The Casement Report 16

The Casement Report 16

At the village of A*, which I visited twice during my stay in the

neighbourhood, A furnished me with particulars as to his own public

obligations. His portion of A* had formerly been extensive, and at the

date when an enumeration was made contained many people. To-day it has

only six adult householders, including himself, inhabiting now eleven

huts in all, with their wives and children--a total population of

twenty-seven persons. My attention was first drawn to him and his

village by my meeting with a young boy--a lad of 7 years old, I should

judge--whom I found in the village of U* as the recently acquired

property of B. B told me he had bought the boy, C, from A for 1,000 rods

(50 fr.). A, he said, having to meet a fine imposed by the

Commissaire-Général for shortage in some of the weeks’ supplies, and

being 1,000 rods short of the amount required, had pawned his nephew C

to him for that sum. This had taken place on the [blank space in text],

and my interview with B and the boy took place on the [blank space in

text]. The next day I walked to A*, which lies within a few miles of

Coquilhatville, and saw A and his town and people. There were then

exactly eight men in the town, including himself; but as two have since

been detained as prisoners at Coquilhatville for deficiencies in the

weekly supplies, there were, when I last saw A* in September, only six

adult males there. The weekly imposition levied on A’s part of A* was--

 

Kwanga 150 rations (about 700 lbs. weight of food).

Fish 95 rations.

Palm thatching mats 900

Firewood, for steamer fuel 2 canoe loads.

 

Also each week one large fresh fish or, in lieu thereof, two fowls for

the European table at Coquilhatville. In addition, the men had to help

in hunting game in the woods for the European station staff.

 

The payments made each week for these supplies (when they were

completely delivered) were:--

 

Fr. c.

Kwanga, 150 rods 7 50

Fish, 95 rods 4 75

Palm mats, 180 rods 9 0

2 canoe loads firewood, 1 rod 0 5

------

21 30

 

Payments for firewood were made by a paper receipt to be redeemed

annually, but A told me he had refused to accept the annual payment of

50 rods (2 fr. 50 c.) for 104 canoe loads of wood delivered during the

twelve months. To obtain these supplies A had frequently to purchase

both fish and palm mats. The fish, as a rule, cost from 10 to 20 rods

per ration, and the market price of thatching mats is 1 rod each; while

the kwanga, which the Government paid 1 rod for, fetched just 5 rods

each in the open market. The value of A’s weekly contribution was,

according to current prices, as follows:--

 

----------------------------------------+---------+-----------------

| Rods. | Value.

+---------+----------

| | Fr. c.

150 rations, kwanga, each 5 rods | 750 | 37 50

95 “ fish, each 10 rods | 950 | 47 50

900 palm mats, each 1 rod | 900 | 45 0

2 canoe loads firewood, each 20 rods | 40 | 2 0

+---------+----------

Total | | 132 0

----------------------------------------+---------+-----------------

 

Thus, taking no account of the fresh fish or fowls, A’s small township

of eight households lost 110 fr. 70 c. per week. At the year’s end,

while they had contributed 6,864 fr. worth of food and material to the

local Government station, they had received as recompense 1,107 fr. 60

c. A, personally, had a larger share of the tax to meet than any of the

others, and I found that the value of his personal contribution reached

80_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._ per annum by local prices, while he received in

settlement 9_l._ 15_s._ in Government payments. He therefore contributed

on his household of two wives, his mother, and dependents, inhabiting

three grass and cane huts, an amount equal to 70_l._ 8_s._ 4_d._ per

annum net.

 

These figures, I found on inquiry, were confirmed as correct by those

who were acquainted with the local conditions. A stated that his elder

brother, D, was in reality Chief of the township, but that some eight

months previously D had been arrested for a deficiency in the fish and

kwanga supplies. The Commissaire had then imposed a fine of 5,000 rods

(250 fr.) on the town, which A, with the assistance of a neighbouring

Chief named C, had paid. D was not thereupon at once released, and soon

afterwards escaped from the prison at Coquilhatville, and remained in

hiding in the forest. Soldiers came from the Government station and tied

up eight women in the town. A and all the men ran away upon their

coming, but he himself returned in the morning. The Commissaire-Général

visited A*, and told A that as D had run away he (A) was now the

recognized Chief of the town. He was then ordered to find his fugitive

brother, whose whereabouts he did not know, and a town in the

neighbourhood name E, suspected of harbouring him, was fined 5,000 rods.

Since that date, although D had returned to A* to reside, A had been

held, against his will, as responsible Chief of the town. He was a young

man of about 23 or 24 years of age I should say. He had repeatedly, he

stated, begged to be relieved of the honour thrust upon him, but in

vain. His brother, D, had recently been put again in prison at

Coquilhatville in connection with the loss of two cap-guns furnished him

when Chief in order to procure game for the local white men’s table. The

present impositions laid on A* were, A asserted, much more than it was

possible for him to meet. He had repeatedly appealed to the

Commissaire-Général and other officers at Coquilhatville, including the

law officer, begging them to visit his town and see for themselves--as I

might see--that he was speaking the truth. But, so far, no one would

listen to him, and he had been always rebuffed. On the last occasion of

his making this appeal, only three days before I saw him, he had been

threatened with prompt imprisonment if he failed in his supplies, and he

said he now saw no course before him but flight or imprisonment. He

could not run away, he said, and leave his mother and dependents;

besides, he would be surely found, and, in any case, whatever town

harboured him would be fined as E had been.

 

On a certain Sunday, when he had gone in with the usual weekly supplies,

which are returnable on Sundays, he had been short of eight rations of

fish and ten rations of kwanga and 330 palm mats, representing a value

of 84 rods (4 fr. 20 c.), as estimated on the scale of Government

payments. On the same date the other and larger portion of A* town was

also short of its tale of supplies, and a fine of 5,000 brass rods (250

fr.) was imposed upon the collective village. A’s share of this fine

was fixed by the natives among themselves at 2,000 rods, of which 1,000

rods were to be his own personal contribution. Having himself now no

money and no other means of obtaining it, he had pledged--with the

consent of the father--his little nephew, D’s son, whom I had seen with

B. In making inquiry, A’s story received much confirmation. He was, at

any rate, known as a man of very good character, and everything pointed

to his statement being true. On my return down river, I again saw A, who

came after nightfall to see me, in the hope that I might perhaps be able

to help him. He said that, since I had left a month previously, two of

the boys of his town had been detained at Coquilhatville as prisoners

when taking the rations on two successive weeks, owing to a deficiency

on each occasion of 18 rods in value (90 cents.), and that these two

boys--whose names he gave me--were still in prison. He had been that

very day, he said, to beg that they might be released, but had failed,

and there were now only five adult males in his village, including

himself.

 

While in Coquilhatville on this mission, he declared that he had seen

eleven men brought in from villages in the neighbourhood, who were put

in prison before him--all of them on account of a shortage in the

officially fixed scale of supplies required from their districts. I

offered to take him away with me in order to lay his case before the

judicial authorities elsewhere, but he refused to leave his mother. That

A’s statements were not so untrustworthy as on the face they might seem

to be, was proved a few days later by a comparison of his case with that

of another village I visited. This was a town named W*, lying some three

miles inland in a swampy forest situated near the mouth of the X* River.

On quitting Coquilhatville, I proceeded to the mouth of this river,

which enters the Congo some forty-five miles above that station, and I

remained two days in that neighbourhood. Learning that the people of the

immediate neighbourhood had recently been heavily fined for failure in

their food supplies, which have to be delivered weekly at that station,

and that these fines had fallen with especial severity on W*, I decided

to visit that town.

 

It was on the 21st August that I visited W*, where I found that the

statements made to me were borne out by my personal observation. The

town consisted of a long single street of native huts lying in the midst

of a clearing in the forest. In traversing it from end to end I

estimated the number of its people at about 600 all told.

 

At the upper end of the town a number of men and women assembled, and

some came forward, when they made a lengthy statement to the following

effect. From this upper end of the town wherein I was 100 rations of

kwanga had to be supplied weekly, and thirty fowls at a longer interval.

These latter were for the use of Coquilhatville, while the kwanga was

very largely for the use of the wood-cutters at the nearest Government

wood-cutting post on the main river. The usual prices for these

articles, viz., for the kwanga, 1 rod each, and for the fowls 20 rods

were paid. The people also had to take each week 10 fathoms of firewood

to the local wood-post, for which they often got no payment, and their

women were required twice a week to work at the Government coffee

plantation which extends around the wood-post.

 

I saw some bundles of firewood being got ready for carriage to this

place. They were large and very heavy, weighing, I should say, from 70

to 80 lb. each. Some months earlier, at the beginning of the year,

owing, as they said, to their failure to send in the fowls to

Coquilhatville, an armed expedition of some thirty soldiers, commanded

by a European officer, had come thence and occupied their town. At first

they had fled into the forest, but were persuaded to come in. On

returning, many of them--the principal men--- were at once tied up to

trees. The officer informed them that as they had failed in their duty

they must be punished. He required first that twenty-five men should be

furnished as workmen for Government service. These men were taken away

to serve the Government as labourers, and those addressing me did not

know where these men now were. They gave eighteen names of men so taken,

and said that the remaining seven came from the lower end of the town

through which I had passed on entering, where the relatives themselves

could give me particulars if I wished. The twenty-five men had not since

been seen in W*, nor had any one there cognizance of their whereabouts.

The officer had then imposed as further punishment a fine of 55,000

brass rods (2,750 fr.)--110_l._ This sum they had been forced to pay,

and as they had no other means of raising so large a sum they had, many

of them, been compelled to sell their children and their wives. I saw no

live-stock of any kind in W* save a very few fowls--possibly under a

dozen--and it seemed, indeed, not unlikely that, as these people

asserted, they had great difficulty in always getting their supplies

ready. A father and mother stepped out and said that they had been

forced to sell their son, a little boy called F, for 1,000 rods to meet

their share of the fine. A widow came and declared that she had been

forced, in order to meet her share of the fine, to sell her daughter G, a little girl whom I judged from her description to be about 10 years of age. She had been sold to a man in Y*, who was named, for 1,000 rods, which had then gone to make up the fine.