King Leopold's Ghost

by Adam Hochschild

  [>] "curse me at F.O.": Casement 2, p. 137 (11 June 1903).

  [>] "condemnation of civilized mankind": Casement to Fuchs, 15 Sept. 1903, quoted in Casement 5, p. v.

  [>] "into the thieves' kitchen": Casement to Lansdowne, no. 34 Africa, 15–16 Sept. 1903, FO 10/805, quoted in Louis 1, p. 107.

  [>] letters to the governor general: Lagergren, pp. 323–329.

  [>] diary entries, 5 June—9 Sept.: Casement 2, pp. 135, 153, 155, 157, 159, 163, 165.

  [>] "'you have killed men'": Casement 3, p. 114.

  [>] "acts of refined cruelty": Phipps to Lansdowne, 27 Feb. 1904, quoted in Louis 1, pp. 112–113.

  [>] "awkward position at court": Phipps to Barrington, 5 Feb. 1904, quoted in Louis 1, p. 111 fn.

  [>] "I am N.N.... his name was A.B.": Casement 3, p. 112.

  [>] "as a simple surgical operation": Special Congo Supplement to the West African Mail, June 1904.

  [>] "gang of stupidities": Casement 2, p. 183 (1 Dec. 1903).

  [>] "an abject piffler": Casement 2, p. 185 (16 Dec. 1903).

  [>] "incompetent noodles": Casement to Nightingale, 8 Sept. 1904, quoted in Reid, p. 65.

  [>] "M. sleeping in study": Casement 2, p. 183 (10 Dec. 1903).

  [>] "sought his bedroom above": Morel 5, pp. 160–162.

  [>] "wife a good woman": Casement 2, p. 189 (5 Jan. 1904).

  [>] "drew up a rough plan of campaign": Morel 5, pp. 163–164.

  [>] "in that great heart of hers?": Morel 5, pp. 164–165.

  [>] "he wrote out a cheque for £100": Morel 5, p. 165.

  [>] "one overwhelming Nay!": Inglis, p. 92.

  [>] "as near to being a saint as a man can be": Morel to Holt, 12 July 1910, quoted in Porter, p. 267.

  [>] "to end that den of devils": Casement to Morel, 4 July 1906, quoted in Louis 1, p. 119.

  [>] "he will do nothing": Morel to Guthrie, 25 Feb. 1910, quoted in Morel 5, p. 195 fn.

  [>] "that I have been able to do it all": Morel to Brabner, 14 Sept. 1908, quoted in Morel 5, p. 211.

  [>] "the Morel of Congo reform": Holt to Morel, quoted in Adams, p. 179.

  [>] "'God-speed' on his journey": West African Mail, 23 Sept. 1904, p. 601.

  [>] "And they have the right to live": Morel to Mark Twain, quoted in Hawkins 1, p. 167.

  [>] the hands of one's dead enemies: Vansina 2, pp. 144, 343; Vellut, p. 701.

  [>] "in the hollow of my hand": Morel to Holt, 1910, quoted in Morel 5, p. 217.

  [>] "a burden upon the State": Furley, pp. 141–142.

  [>] "chemistry of evangelical imperialism": James Morris, Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), p. 39.

  [>] "accepted his leadership": Taylor, p. 133.

  [>] "the reptile Congophile Press of Brussels and Antwerp": Morel 1, p. 261.

  [>] "terrible wrongs upon the native races": Morel 1, p. x.

  [>] "inland slave-trade on the Congo": Morel 1, p. xvii.

  [>] "goodgovernment of the Congo territories": Cookey, p. 149.

  [>] "and flood his deeds with day": William Watson, "Leopold of Belgium," in the Congo Reform Association's slide show. The poem also appeared in the West African Mail, 21 Sept. 1906, p. 608, and, in a slightly different version identified as being from Watson's New Poems (Lane), in the African Mail, 26 Nov. 1909, p. 80.

  [>] "the downfall": note to himself, 14 June 1907, quoted by Cline, p. 58.

  [>] 4,194 clippings: The sum of various subtotals given in Inventaire des microfilms des Papiers Morel, series A, B, E, F, G, H, I, se rapportant à l'histoire du Congo et conservés à la British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics (Brussels: Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1961).

  [>] Samba: A Story of the Rubber Slaves of the Congo, by Herbert Strang (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1906), p. vi.

  [>] "literature, information, etc": Morel to Cadbury, Oct. 1906, quoted in Cline, p. 54.

  [>] for the benefit of the movement: West African Mail, 24 Aug. 1906, p. 520.

  [>] "more than 5 years": John Harris, unpublished autobiographical ms., quoted in Louis 6, p. 833.

  [>] "with the greatest discretion": Wahis to Charles Smets, 26 Jan. 1906, De Ryck Collection.

  [>] "send me of inaccuracies": Weber to Naur, 16 Aug. 1906, De Ryck Collection.

  [>] Hezekiah Andrew Shanu: Unless otherwise noted, all information on Shanu comes from Marchal 3, pp. 142, 167–168, 191, 231, 296–302, 330–332, plus a few details from Lemaire 1, pp. 42–44, and Biographie Coloniale Belge, vol. 4, cols. 838–839.

  [>] "with the greatest correctness": Le Mouvement Géographique, 30 Sept. 1894, p. 85.

  [>] "of the negro race": La Chronique Coloniale et Financière, 11 Dec. 1904, p. 1.

  [>] "loyalty to the State": Memorandum by Albrecht Gohr, director of justice, 27 July 1900, quoted in Marchal 3, p. 297.

  [>] "from time to time": Morel to Shanu, 4 Sept. 1903, quoted in Morel 5, p. 157.

  [>] "means of persuasion than terror": Marchal 3, p. 231.

  [>] "ever received by the Congo State": Morel 1, p. 135.

  [>] the Caudron case: Morel 1, pp. 135–153.

  [>] "unblemished reputation and of great courage": Morel 5, p. 156.

  [>] "to withhold his name": De Vaughan, p. 48.

  [>] "to the mute personage": De Vaughan, p. 51.

  [>] footnote: Stinglhamber and Dresse, p. 306.

  [>] left an hour later: De Vaughan, p. 123.

  [>] "telling him that they had colds!": De Vaughan, p. 67.

  [>] "be soiled with blood or mud": Leopold to Liebrechts, 31 Jan. 1899, quoted in Marchal 2, p. 96.

  [>] "the one thing I need in the Congo!": Stinglhamber and Dresse, p. 136.

  [>] not dare take precedence over His Majesty: Ascherson, p. 142.

  15. A RECKONING

  [>] without being challenged by the Congo state: Marchal 1, p. 339.

  [>] even higher totals for the number of hands: Marchal 1, p. 339.

  [>] hands cut off living people: Lagergren, p. 297.

  [>] "with the butt of their guns": this statement was quoted in Casement's report, repeated by Morel, and is quoted in Lagergren, p. 288, and Marchal 3, pp. 197–198.

  [>] 40,355 rounds of ammunition: West African Mail, 17 Feb. 1905, p. 111.

  [>] "'they were thrown into the river'": Speech by Sjöblom in London, 12 May 1897, quoted in Morel 3, p. 43.

  [>] rubber regime in 1894–1895: Lagergren, p. 121.

  [>] simply open fire: Vangroenweghe, p. 59.

  [>] "13 women and children taken prisoner": Lemaire 2, pp. 18, 20, 23, 30, 36, 48.

  [>] "We burned the village": Leclercq, pp. 244–445.

  [>] footnote: Marchal 1, p. 362.

  [>] "exterminate them to the last man": West African Mail, 16 Mar. 1906, p. 1219.

  [>] "Exterminate all the brutes!": Conrad, p. 51.

  [>] "better place for our noon rest": P. Möller, Tre Ar i Kongo (Stockholm: P A. Norstedt, 1887), pp. 234-235, quoted in Kivilu, p. 338.

  [>] French territory by 1900: Morel 3, p. 63.

  [>] "roots, and ants and other insects": Canisius, p. 170.

  [>] "sleeping in the forests without shelter": William Morrison, letter from Luebo, 15 Oct. 1899, in The Missionary, Feb. 1900, p. 67.

  [>] "depopulated and devastated.... what tales of horror they told!": From Cape to Cairo: the First Traverse of Africa from South to North (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1900), quoted in Morel 3, p. 58.

  [>] five pigs or fifty chickens: Nelson, p. 100.

  [>] three to ten a day: Harms 3, p. 134.

  [>] too heavy to fly: McLynn 3, p. 245.

  [>] in 1901 alone: McLynn 3, p. 238.

  [>] blame sleeping sickness: For a modern example of this, see Jean Stengers in Morel 5, p. 255.

  [>] "above all there's no food": Marchal 4, p. 49.

  [>] noticed this pattern: Vangroenweghe, p. 233.

  [>] "hide from the soldiers": Casem
ent 3, p. 140.

  [>] show the same pattern: Vangroenweghe, pp. 233, 237.

  [>] "been reduced by half": L. Guebels, Relation complète des travaux de la Commission Permanente pour la Protection des Indigènes (Elisabethville: 1954), pp. 196–197.

  [>] "and much more": interview, Sept. 1995.

  [>] "by at least a half": Jan Vansina, introduction to Vangroenweghe, p. 10.

  [>] reckoned at ten million: La Question sociale au Congo: Rapport au comité du congrès colonial national (Brussels: Goemaere, 1924), p. 7.

  [>] "confronted with a kind of desert": La Question sociale au Congo: Rapport au comité du congrès colonial national (Brussels: Goemaere, 1924), p. 101.

  [>] killed in the nearest village: Vangroenweghe, p. 60.

  [>] cooked to death: Marchal 4, p. 26.

  [>] then set on fire: Vangroenweghe, p. 115.

  [>] "are we doing here?": Michael Herr, Dispatches (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), p. 29.

  16. "JOURNALISTS WON'T GIVE YOU RECEIPTS"

  [>] "for his country and for Africa": McLynn 2, p. 405.

  [>] "So that is time! Strange!": Stanley 5, p. 515.

  [>] wrote one witness: Daniel Bersot in the foreword to Sous la Chicotte (Geneva:A. Jullien, 1909).

  [>] on the arm: Liane Ranieri, Les Relations entre l'État Indépendant du Congo et l'Italie (Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, 1959), p. 195.

  [>] those Casement had found in the Congo: Marchal 4, p. 12.

  [>] "Opium in British India": in La Vérité sur le Congo, Jan. 1905, p. 8.

  [>] "It is astounding ... humanely-governed": Mountmorres, pp. 99–100, 159.

  [>] "on any one day": Mountmorres, pp. 105–106.

  [>] "because she was coming": John Weeks to Morel, 7 Nov. 1904, in the West African Mail, 10 Mar. 1905, p. 1186.

  [>] worst cases of disease he could find: Marchal 3, p. 304.

  [>] "than I have ever seen in the Congo": Times, 3 Feb. 1905, quoted in Bontinck, p. 456.

  [>] for which Leopold paid the bill: Marchal 3, p. 316.

  [>] "extraordinarily impudent": Morel to Fox, 18 Oct. 1905, quoted in Cookey, p. 143.

  [>] "in memory of their visit to Laeken": Stinglhamber and Dresse, pp. 334–335.

  [>] operated in many countries: Willequet, pp. 109–113.

  [>] footnote: Demetrius C. Boulger, The Congo State is NOT a Slave State: A Reply to Mr. E. D. Morel's Pamphlet Entitled "The Congo Slave State" (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1903), p. 3.

  [>] "cheerful and satisfied": interview with Harrison in the Journal of Commerce, 23 June 1904.

  [>] at least one legislator: Marchal 4, pp. 12–21.

  [>] launched an investigation instead: Official Organ, #1, 1909, p. 64.

  [>] "Satan and Mammon in one person": Willequet, letter reproduced following p. 36.

  [>] "the unscrupulous businessman who lives in the palace in Brussels": National-Zeitung, 22 May 1903, quoted in Wllequet, p. 150.

  [>] "the British rubber merchants": National-Zeitung, 4 Mar. 1905, quoted in Willequet, pp. 150–151.

  [>] "old wives' tales ... hateful peddlar's stories": National-Zeitung, 30 May 1905, quoted in Willequet, p. 152.

  [>] "the following commentary": Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung, 1 Mar. 1906, quoted in Willequet, pp. 159 160.

  [>] "due mainly to my activity": Von Steub to Davignon, 21 May 1909, quoted in Willequet, p. 114 fn.

  [>] "have my expenses covered": Von Steub to Davignon, 21 May 1909, quoted in Willequet, p. 128.

  [>] "to organs of the press": Von Steub to Davignon, 14 Sept. 1909, quoted in Willequet, p. 130.

  [>] "'don't ask for any'": Von Steub to Denyn, 8 Oct. 1909, quoted in Willequet, p. 130.

  [>] Mark Twain and Congo reform: see Hawkins 1.

  [>] "no small enemy to overcome": Kowalsky to Leopold, undated, in New York American, 11 Dec. 1906.

  [>] Booker T. Washington and Congo reform: Harlan 1, pp. 270–271; Harlan 2, pp. 75–77.

  [>] "talking on the subject": Booker T. Washington in "Tributes to Mark Twain," North American Review 191, no. 655 (June 1910), p. 829, quoted in Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 106.

  [>] "needs an organization like U.S. Steel": Twain to Morel, c. 12 Jan. 1906, reprinted in Wuliger, p. 236.

  [>] royalties that the author donated: Maxwell Geismar, Mark Twain: An American Prophet (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), p. 222.

  [>] "these leaks keep occurring": Twain, p. 1.

  [>] "that I couldn't bribe": Twain, p. 66.

  [>] "meddlesome missionary spying": Twain, p. 36.

  [>] he told Morel: Morgan to Morel, 6 Oct. 1904, quoted in Baylen, p. 129.

  [>] in forty-nine cities: Congo News Letter, April 1906 and April 1907.

  [>] would accept only one dollar: Official Organ, April 1906, p. 10.

  [>] "will take some action": Harris to Morel, 14 Feb. 1906, quoted in Cookey, p. 174.

  [>] "demanding action": Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root, 1905–1937, vol. 2 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1938), pp. 61-62, quoted in Shaloff, p. 90.

  [>] "everybody & about everybody": Lodge to Roosevelt, 6 July 1905, quoted in Sternstein, p. 192.

  [>] "seen lots of presidents": The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1931), p. 506, quoted in Sternstein, p. 193.

  [>] "the English agitators and the Belgian Socialists futile": Wack to Leopold, n.d., quoted in the New York American, 13 Dec. 1906.

  [>] footnote: Cardinal Gotti to Gibbons, 24 Nov. 1904, quoted in Slade 1, p. 31 on.

  [>] "hearsay evidence of natives": Gibbons to Morel, 21 Oct. 1904, quoted in Morel 5, p. 183.

  [>] footnote: Starr, p. 91.

  [>] "an impartial publicist": New York American, 12 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "in a team of acrobats": San Francisco Call, 15 Jan. 1911.

  [>] "a box at a theater": San Francisco Examiner, 29 Nov. 1914.

  [>] "draws up a firm one": San Francisco Call, 15 Jan. 1911.

  [>] "just when you're going to kill him!": San Francisco Bulletin, 18 Nov. 1914.

  [>] "too large a subject": Mayor E. E. Schmits, Speeches Made, p. 10.

  [>] "so choice a morsel": A. Reuf, Speeches Made, p. 26.

  [>] "humanity and civilization": Speeches Made, p. 40.

  [>] "mission in Africa or China?": de Cuvelier to Moncheur, 4 Feb. 1905, quoted in Marchal 4, p. 270.

  [>] "wouldn't come back": Nerincx to de Cuvelier, 11 Feb. 1905, quoted in Marchal 4, p. 270.

  [>] "a scandal in the press": Moncheur to de Cuvelier, 19 Feb. 1905, quoted in Marchal 4, p. 271.

  [>] "taking the Belgian Minister's advice": New York American, 10 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "a characterless ... lamented father": Kowalsky to Leopold, n.d., reprinted in NewYork American, 11 Dec. 1906.

  [>] a hefty 125,000 francs: Marchal 4, p. 272.

  [>] INFAMOUS CRUELTIES ... WOMEN AND CHILDREN: New York American, 10 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "crimes of Congo": New York American, 11 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "the end of the next session": New York American, 10 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "the President's personal friend ... Your Majesty's interest instead": Kowalsky to Leopold, n.d., in New York American, 11 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "did I breathe safely": Kowalsky to Leopold, n.d., in New York American, 11 Dec. 1906.

  [>] Commission of Inquiry: see Congo Reform Association; Vangroenweghe; Marchal 4, pp. 111–122; Cookey, pp. 132-151.

  [>] broken down and wept: Conan Doyle, p. 75; Morel in Penny Pictorial, Oct. 1907, article 4 in series.

  [>] "complete and authentic résumé of the report": Daily Chronicle, 7 Nov. 1905.

  [>] "We have ourselves ... should be utilized": Daily Chronicle, 7 Nov. 1905.

  [>] West African Missionary Association: Daily Chronicle, 7, 11, 14, and 15 Nov. 1905; Daily News, 15 Nov. 1905.

  17. NO MAN IS A STRANGER

  [>]
"till we fainted": Regions Beyond, Jan.-Feb. 1906, p. 46; also Official Organ, Jan. 1906, p. 5.

  [>] "gave one cry and was dead": Procès-Verbaux, 2 Nov. 1904.

  [>] "had their hands cut off": Procès-Verbaux, 21 Nov. 1904.

  [>] "but he had been healthy": Procès-Verbaux, 5 Jan. 1905.

  [>] "throw you in the river": Procès-Verbaux, 2 Jan. 1905.

  [>] "if it had secret staircases": De Vaughan, pp. 99–100.

  [>] "with attractive uniform façades": Leopold to Goffinet, 23 Jan. 1906, quoted in Ranieri, p. 247.

  [>] "and the Heysel road": Carton de Wiart, p. 177.

  [>] "led up the garden path": Ascherson, p. 219.

  [>] "cost a province": Stinglhamber and Dresse, p. 59.

  [>] "toasts to his health": Conrad and Hueffer, p. 120.

  [>] "Give Him his cane!": Bauer, p. 163, de Lichtervelde, p. 323.

  [>] "international, not national": Williams 3, p. 279.

  [>] said much like this again: Even as late as 1919, when the Second Pan-African Congress of black American, Caribbean, and African leaders met in Paris under the leadership of W.E.B. Du Bois, it did not advocate full independence for African colonies. Pan-Africanism, eds. Robert Chrisman and Nathan Hare (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974), p. 302.

  [>] turning point: Stengers 7, p. 176.

  [>] press for Belgian annexation: Cookey, p. 210.

  [>] "to ask for its accounts": Baron Léon Van der Elst, "Souvenirs sur Léopold II," in Revue Générale, 1923, quoted in Emerson, p. 259.

  [>] to take away his Congo: Carton de Wiart, p. 188.

  [>] "any salary as Congo executive": interview with Publishers' Press, in the New York American, 11 Dec. 1906.

  [>] "made for the Congo": Marchal 4, p. 349.

  [>] "almost every American reformer, black or white": Normandy, p. 300.

  [>] William Morrison: see Marchal 3, pp. 75–91; Shaloff, pp. 84–94; and Vinson. Dozens of Morrison's letters are reprinted in Benedetto.

  [>] left the country: Slade i, p. 317.

  [>] home leaves: Phipps, pp. 95–96.

  [>] some 180 of them were killed: Marchal 4, p. 225.

  [>] "concerning their soul's salvation": from "From the Bakuba Country," by W H. Sheppard, The Kassai Herald, 1 Jan. 1908, pp. 12–13. Sheppard Papers.

  [>] "asked any questions Sheppard suggested": Kocher to the State Prosecutor, 31 July 1908, quoted in Martens, p. 398.

  [>] eighty thousand francs in damages: American Consul General Handley to the Assistant Secretary of State, 2 Sept. 1909. Sheppard Papers.