The Casement Report 30
| 1893. | 1903. | Remarks.
+-------+-------+--------------------------------
Botunu | 500 | 80 |
Bosende | 600 | --- |
Ngombe | 500 | 40 | These are not in the old village,
| | | but near it.
Irebo | 3,000 | 60 | Now a State camp with hundreds
| | | of soldiers and women.
Bokaka | 500 | 30 |
Lobwaka | 200 | 30 |
Boboko | 300 | 35 |
Mwenge | 150 | 30 |
Boongo | 250 | 50 |
Ituta | 300 | 60 |
Ikenze | 320 | 20 |
Ngero | 2,500 | 300 | In several small clusters of huts.
Mwebe | 700 | 75 |
Ikoko | 2,500 | 800 | Including fishing camps.
----------+-------+-------+-----------------------------------
This list can be extended to double this number of villages, and in
every case there has been a great decrease in the population. This has
been, to a very great extent, caused by the extreme measures resorted to
by officers of the State, and the freedom enjoyed by the soldiers to do
just as they pleased. There are more people in the district near the
villages mentioned, but they are hidden away in the bush like hunted
animals, with only a few branches thrown together for shelter, for they
have no trust that the present quiet state of things will continue, and
they have no heart to build houses or make good gardens. In all the
villages mentioned there are very few good huts, and when the natives
are urged to make better houses for the sake of their health, the reply
is, that there is no advantage to them in building good houses or making
extensive gardens, as these would only give the State a greater hold
upon them and lead to more exorbitant demands. The decrease has several
causes:--
1. O* was deserted because of demands made for rubber by M. N O and
several others were similar cases. The natives went to the French
territory.
2. “War,” in which children and women were killed as well as men. Women
and children were killed not in all cases by stray bullets, but were
taken as prisoners and killed. Sad to say, these horrible cases were not
always the acts of some black soldier. Proof was laid against one
officer who shot one woman and one man, while they were before him as
prisoners with their hands tied, and no attempt was made by the accused
to deny the truth of the statement. To those killed in the so-called
“war” must be added large numbers of those who died while kept as
prisoners of war. Others were carried to far distant camps and have
never returned. Many of the young were sent to Missions, and the
death-rate was enormous. Here is one example: Ten children were sent
from a State steamer to a Mission, and in spite of comfortable
surroundings there were only three alive at the end of a month. The
others had died of dysentery and bowel troubles contracted during the
voyage. Two more struggled on for about fifteen months, but never
recovered strength, and at last died. In less than two years only one of
the ten was alive.
3. Another cause of the decrease is that the natives are weakened in
body through insufficient and irregular food supply. They cannot resist
disease as of old. In spite of assurances that the old state of things
will not come again, the native refuses to build good houses, make large
gardens, and make the best of the new surroundings--he is without
ambition because without hope, and when sickness comes he does not seem
to care.
4. Again a lower percentage of births lessen the population. Weakened
bodies is one cause of this. Another reason is that women refuse to bear
children, and take means to save themselves from motherhood. They give
as the reason that if “war” should come a woman “big with child,” or
with a baby to carry, cannot well run away and hide from the soldiers.
Confidence will no doubt, be restored, but it grows but slowly.
There are two points in connection with the “war” (so-called):--
(1.) The cause.
(2.) The manner in which it was conducted.
(1.) The natives never had obeyed any other man than their own Chiefs.
When Leopold II became their King they were not aware of the fact, nor
had they any hand in the making of the new arrangement. Demands were
made on them, and they did not understand why they should obey the
stranger. Some of the demands were not excessive, but others were simply
impossible. From the G H* people and the O* group of towns large demands
of rubber were made. There was not much within their reach, and it was a
dangerous thing to be a stranger in a strange part of the forests. The
O* people offered to pay a monthly tribute of goats, fowls, &c., but M.
N O would have rubber, so they left. The G H* had to bear the scourge of
war frequently and many were killed. Now they supply what they probably
would have supplied without the loss of one person, kwanga and fresh
meats, and roofing materials and mats. Rubber was demanded from some
others and war resulted. These are now providing the State with fish and
fowls.
Another fertile source of war lay in the actions of the native soldiers.
Generally speaking their statements against other natives were received
as truth that needed no support. Take the following as an example: One
morning it was reported that State soldiers had shot several people near
the channel leading from H K* to the Congo. Several canoes full of
manioc had been also seized, and the friends of the dead and owners of
two of the canoes asked that they might have the canoes and food, and
that they might take the bodies and bury them. But this was refused. It
was alleged the people were shot in the act of deserting from the State
into French territory. The Chief who was shot was actually returning
from having gone with a message from M. O P to a village, and was killed
east of the camp and of his home, while “France” lay to the west. The
soldiers said that the people had been challenged to stop and that they
refused, and that they had been shot as they paddled away. But really
they had landed when called by the soldiers; they had been tied hand and
foot, and then shot. One woman had struggled when shot, and had broken
the vines with which her feet were tied, and she, though wounded, tried
to escape. A second bullet made her fall, but yet she rose and ran a few
steps, when a third bullet laid her low. Their hands had all been taken
off--_i.e._, the right hand of each--for evidence of the faithfulness of
the soldiers. M. O P shot two of the soldiers, but the leader of the
party was not shot, though the whole matter was carried through by him,
and he it was that gave M. O P the false report.
A Chief complained that certain soldiers had taken his wives and had
stolen all of his belongings that they cared to have. He made no
complaint against the “tax” that the soldiers had gone there to secure,
but told of the cruelty and oppression of the soldiers carried on for
their own gain. The white officer kicked him off the verandah and said
that he told many lies. The Chief turned round with fury written on his
face, stood silently looking at the white man, and then stalked off; two
days later there was a report that all the soldiers with their wives and
followers had been killed in that Chief’s town. A little later the white
officer who refused to set matters right, along with another Belgian
officer, were killed with a number of their soldiers in an expedition
for the purpose of punishing the Chief and his people for killing the
first lot of soldiers.
After the rubber demand was withdrawn, in some places labour was
demanded. A very large proportion of the women from this village had to
go to P* every week and work there two days. They returned here on the
third day. Nearly every week there were complaints made that someone’s
wife had been kept by a soldier, and when it was suggested that the
husband should himself go and report the matter to the white man, they
would reply: “We dare not.” Their fear was not so much of the white man
but of the black soldiers.
(2.) The manner in which this war was conducted was very objectionable
to any one with European ideas. The natives attacked P* and O*, but that
was only after numerous expeditions had been made against them, and the
whole population roused against the “white man.” In 99 per cent. of the
“wars” in this district the cause was simply failure on the part of the
people to supply produce, labour, or men, as demanded by the State.
There was the long struggle with L L L in his long resistance to State
authority; but he at first was known as a quiet man who tried to please
the State, and he only started on his career as a fighting man after he
had been out to help M. N O. After the departure of M. N O to
Coquilhatville, he went back and made demands and fought the people as
he had done with M. N O as his Chief.
When this matter was reported to M. N O, he was angry, and called the
Chief a “brigand,” and said that he would be punished. For numerous
offences he was put “on the chain,” and some time after his release the
fight occurred (in which fight the two white men were killed) and he
joined with others in an ineffectual attempt to drive out the white man.
In most of the fights then the natives were merely trying to defend
themselves and their homes from attacks made on them by black soldiers
sent to “punish them for some failure to do their duty to the State;”
and if the cause for war was weak, the way in which it was carried on
was often revolting. It was stated that these soldiers were often sent
out to make war on a village without a white officer accompanying them,
so that there was nothing to keep them from awful excesses.
It is averred that canoes have been seen returning from distant
expeditions with no white man in charge, and with human hands dangling
from a stick in the bow of the canoe--or in small baskets--being carried
to the white man as proofs of their courage and devotion to duty. If one
in fifty of native reports are true, there has been great lack on the
part of some white men. They, too, are accused of forgetting the
subjects and conditions of war.
Statements made to me by certain natives are appended.
Many similar statements were made to me during the time I spent at Lake
Mantumba, some of those made by native men being unfit for repetition.
_Q Q’s Statement._
I was born at K K*. After my father died my mother and I went to L L*.
When we returned to K K* soon after that P Q came to fight with us
because of rubber. K K* did not want to take rubber to the white man. We
and our mothers ran away very far into the bush. The Bula Matadi
soldiers were very strong and they fought hard, one soldier was killed,
and they killed one K K* man. Then the white man said let us go home,
and they went home, and then we, too, came out of the bush. This was the
first fight. After that another fighting took place. I, my mother,
grandmother, and my sister, we ran away into the bush. The soldiers came
and fought us, and left the town and followed us into the bush. When the
soldiers came into the bush near us they were calling my mother by name,
and I was going to answer, but my mother put her hand to my mouth to
stop me. Then they went to another side, and then we left that place and
went to another. When they called my mother, if she had not stopped me
from answering, we would all have been killed then. A great number of
our people were killed by the soldiers. The friends who were left buried
the dead bodies, and there was very much weeping. After that there was
not any fighting for some time. Then the soldiers came again to fight
with us, and we ran into the bush, but they really came to fight with M
M*. They killed a lot of M M* people, and then one soldier came out to K
K*, and the K K* people killed him with a spear. And when the other
soldiers heard that their friend was killed they came in a large number
and followed us into the bush. Then the soldiers fired a gun, and some
people were killed. After that they saw a little bit of my mother’s
head, and the soldiers ran quickly towards the place where we were and
caught my grandmother, my mother, my sister, and another little one,
younger than us. Several of the soldiers argued about my mother, because
each wanted her for a wife, so they finally decided to kill her. They
killed her with a gun--they shot her through the stomach--and she fell,
and when I saw that I cried very much, because they killed my mother and
grandmother, and I was left alone. My mother was near to the time of her
confinement at that time. And they killed my grandmother too, and I saw
it all done. They took hold of my sister and asked where her older
sister was, and she said: “She has just run away.” They said, “Call
her.” She called me, but I was too frightened and would not answer, and
I ran and went away and came out at another place, and I could not speak
much because my throat was very sore. I saw a little bit kwanga lying on
the ground and I picked it up to eat. At that place there used to be a
lot of people, but when I got there there were none. My sister was taken
to P*, and I was at this place alone. One day I saw a man coming from
the back country. He was going to kill me, but afterwards he took me to
a place where there were people, and there I saw my step-father.... He
asked to buy me from this man, but the man would not let him. He said,
“She is my slave now; I found her.” One day the men went out fishing,
and when I looked I saw the soldiers coming, so I ran away, but a string
caught my foot and I fell, and a soldier named N N N caught me.
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