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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1903)
Belgians and the White Man's Burden in Africa ft v ..'I.i-i' K'..i-;4W. , it '. M. - ...C '. mm to: MiM f ( 1. 1" I . u - A hi-- t i J 1 liX)W THEY MAKE BREAD OK THE CONGO. (CcpyriKht. 1903. by Frank Q. Carpenter.) ttTir Oot' i,i-(SPp!lal Cor- fc I rePon'enc of The Bee. -What I asked thla c uentlon of the secretary of the Independent Co! o State, aa we cat together and chatted of Africa In the big government building back of the king's palace In Druagela. In reply the secretary touched a button and sent a mesxengtr for about a buohel of documents, which he ordered to be cntrled to my hotel. He then pulled down a half dozen wnll maps and went ov.t the ground With me, laying down the projected rail roads, pointing out the sites of new fac tories and plantations, and clvlng statistics of the millions being spent In liver and har bor Improvements. He s.en.cd to know Africa as well aa I know my own back yard, and he made my head huzs with th names of peoples, towns, rl ers and geo graphical localities. He described the con dition of the IS.000,000 natives who now form Belgium's share of the white nmh's burden, telling me what the government was doing to keep them from ensluving and eating one another, and In advancing them on the road of civilisation. In this connection he spoke of our mis sionaries, who have many stations along the Congo, and said they were doing great good In teaching the natives trades, us well aa the Pcrlptures. The secretary spoke very kindly of the t'nlted States, saying that It was the first to recognise the Congo State und the first of the great nations to mako treaties with tt. As I started to leavs he gave me a note of introduction to the curator nf the great Congo museum at Trevuren. near Hriis eU. and advised ma to visit It for an ob ject leseon of what the Congo Is In this year 1903. Since then I have spent a tiny In the Museum de Congo, talking with its curator and looking over the great collections which Belgian explorers from every part of the Congo basin have here brought together. The museum is divided Into three sections- artistic, scientific and economic. The artis tic section has beautiful woven stuffs and carvings made by the African tribes It has many remarkable creations In Ivory, as well aa nalntlnga of the country and home life by Belgian artists. In the scientific aepartment one sees Africa In miniature. The huts of the peo ple, and their viilagea are shown. The money of copper and Iron Is displayed and all aorta of woven stuffs, dresses. tooU and musical Instruments are to be seen. In another section are the anlma'a of the Congo, from the giraffe to the monkey, and In the Industrial section are the various products, such aa cotton, ramie and to bacco. The secretary tells me that cotton plantations are being set out and that negroes may be brought from our southern atatea to teach the people how to cultivate them. Tobacco l already raised In many regions and there Is now something of an export of It to foreign countries. I was much Interested In the exhibl's of Ivory and rubber. These form the two great exports of the Congo, bringing in millions of dollars to Belgium every year. At present about $9,000,000 worth of rub ber Is exported and almost $1,000,000 worth of Ivory. The rubber comes from lianas, or climbing plants and not from trees, aa on the Amazon. The plants are now care fully cared for and I am told that In the upper Congo there are so many of them that the rubber exports will steadily in crease. In the lower part many plants have been destroyed by the Ignorance of the natives In gathering the product. In this museum I saw Ivory tusks at least ten feet In height, some of which weighed almost 00 pounds. Think of an animal which carries two tusks weighing twice as much as a good sized man, and you have an Idea of the big elephants of the Congo. I stood beside one of the tusks and had the curator take my photo graph. I cou'd not reach to the top of the tusk. As I looked at the Ivory the curator told me that the tusks range in size from a few pounds up to 200 pounds. In bringing . the stuff from the Interior much of It Is curried on the shoulders of men. A tusk of sixty-five pounds is a load for a man and a 2U0-pound tusk require four men to tot It. Much of the Ivory Is dead Ivory; that Is, It comes from elephants killed long ago. In soma tribes the kings have been storing Ivory from generation to generation, some buying it and others piling It up as treas ure. Indeed, it is said there Is enough Ivory oi this kind in the Interior of Africa to supply the world for fifty years to come. In some parts of the backwoods chiefs huve stockades of Ivory around their dwell- Live Ivory U that frt m the freshly killed e'ephant. It Is worth more lhan dead Ivory and is more difficult to get. At present the Belgians are protecting the elephinta. In some regions one must have a license In oilier to shoot them, and the probability la II at In the near future there will be an Ivory monopoly, just as there La a diamond monopoiy at the present time. Much of the Ivory now found Is brought from the Tpper Congo. It Is carried by river to S anley Pool and then-e down around the cataracts to Uatadl by rail, where It Is loaded upon the sh'ps round for Antwerp. These African territories are tailed "The Congo Independent 8tate," but they may now be looked upon as a Belgian colony. King Leopold's claim to them came from his sending out Stanley and other explorers and exploiting the country. He spent some thing like $7,000,000 In his various enter prises, and when he said that he expected to build up an independent state In Africa which should be free to the trade of all lis lions the other powers agreed. And the 1'nltod 8tatcs recognized the new country. Leopold began his explorations ubout twenty years ago and the Independent Siute was founded about thirteen yetira ago. It was the Idea that the Belgians were to suppress the slave trade, to pit down c:'iiiilbullsm and to shoulder the M,00,0O9 of savages lu the country well on the way to 1T77 ' 1 ' J n MV- -.. X Y vl -1 ' -4BSSSR --3 ; ! V - .1' j - '. . ' TT ... MR. CARPENTER STANDING BESIDE AN ELEPHANT'S TUSK. civilization. They were to take all the re sponsibility and pay all the bills and the rest of the world was to have a share of tha profits. Since that time, however, Belgium has been spending money on the Ccngo right along. It has put out bonds to the amount of more than f30,CCO,000 and the money has gone Into building public works, making piers and Improving the river. The bonds have been so Issued, however, that they give Belgium the right to annex th9 Congo If It does not demand the money for them. The result of this is that Belgium prac tically owns the Congo today and it is a Belgium colony. I am told that the Bel gians will never give It up, and it 'is as much Belgium territory as the Philippines) are United Statea territory. The Congo basin belonging to Belgium Is one of the best slices of Africa. It contains an enormous territory, extending across the greater part of the African continent. It is seventy times as large as Belgium Itself and about or.e-fouith as large us the whole t'nlted States. It has 9D0.WW squaro miles, and yet no one knows how many people. I have seen It estimated all the way from 15,000,000 to 30,000,000, and thero are some who say It is double the latter figure. There are in the country 2,500 Eu ropeans, of whom more than half are Bel gians. There are thirty Americana, ninety eight English and a large number of Portu guese, Italians, Dutch, Germans and men from other countries of Europe. The natives are negroes divided up Into many tribes, some large and some small. There are tilbes which number 100,000 and some which can be counted by hundreds. Each tribe Is known by Its tattoo marks, but they are all negroes, and some are fine looking. Others, such as the pygmies, are very small, the men averaging about four feet In height and the women much less. These pygmies are much like our Negritoes. They are different from tha rest of the people, in that they have no fixed villages, living In brushwood huts, shifting their camps from place to place. Every one of these African tribes has Its king or chief, who has power nf life and death over his subjects. The Belgians deal largely with the kings. They have bought some lands of them, und they rule the na tives through them. The majority of the people live In villages .surrounded by high stockades. There Is a great difference in the houses. Many are built of grass fas tened to a framework of bamboo. There are no auch things as chimneys or win dows. A fire is kept burning In the center of the but and Us smoke gets out aa It can, covering eveiy thing with soot. Only the kings and queens have beds In their huts; the common people sleep on the floor. Each village has its garden and palm grove. The chief food products are pea nuts and mandlocn, the roots of the latter forming the native bread, which Is mad with fermented palm sap for yeast.. Most of the work Is done by the women. They cultivate tha gardens, make the bread and do tha cooking. Some of the men are fishers and hunters, and in soma tribes they have trades, being blacksmiths, tailors and house builders. Everything, however. Is of the rudest description, and most of the tribes are barbarous to an ex treme. The Belgians claim that they are trying to put down slavery, but their enemies eajr they are forcing them to work their plan tations, There Is no doubt but that slavery Is still common In the greater part of tha territory. It has been so for ages, and It will take a long time to break it up. In times past slaves have been raised not only for work, but for food. There are some tribes In which human flesh is sold, the slaves being fattened with bananas, fish and oil, that they may bring better prices. The flesh of men is said to be worth more than that of women and to have a better -flavor. Many of the slaves are taken In war,, and a common, taunt of a Congo cannibal to his adversary Is: "You shall rest in my stomach tomor row." The most common of .the slave traders have been the Arabs, who have gradually moved down from northern Africa. They are shrewder and braver than the Congo negroes and in the past they have made a business of dealing In ivory and slaves. Bands of them will collect a lot of Ivory, forcing the villagers to aid them in doing so. They then kill off the useless members of the village and force the others to carry the Ivory to the- seacoaet, where they sell both Ivory and bearers, the latter going aa slaves. In the Interior slaves have been very cheap. A bottle of gin was a fair price for one, and a few beads, buttons or bright colored cloths was enough to buy a Whole family. Both the missionaries and the govern ment are to a certain extent doing away with these practices, but It will be long be fore they have abolished them. The secretary of the Congo 8tate tella me that the railways which have been built there are prospering, especially the one about the cataracts. This railway is 2M miles long. It runs about twenty miles south of the river connecting Matadl with Stanley Pool and la now open for traffio throughout ita length. Matadl ia the farth est inland that the ocean steamers can come. It H a thriving port right at the foot of the cataracts. The Belgians have built piers and docks there. They have estab lished warehouses and factories and have made It one of the centers of African trad. The railroad begins at Matadl and climba the mountains, reaching- a height of some thing like 1,600 feet above the sea. It goea through a most picturesque region and flnully ends at Ndola, a little east of Io poldville and under the shadow of Mount Leopold. The road was begun In 1887 and two yeura later the Belgian government subscribed for two-fifths of Ita capital stock, which altogether amounts to $5,000. It took nine years to construct it and the cost was about $50,000 a' mile. The terminus of this railroad might be (Continued on Page Fifteen.)
