CONGO, INDEPENDENT STATE OP THE. 



sionaries, who told of individual natives being 

 slain by tin 1 white officers themselves for neglecting 

 to gather rubber, impelled the Congo State Govern- 

 ment to order an investigation. It appointed a 

 commission of three Baptist and three Roman 

 Catholic missionaries to see that the natives have 

 protection, and to report all acts of violence to the 

 Government, and declared that it would pay no 

 more premiums for rubber and ivory. Disinterested 

 observers have concluded that nothing but harm 

 lias come in this part of Africa of the contact be- 

 tween the European and the native races ; that the 

 wide and enlightened views of the King of the 

 Belgians have not been developed; and that the 

 indigenous growth of civilization, witnessed by the 

 handicrafts of the people, is being stamped out. 

 The tide of Arab influence, which the Belgians have 

 checked by the development of superior military 

 force, had a civilizing tendency not withstanding the 

 horrors of slave raiding that attended it. The 

 United States commercial agent, R. Dorsey Mohun, 

 was struck by the high state of cultivation on the 

 upper Congo, the exceeding abundance and cheap- 

 ness of food, the herds of cattle, the busy commerce, 

 the clean and comfortable houses, the industry, 

 thrift, and neatness of the people, and their skill 

 as blacksmiths, gunsmiths, locksmiths, carpenters, 

 masons, and brickmakers, taught them by their 

 former masters, all contrasting with the sloth and 

 filth characterizing the sickly, fetish- worshiping, 

 drunken savages of the lower Congo. The Congo 

 officials claim that the State has made extraordinary 

 progress. Tracts of land have been cleared in dif- 

 ferent districts, and in the place of the wild bush 

 ' are flourishing coffee, cacao, and kola plantations 

 and rice and maize fields, giving employment to 

 large numbers of natives. Very effective State 

 schools are maintained in Boma, in which the 

 teachers are monks and nuns who instruct liberated 

 slaves and children in Christianity and the rudi- 

 ments of education, and teach the boys to be car- 

 penters, masons, tilemakers, and blacksmiths, and to 

 carry on agriculture in its various branches, while 

 the girls are taught cooking, sewing, and laundry 

 work. In all the stations there are handicraftsmen 

 from Europe or the west coast who teach Congo 

 boys various trades. 



In the new regulations promulgated in Septem- 

 ber, 1896, the European agents of the Congo State 

 are held responsible for any ill treatment their sub- 

 ordinates inflict upon the natives. Some new 

 statutes have been inserted in the penal code for 

 the suppression of cannibalism, the mutilation of 

 corpses, and ordeal by poison. The permanent 

 commission for the protection of the natives is com- 

 posed of the Vicar Apostolic, Bishop van Ronste, 

 Fathers van Henexthoven and de Cleene, William 

 Holman Bentley and George Grenfell, of the Bap- 

 tist Missionary Society, and Dr. A. Sims, of the 

 American Baptist Union. The members of the 

 commission will inform the judicial authorities of 

 any acts of violence of which natives may have been 

 victims, and each member, individually, will exer- 

 cise the right of protection and will communicate 

 directly with the Governor General. The commis- 

 sion will also advise th" Government of measures 

 to be adopted to prevent slave trading; to render 

 mi'iv effective the prohibition or restriction of the 

 sale of spirituous liquors ; and to bring about grad- 

 ually the disappearance of barbarous customs, such 

 as cannibalism, human sacrifices, trial by poison, 

 etc. Hereafter no agent may undertake hostilities 

 against th.- natives unless aulhori/ed by the com- 

 missioner of the district, or the commander of the 

 expedition to which he is attached. Troops taking 

 part in war operations, whether regulars or auxil- 

 iaries, must always be commanded by a European. 



The property of natives must not be destroyed, and 

 on no pretext must villages be burnt as a means of 

 repression. European leaders of war parties will 

 be held responsible if they permit cruelties or mu- 

 tilation of bodies. In punishing servants of the 

 State for breaches of discipline agents must not de- 

 part from legal forms or pass other sentences than 

 the ones prescribed. 



Trial of Major Lothaire. Major Hubert 

 Joseph Lothaire, as president of a council of war, 

 on Jan. 14, 1895. at Lindi, passed the sentence of 

 death upon the English trader Charles Stokes for 

 supplying arms to the rebellious natives and incit- 

 ing to civil war by allying himself with the chief 

 Kibonge. Stokes was hanged on the following 

 morning. The English and German governments 

 complained that the council of war which executed 

 summary justice on Stokes was not legally consti- 

 tuted, and that the prisoner had been denied the 

 opportunity of appealing to the civil court at Boma, 

 a right conferred by the statutes of the Free State. 

 In November, 1895, Secretary van Eetvelde acknowl- 

 edged these errors and agreed to pay 150,000 francs 

 to the British Government as indemnity to the family 

 of Stokes for the seizure of his ivory, and 100,000 

 francs to the German Government as compensation 

 to the native porters that Stokes had brought from 

 German East Africa. The Congo Government un- 

 dertook further to bring Major Lothaire before a 

 competent court for trial. Accordingly a warrant 

 was issued on Jan. 9, 1896, by the Boma Court of 

 Appeals for the arrest of Lothaire. At the trial it 

 appeared that Major Lothaire had given orders for 

 the arrest of Stokes after discovering proofs of his 

 alliance with Kibonge and that Stokes's caravan 

 had pillaged the country and slain many people. 

 The guns and ammunition of Stokes were found 

 buried. At the end of a trial lasting two days 

 Major Lothaire was acquitted on April 27 both of 

 murder and of homicide by imprudence. The 

 British vice-consul, who interfered in the trial in a 

 way to draw blame upon himself, lodged an appeal. 

 The second trial, held before the Court of Appeals 

 in Brussels, was begun on Aug. 3 and ended in his 

 honorable acquittal on the third day, on the ground 

 that whatever the technical irregularities of Stokes's 

 execution, the Belgian officer had acted in legiti- 

 mate self-defense. The judges declared in their 

 verdict that murder did not exist without criminal 

 intent ; that judicial errors, which in fact were not 

 proved, did not affect the legality of the decision, 

 which was guided by motives of conscience and 

 probity ; that Stokes did not deny the crimes laid 

 to his charge, but begged for mercy, and that in 

 carrying out the judgment within twenty-four 

 hours Major Lothaire acted from motives of neces- 

 sity and the safety of his own troops. It came out 

 during the trial that the authorities of German 

 East Africa permit the highly lucrative traffic in 

 firearms with the Arabs, and derive their principal 

 revenues from it. Accusations have been brought 

 against the officials of the Free State that they 

 actually engage in illicit traffic in arms. The na- 

 tive chiefs of the Aruwimi and Welle districts who 

 recently revolted are supposed to have obtained 

 their guns and powder from the Belgian officers. 



Military Operations. In the summer of 1895 

 a revolt that was started on the Itimberi affluent of 

 the Congo spread into the Welle district, where the 

 posts of Djabbir and Semio were in danger, and the 

 Aruwimi and Bangala districts, where the natives 

 held out for many months against the forces of the 

 Free State. The Belgian force that penetrated into 

 the Nile region to Lado and beyond, after being 

 checked by a superior force of dervishes, had to fall 

 back to protect its base on the Welle. Baron Dhanis 

 drew about 500 troops from the lower Congo and 



