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CONGO, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THE. 



galla, 120 miles farther up, at the mouth of 

 the Lulemgu, at the solicitation of the Ban- 

 galla tribe, which attacked Stanley in 1877. 

 A station was established at Stanley Falls and 

 a garrison placed there in charge of one of 

 the steamboat engineers, named Binnie. At 

 the mouth of the Aruwimi, or Werre, as the 

 natives now called it, and farther up the 

 Biyerre, where on his former voyage the ex- 

 plorer sustained a desperate battle, the natives 

 now gathered in hosts, but did not venture to 

 attack the steamboats, and soon made pacific 

 demonstrations. Steaming up the rapid and 

 tortuous stream, they were stopped by rapids 

 95 miles above the mouth. The architecture 

 of the numerous villages and the customs of 

 the people differ greatly from anything observed 

 on the Congo. The expedition returned to 

 Leopoldville Jan. 20, 1884. 



In June, 1884, Mr. Stanley returned to Eu- 

 rope, turning over the command to Col. Sir 

 Francis de Winton. There were at that time 

 155 white men at tha various stations of the As- 

 sociation, and about 1,800 natives in its service. 



In October, 1884, Lieut. Backer left Zanzibar 

 on a two years' mission, the purpose of which 

 is to establish a connecting Una of stations from 

 Like Tanganyika, through Manyemaland, to 

 Nyangwe, 340 miles from the lake, and thence 

 down the Congo, 337 miles, to Stanley Falls. 



Portuguese Claims to the Congo. The Portu- 

 guese lay claim to the mouth of the Congo and 

 the littoral between 8 and 5 12' south lati- 

 tude by virtue of the discovery of the estuary 

 by Diego Cam about 1484. Many years ago 

 the Portuguese Government was on the point 

 of establishing its jurisdiction on this coast, 

 when it was restrained by the Government at 

 London. In 1853 Lord Clarendon declared the 

 Portuguese rights to have lapsed, a position 

 which was reaffirmed by Lord John Eussell in 

 1860 and Lord Derby in 1876. The trade that 

 grew up at the mouth of the Congo was car- 

 ried on under treaties made by the British au- 

 thorities with the native chiefs. The principal 

 objection to the Portuguese claims was, osten- 

 sibly, that the Portuguese Government allowed 

 slavery and slave-trading. Slavery was abol- 

 ished in Angola and the other possessions of 

 Portugal in 1878. When the International 

 Association appeared on the Congo, the Lisbon 

 Government pressed again for a recognition of 

 its historical rights. The British Government, 

 thinking thereby to settle the question of the 

 Congo in a matter satisfactory to itself, signed 

 a treaty restricting the customs tariff to 6 per 

 cent, ad valorem, and providing for the neu- 

 tralization of Congo river, and the appointment 

 of an Anglo-Portuguese river commission to 

 administer it, according to the principles of the 

 Treaty of Vienna of 1815, and for measures to 

 suppress the slave-trade. The treaty, signed 

 Feb. 26, 1884, was assailed in England, on the 

 ground that it would place it in the power of 

 Portugal to control the entrance to the Congo 

 region, as the Portuguese would find ways of 



evading the restrictions. Throughout the Con- 

 tinent of Europe, the proposed river commis- 

 sion was regarded as an indirect means of se- 

 curing exclusive privileges on the Congo for 

 English commerce. As the treaty would have 

 no value unless other powers recognized Port- 

 ugese sovereignty, Earl Granville entered into 

 correspondence with the German Cabinet, and 

 found that it was seriously opposed to the 

 treaty. A proposition to make the river com- 

 mission international failed to remove the ob- 

 jections. In the summer, ex-Minister Serpa- 

 Pimentel visited Berlin and other capitals to 

 lay the Portuguese case before the cabinets. 

 In consequence of the objections of Germany, 

 seconded by France and the Netherlands, the 

 English Government withdrew the treaty. 



Recognition of the Congo Association by the United 

 States. While the Portuguese treaty was await- 

 ing ratification, a feeling of sympathy was felt 

 in America for the International Association, 

 springing from the interests of the United States 

 in the freedom of commerce promised by the 

 Association, and from the fact that its suc- 

 cesses were achieved by the energy of an 

 American citizen. In the President's message 

 of Dec. 4, 1883, the prospect of co-operation 

 with other commercial powers to secure the 

 neutralization of the Congo was mentioned. 

 In February, 1884, a re-solution was introduced 

 into the Senate, to recognize the International 

 Association. Although not approved by the 

 Committee on Foreign Affairs, it was brought 

 forward again, and passed April 10. It au- 

 thorized the President to recognize the flag of 

 the International Association of the Congo as 

 that of a friendly government. In the decla- 

 rations interchanged between the Association 

 and the Government at Washington, the Asso- 

 ciation announced that the territory ceded to it 

 would be handed over to free states to be organ- 

 ized under its supervision ; that it had adopted 

 for its emblem, and that of the free states that 

 would succeed it, a blue flag with a golden star 

 in its center ; that it undertook for itself and 

 for the free states to levy no customs duties on 

 imports, to guarantee complete commercial and 

 religious liberty to all foreigners settling in 

 their territories, and to grant to the citizens of 

 no nation advantages that were not extended 

 at the same time to the citizens of all other 

 nations. The United States Government ex- 

 pressed its approval of the benevolent purposes 

 of the Association, and formally recognized its 

 flag as the flag of a friendly government. 



French Action on the Congo. Savorgnan de 

 Brazza was sent out to explore central Africa 

 from the Gaboon coast by the French section 

 of the International Association in 1879. As- 

 cending Ogowe" river to its source, he found a 

 few miles distant the head-waters of the Alima, 

 which he followed down to Stanley Pool. Hav- 

 ing discovered a route to the Upper Congo, 

 with navigable water nearly the whole way, the 

 explorer made hasty arrangements to bring it 

 into prominence as a rival road to the one be- 



