RUBBER 455 



by them, the rubber becoming the property of the state and the bonus 

 being the greater the less the cost of the rubber. A similar bonus was 

 given on ivory and gum copal. This was a direct stimulus towards ex- 

 tortion on the part of the officials. Villages were taxed for a certain 

 amount of rubber, and if it was not forthcoming punishments of all 

 kinds were inflicted, a common one being the cutting off of hands, 

 another, the carrying off of the women as hostages. 



Such a feeling was aroused in Europe by reports from missionaries 

 and others of the atrocities, that King Leopold was compelled to appoint 

 a commission of enquiry, which reported in 1905 or early 1906. This 

 report tells that the native peoples are " exhausted " through the de- 

 mand made upon them for headcarriage in the transport of government 

 material and that they are threatened with partial destruction. Captain 

 Baccari, envoy of the King of Italy, traveled through that region and 

 says, " we have all the ghastly scenes of the slave trade, the collar, the 

 lash, and the pressgang." A lieutenant in the Italian army who spent 

 three years in the Congo Free State and served in Leopold's African 

 army writes : 



The caravan road between Kasongo and Tanganyika is strewn with corpses 

 of carriers, exactly as in the time of the Arab slave trade. The carriers, weak- 

 ened, ill, insufficiently fed, fall literally by hundreds; and, in the evening, when 

 there happens to be a little wind, the odor of bodies in decomposition is every- 

 where noticeable, to such an extent, indeed, that the Italian officiers have given 

 it a name ' ' Manyema perfume. ' ' 



The commission reports that the direct causes of the miseries of the 

 natives are the requisitions in rubber and the requisitions in staple food 

 supplies "everywhere on the Congo, and, notwithstanding certain ap- 

 pearances to the contrary, the native gathers india rubber only under the 

 influence of direct or indirect force." It indicates what is meant by 

 force, namely, indiscriminate massacre, settlement of soldiers in rubber- 

 producing villages, uncontrolled and unhampered in the execution of 

 their instructions, taking of hostages, imprisonment of women and chil- 

 dren, flogging, illegal fines and punishments and so on. The condition 

 of the rubber gatherer is described : 



In the majority of cases he must, every fortnight, go one or two days' jour- 

 ney and. sometimes more, to reach the place in the forest where he can find in 

 fair abundance the rubber vine. There the gatherer passes some days in a miser- 

 able existence. He must construct an improvised shelter which can not obviously 

 replace his hut; he has not the food to which he is accustomed; he is deprived of 

 his wife, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather and to the attacks of wild 

 beasts. He must take his harvest to the station of the government or the com- 

 pany, and it is only after that that he returns to his village, where he can barely 

 reside two or three days before a new demand is made upon him. 



This is taken from the report of King Leopold's own commission, 

 which naturally does not overstate the case. I could easily have quoted 



