The Casement Report 15

The Casement Report 15

Being short-handed I sought, when at

Ikoko, to engage six or seven young men of the town as woodcutters to

travel on board the steamer. I proposed to engage them for two or three

months, and offered good wages, much more than by any local service they

could hope to earn. More men offered than I needed, and I selected six.

The State Chief of the village hearing of this at once came to me to

protest against any of his people leaving the town, and said that he

would have all the youths I had engaged tied up and sent over to the

Government official at Bikoro. There were at the time three soldiers

armed with Albini rifles quartered at Ikoko, and the Chief sent for them

to arrest my would-be crew. The Chief’s argument, too, was perfectly

logical. He said, “I am responsible each week for 600 rations of fish

which must be delivered at Bikoro. If it fails I am held responsible and

will be punished. I have been flogged more than once for a failure in

the fish supply, and will not run any risks. If these men go I shall be

short-handed, therefore they must stay to help in getting the weekly

tax.” I was forced to admit the justice of this argument, and we finally

arrived at a compromise. I promised the Chief that, in addition to

paying wages to the men I took, a sum representing the value to him of

their labour should be left at Ikoko, so that he might hire extra hands

to get the full quantity of fish required of him. S I admitted that he

had been forced to flog men from villages which failed in their weekly

supplies, but that he had for some months discontinued this course. He

said that now he put defaulters into prison instead. If a village which

was held to supply, say, 200 rations of fish each week brought only 180

rations, he accepted no excuse, but put two men in “block.” If thirty

rations were wanting he detained three of the men, and so on--a man for

each ten rations. These people would remain prisoners, and would have to

work at Bikoro, or possibly would be sent to Coquilhatville, the

administrative head-quarters of the Equator district, until the full

imposition came in.

 

I subsequently found when in the neighbourhood of Coquilhatville that

summary arrest and imprisonment of this kind for failure to complete the

tale of local imposition is of constant occurrence. The men thus

arrested are kept often in the “chain gang” along with other prisoners,

and are put to the usual class of penitential work. They are not brought

before or tried by any Court or sentenced to any fixed term of

imprisonment, but are merely detained until some sort of satisfaction is

obtained, and while under detention are kept at hard work.

 

Indeed, I could not find that a failure to meet the weekly tax is

punishable by law and no law was cited to me as a warrant for this

summary imprisonment, but if such a law exists it is to be presumed that

it does not treat the weekly taxpayers’ failure as a grave criminal

offence. The men taken are frequently not those in fault; the

requisitioning authority cannot discriminate. He is forced to insure

compliance with the demands imposed on each village, and the first men

to hand from the offending community of necessity have to pay in the

chain-gang the general failure and possibly the individual fault of

others. Men taken in this way are sometimes not seen again in their own

homes. They are either taken to distant Government stations as workmen,

or are drafted as soldiers into the Force Publique. The names of many

men thus taken from the Mantumba district were given to me, and in some

cases their relatives had heard of their death in distant parts of the

country. This practice was, I believe, more general in the past, but

that it still exists to-day, and on an extensive scale, I had several

instances of observing in widely separated districts. The officials

effecting these arrests do not seem to have any other course open to

them, unless it be a resort to military punitive measures or to

individual corporal punishment; while the natives assert that, as the

taxes are unequally distributed, and their own numbers constantly

decreasing, the strain upon them each week often becomes unbearable, and

some of their number will shirk the constantly recurring unwelcome task.

Should this shirking become general instead of being confined to

individuals, punitive measures are undertaken against the refractory

community. Where these do not end in fighting, loss of life and

destruction of native property, they entail very heavy fines which are

levied on the defaulting village. An expedition of the minor kind

occurred some five months before my presence in Lake Mantumba. The

village in fault was that of R*, the one where when I sought to visit it

no people would remain to face me. This village was said to have been

some three weeks in arrears with the fish it was required to supply to

the camp at Irebu. An armed force occupied it, commanded by an officer,

and captured ten men and eight canoes. These canoes and the prisoners

were conveyed by water to Irebu, the main force marching back by land.

 

My informant, who dwelt in a village near R*, which I was then visiting,

said he saw the prisoners being taken back to Irebu under guard of six

black soldiers, tied up with native rope so tightly that they were

calling aloud with pain. The force halted the night in his town. These

people were detained at Irebu for ten days until the people of R* had

brought in a supply of fish and had paid a fine. Upon their release two

of these men died, one close to Irebu and the other within sight of the

village I was in, and two more, my informant added, died soon after

their return to R*. A man, who saw them, said the prisoners were ill and

bore the marks on wrists and legs of the thongs used in tying them. Of

the canoes captured only the old ones were returned to R*, the better

ones being confiscated.

 

The native relating this incident added that he thought it stupid of the

white men to take both men and canoes away from a small place like R* as

a punishment for a shortage in its fish supply. “The men were wanted to

catch fish and so were the canoes,” he said, “and to take both away only

made it harder for the people of R* to perform their task.” I went to R*

in the hope of being able to verify the truth of this and other

statements made to me as to the hardships recently inflicted on its

people by reason of their disobedience, but owing to their timidity, to

whatever cause this might have been due, it was impossible for me to get

into touch with any of them. That a very close watch is kept on the

people of the district and their movements is undoubted. In the past

they escaped in large numbers to the French territory, but many were

prevented by force from doing this, and numbers were shot in the

attempt.

 

To-day the Congolese authorities discourage intercourse of this kind,

not by the same severe measures as formerly, but probably none the less

effectively. By a letter dated the 2nd July, 1902, the present

Commandant of the camp of Irebu wrote as follows to the Rev. E. V.

Sjoblom, a Swedish Missionary (since dead), who was then in charge of

the Mission at Ikoko:

 

“Je vous serais bien obligé de ne pas permettre à vos jeunes gens

de se rendre sur la rive Française et vendre aux indigènes Français

qui ont fui notre rive, des vivres, produits du travail de nos

indigènes, que eux-mêmes n’ont pas fui et ne se sont pas soustraits

au travail que nous leur avons imposé.”

 

From Lake Mantumba I proceeded to the immediate neighbourhood of

Coquilhatville, where five days were spent, chiefly at native

communities which stretch for some distance along the east bank of the

Congo. These villages formerly extended for 15 miles, and were then

filled with a numerous population. To-day they are broken up into

isolated settlements, each much reduced in numbers, and with (in most

cases) the houses badly constructed. There were no goats or sheep to be

seen, whereas formerly these were very plentiful, and food for the crew

was only obtained with difficulty. In the village of V*, which I twice

visited, the usual tax of food-stuff, with firing for the steamers, had

to be supplied to Coquilhatville, which is distant only some 6 miles. A

Government sentry was quartered here, who, along with one of the Chiefs

of the town, spoke fully of the condition of the people. The sentry

himself came from the Upper Bussira River, some hundreds of miles

distant. This was, he said, his third period of service with the Force

Publique. As his reason for remaining so long in this service he

asserted that, as his own village and country were subjected to much

trouble in connection with the rubber tax, he could not live in his own

home, and preferred, he said, laughing, “to be with the hunters rather

than with the hunted.” Both a Chief V* and this sentry represented the

food taxes levied on this village as difficult for the people to

collect, and only inadequately remunerated. There would appear in all

these statements a contradiction in terms. The contributions required of

the natives are continually spoken of as a “tax,” and are as continually

referred to as being “paid for” or “remunerated.” It is obvious that

taxes are neither bought nor sold, but the contradiction is only one of

terms. The fact is that the weekly or fortnightly contributions

everywhere required of the native communities I visited are levied as

taxes, or “prestations annuelles,” by authority of a Royal Decree of the

Sovereign of the Congo State. The Decrees authorizing the levy of these

taxes are dated the 6th October, 1891 (Article 4), that of the 5th

December, 1892, and (for the district of Manyeuma) that of the 28th

November, 1893. There is a further Decree, dated the 30th April, 1897,

requiring the establishment and up-keep by native Chiefs of coffee and

cocoa plantations. I nowhere saw or heard of such plantations existing

as institutions maintained by the natives themselves. There are

plantations of both existing, but these are the property of either the

Government itself or of some European agency acting with its sanction

and partly in its interests, on lands declared as public lands. With

regard to the two first Decrees establishing a system of taxation,

provision was made for the investiture of a native Chief recognized by

the local Government authority, who should give to this Chief a copy of

the _procès-verbal_, as registered in the public archives, and a medal

or other symbol of office. With this investiture a list was ordered to

be drawn up, indicating the name of the village, its exact situation,

the names of the Headmen, the number of its houses, and the actual

number of the population--men, women, and children. The Decree then goes

on to provide for the manner in which the “prestations annuelles”

imposed on each village were to be assessed. A list of the products to

be furnished by each village--such as maize, sorghum, palm oil,

ground-nuts, &c., corvées of workmen or soldiers--was to be drawn up by

the Commissaire of the district. It was provided that this list should

also indicate the lands which were to be cleared and cultivated under

the direction of the Chiefs, the nature of such cultivation put in hand,

and “all other works of public utility which might be prescribed in the

interest of public health, the exploitation or improvement of the soil,

or otherwise.” These lists had first of all to be submitted for his

approval to the Governor-General. I could not find that, save in respect

of the strict enforcement of the contributions, this law was generally

or rigorously observed. In many villages where I asked for it no copy of

any _procès-verbal_ could be produced, and in several cases no act of

investiture of the local Chief seemed to have ever taken place.

Plantations, such as those outlined in the Decree which made provision

for them, nowhere exist in any part of the country I traversed. The

enumeration of the houses and people had in some instances been made, I

was informed, but it was many years ago; and as the population had since

greatly declined, this enumeration could not to-day always serve as an

accurate basis on which to reckon the extent of the existing contribution.