, 169, quoted in Schall, pp. 114–115.

  [>] "I would be happy, and so I am": Sheppard to Dr. S. H. Henkel, 5 Jan. 1892, quoted in Shaloff, p. 29.

  [>] "the names they gave us": Sheppard, "Yesterday, To-day and Tomorrow in Africa," in Southern Workman, Aug. 1910, p. 445.

  [>] "my people": Walter Williams, p. 138.

  [>] "the country of my forefathers": letter from Sheppard to The Missionary, Sept. 1890, quoted in Walter Williams, p. 138.

  [>] "and on the 26th of March died": S. C. Gordon to Sheppard, quoted in Shaloff, p. 30.

  [>] "he alone speaks of all the Europeans": Ernest Stache to the Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church, 7 Aug. 1892, quoted in Shaloff, p. 32.

  [>] strayed from his marriage: Phipps, p. 118; Benedetto, pp. 30, 423–425.

  [>] "got theirs from the Bakuba!": Sheppard in the Southern Workman, Dec. 1893, pp. 184–187, quoted in Walter Williams, p. 143.

  [>] "came from a far-away land": Sheppard, "African Handicrafts and Superstitions," Southern Workman, Sept. 1921, pp. 403–404.

  [>] the first foreigner: Vansina 2, p. 3.

  [>] a former king: This is the way Sheppard usually told the story, as, for example, when he spoke at Hampton on 14 Nov. 1893 (reprinted in the Southern Workman, April 1895, "Into the Heart of Africa," p. 65): "You are Bo-pe Mekabé, who reigned before my father and who died." Although on several occasions (Southern Workman, April 1905, p. 218, and Sept. 1921, p. 403), he said he was taken for a dead son of the present king.

  [>] footnote: Shaloff, p. 45.

  [>] information for later scholars: Vansina 2 is the definitive scholarly treatment of the Kuba. To avoid confusion, however, in quotations from Sheppard and elsewhere, I have generally used Sheppard's spelling of African names.

  [>] "the highest in equatorial Africa": Sheppard, p. 137.

  [>] Presbyterian Pioneers in Congo: A later edition is called Pioneers in Congo.

  [>] "and the rope was drawn up": Sheppard, p. 119.

  [>] to aides for action: Liebrechts, pp. 37–38.

  [>] eight times his annual salary: Harms 3, p. 132.

  [>] nearly thirty times what it had been six years earlier: Harms 3, pp. 130–131.

  [>] increased ninety-six times over: Nelson, p. 82.

  [>] "tapping some vines": Official Organ, Sept. 1907, p. 10.

  [>] "must be compelled to do it": Louis Chaltin, journal, 16 July 1892, quoted in Northrup, p. 51.

  [>] "the requisite amount of rubber had been collected": Pulteney to FO, 15 Sept. 1899, FO 10/731, no. 5, quoted in Cookey, pp. 50–51 fn.

  [>] "unchain the prettiest ones and rape them": Bricusse, p. 81.

  [>] "will usually decide to send representatives": Donny, vol. 1, pp. 139–140.

  [>] three to four kilos of dried rubber per adult male per fortnight: Harms 3, p. 132.

  [>] against leopards: Daniel Vangroenweghe "Le Red Rubber de l'Anversoise, 1899–1900, Documents inédits" in Annales Aequatoria 6 (1985), p. 57.

  [>] and squeeze the rubber out: Harms 1, p. 81.

  [>] forty-seven thousand rubber gatherers: Harms 1, p. 79.

  [>] four hundred men with baskets: Harms 3, p. 134.

  [>] "use them as slaves—as I liked": Canisius, p. 267.

  [>] some of the strongest resistance to Leopold's rule: Marchal 4, pp. 106–107.

  [>] "I counted them, 81 in all": Sheppard diary, 14 Sept. 1899, Shep
pard Papers.

  [>] "to show the State how many we have killed": Sheppard in The Missionary, Feb. 1900, p. 61.

  [>] "cut off hands, noses and ears": Charles Lemaire, Belgique et Congo (Gand: A. Vandeweghe, 1908), p. 64, quoted in Vangroenweghe, p. 46.

  [>] "cut off a hand from a living man": Ellsworth E. Faris, journal, 23 Aug. 1899, quoted in Morel 5, p. 248.

  [>] "keeper of the hands": Vangroenweghe, p. 234.

  [>] "Arches of the Severed Hands": Pariiamentary debate of 28 Feb. 1905, quoted in Vangroenweghe, p. 288.

  [>] "rape their own mothers and sisters": Boeiaert, pp. 58–59.

  [>] "allowed five hundred others to live": Bricusse, p. 56. (11 June 1894).

  [>] shoot holes in Africans' ear lobes: Guy Burrows, The Curse of Central Africa (London: R. A. Everett & Co., 1903), pp. xviii—xix.

  [>] large doses of castor oil: de Premorel, p. 64.

  [>] he made them eat it: Marchal 4, p. 85.

  [>] rubbed with excrement: Marchal 1, p. 391.

  [>] contained chopped-up hands: Bremen 1, pp. 119–120.

  11. A SECRET SOCIETY OF MURDERERS

  [>] "except money!"Bauer, p. 169.

  [>] "one day or another come on to the market": conversation of 30 Aug. 1892 in Auguste Roeykens, Le baron Léon de Béthune au service de Léopold II (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, 1964), p. 56, quoted in Stengers 2, p. 286.

  [>] "moving Europe so deeply": Emerson, pp. 193–194.

  [>] understated the state's real profits: Marchal 1, p. 353.

  [>] more than a hundred million francs: Vangroenweghe, p. 87.

  [>] Leopold's daily routine: For eyewitness accounts, see Stinglhamber and Dresse, especially pp. 38–50, and Carton de Wiart, especially pp. 44 and 123–130.

  [>] "I'll also take some cutlets": Stinglhamber and Dresse, p. 88.

  [>] "thinking that Africans are black?": Emerson, p. 221.

  [>] "by the hands of giants": C. Vauthier, "Le chemin de fer du Congo de Matadi à Léopoidviiie. Les environs de Matadi et le massif de Palabala," in Bulletin de la Société Géographique d'Anvers 13 [1887?], pp. 377–378, quoted in Kivilu, p. 324.

  [>] twelve miles in length: Cornet, p. 376.

  [>] "what would it cost?": Leopold to Thys, 31 May 1888, quoted in Cornet, p. 236.

  [>] east coast and then home: Cornet, p. 236.

  [>] each telegraph pole one European life: Axeison, p. 204.

  [>] close to 1800 a year: Marchal 3, p. 143, p. 153.

  [>] forced them back: Cornet, p. 209.

  [>] eleven million pounds: Gann and Duignan 2, p. 123.

  [>] footnote: Emile Wangermée, journal, 31 Jan. 1899, quoted in Lagergren, p. 294 fn.

  [>] "to save us from the rubber trouble?": Regions Beyond, April 1897, quoted in Slade 1, p. 251.

  [>] "We want to die": Axeison, pp. 259–260.

  [>] "(toujours désagréabie)": J. De Witte, Monseigneur Augouard (Paris: Émile-Paui Frères, 1924), p. 71, quoted in Slade 1, p. 255.

  [>] "time of service will soon be finished": Morei 3, pp. 43–44.

  [>] reportedly paid a visit: Fox Bourne to Morel, 21 Nov. 1903, quoted in Louis 1, p. 99 fn.

  [>] "dared to kill an Englishman": Lionel Decle in the Pall Mall Gazette, 11 June 1896, quoted in Louis 3, p. 575.

  [>] "faced the facts of the situation": 21 Sept. 1896, quoted in Lagergren, p. 197 fn.

  [>] "En domptant l'Arabe inhumain": Louis Graide, "Les Belges au Congo," in F. Alexis-M. Soldats et Missionnaires au Congo de 1891 à 1894 (Lille: Desclée, de Brouwer & Cie., 1896).

  [>] the Congolese at Tervuren: See Marchal 2, pp. 78–80, Gérard, p. 181, Debrunner, pp. 340–342, Le Mouvement Géographique, 27 June 1897 and 18 July 1897, and La Belgique Coloniale, 4 July 1897 and 5 Sept. 1897.

  [>] footnote: The poem by M. E. Buhler appeared in the New York Times of Sept. 19, 1906. This and other press clippings are reprinted in Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo, by Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).

  [>] "first sign of civilization": La Belgique Coloniale, 4 July 1897, p. 314.

  [>] "the great warrior": La Belgique Coloniale, 4 July 1897.

  [>] "an example of humanity!": Bruxelles-Exposition, n.d., quoted in La Belgique Coloniale, 5 Sept. 1897, p. 423.

  [>] "a magnificent field for [Belgian] enterprise": "The Belgians in Africa," 22 Feb. 1894. (Name of periodical is missing in the Morel Papers microfilm.)

  [>] "involuntary shudder of repulsion": Morel 5, p. 27.

  [>] "greatly troubled at the 'indiscretion'": Morel 5, pp. 28–29.

  [>] "to what usage was this armament put?": Morel 5, p. 36.

  [>] "into whose pocket did the unavowed surplus go?" Morel 5, pp. 39–40.

  [>] "to pay for what was coming out." Morel 5, p. 36.

  [>] were destined for Africans: Gann and Duignan, p. 149.

  [>] "with a King for a croniman": Morel 5, pp. 41–42.

  12. DAVID AND GOLIATH

  [>] "set their African house in order": Morel 5, pp. 47–48.

  [>] "presence was unwelcome": Morel 5, p. 48.

  [>] "a vast destruction of human life": Morel 5, p. 5.

  [>] "no turning back": Morel 5, p. 49.

  [>] "temperamentally impossible": Morel 5, p. 30.

  [>] "these deeds must of necessity take place": Morel 3, p. 8 fn.

  [>] "'Ending date ... Observations'": West African Mail, 13 Jan. 1905, p. 996.

  [>] "feeding of hostages": Special Congo Supplement to the West African Mail, Jan. 1905.

  [>] from a post in Brussels: A. and J. Stengers, "Rapport sur une mission dans les archives anglaises," in Bulletin de la Commission Royale d'Histoire, vol. CXXIV (1959), pp. ciii—civ.

  [>] the company's agents in the Congo: Morel i, p. 31.

  [>] in the original French: Official Organ, Sept.—Nov. 1908.

  [>] "of the various districts": Morel 3, p. 24.

  [>] "in connection with this circular, verbally": Morel 3, p. 25.

  [>] "What can I do?": Morel 3, p. 56.

  [>] "at a distance of fully four feet": Morel 3, p. 47.

  [>] "tongues were hanging out": Morel 3, p. 57.

  [>] list of the dead: Official Organ, Jan. 1906, p. 15.

  [>] "the peoples of the Congo may ever have ... the advantages of your enlightened rule": Morel 5, p. 115.

  [>] "choice and copious": Morel 5, p. 128.

  [>] "I enjoyed myself most thoroughly": Morel 5, p. 129.

  [>] "other service than rubber-gathering": Canisius, pp. 75–80.

  [>] "that civilization was dawning": Canisius, p. 99.

  [>] "literally shrieked with pain": Canisius, pp. 92–93.

  [>] "to starvation and smallpox": Canisius, p. 113.

  [>] "men, women and children": Canisius, p. 142.

  [>] "to the monthly crop": Ibid.

  [>] "governed with humanity": Resolution of 20 May 1903, quoted in Cline, p. 37.

  [>] "the Armenians or the Bulgarians": Georges Lorand, in La Réforme, 14 Sept. 1896, quoted in Lagergren, p. 199 fn.

  13. BREAKING INTO THE THIEVES' KITCHEN

  [>] "to send reports soon": PRO HO 161, quoted in Reid, p. 42. See also PRO FO 629/10, 11, 12.

  [>] Roger Casement: Reid and Inglis are the best of the many biographers of Casement. Inglis gives much more space to his African experiences, but lacks source notes.

  [>] "Knight errant he was": Stephen Gwynn, Experiences of a Literary Man (London: T. Butterworth, 1926), p. 258, quoted in Reid, p. 63.

  [>] "would never make money": W Holman Bentley, quoted in Vangroenweghe, p. 276.

  [>] "specimen of the capable Englishman": Stanley's journal, 15 Apr. 1887, quoted in McLynn 2, p. 171.

  [>] to the dog to eat: McLynn 2, pp. 174-175.

  [>] "nothing but devastation behind it": Camille Janssen, in Bulletin de la Société Belge d'Études Coloniales (1912), p. 717.

  [>] "stimulate their prowess in the face of the enem
y": Casement to Foreign Office, 14 Jan. 1904, PRO FO 10/807, quoted in Casement 5, p. i.

  [>] "most intelligent and very sympathetic": Joseph Conrad, Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces, ed. Zdzislaw Najder (New York: Doubleday, 1978), reprinted in Conrad, p. 159.

  [>] "His greatest charm ... He purrs at you": Ernest Hambloch, British Consul: Memories of Thirty Years' Service in Europe and Brazil (London: G. G. Harrap, 1938), p. 71, quoted in Reid, p. 5 fn.

  [>] saw Casement once more: the clear implication of Conrad's letter to Cunninghame Graham of 26 Dec. 1903 ("I have seen him start off into an unspeakable wilderness ... A few months afterwards it so happened that I saw him come out again"), quoted in Reid, p. 14.

  [>] "talked there till 3 in the morning": Conrad to John Quinn, 24 May 1916, quoted in Frederick Karl, Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979), p. 286. Sometimes foggy about dates, Conrad, echoed by one or two of his more careless biographers, placed this meeting in 1896. But that could not have been; Casement was in Africa that year. Jane Ford (in "An African Encounter, A British Traitor and Heart of Darkness," Conradiana, vol. 27, no. 2, 1995, p. 125) believes the encounter probably occurred in 1898—which would have made it just before Conrad started writing Heart of Darkness.

  [>] "things I never did know": Conrad to Cunninghame Graham, 26 Dec. 1903, quoted in Reid, p. 14.

  [>] "in any shape or form": Casement to Fox-Bourne, 2 July 1894, quoted in Reid, p. 20.

  [>] "in the character": Singleton-Gates, p. 91.

  [>] "advise him of": Louis 1, p. 103.

  [>] "listen to a drunken sailor's complaint": Inglis, p. 41.

  [>] "big bulldog with large jaws": Marchal 3, p. 187.

  [>] "And leave this love God made, not I": Inglis, pp. 382–383.

  [>] diary entries on Macdonald: Casement 2, pp. 121, 123, 125 (17, 19 and 30 Apr. 1903).

  [>] "Agostinho ... How much money?": Casement 2, pp. 111, 115, 119, 129 (13, 20 Mar.; 6 Apr.; 12 May 1903).

  [>] brutal conditions in Leopold's Congo: Marchal 3, pp. 189–190.

  [>] Casement was under way: Marchal 3, p. 192; Inglis, p. 69.

  [>] "please God I'll scotch it": Casement to Poultney Bigelow, 13 Dec. 1903, quoted in Reid, p. 53.

  [>] "in full flight over us": Casement 2, p. 145 (2 July 1903).

  [>] "poor old Hairy Bill.... beats me hollow": Casement 2, pp. 147, 149 (8, 9, 10, 13 July 1903).