King Leopold's Ghost

  [>] "pay the fine": Morrison to Chester, 9 Aug. 1909, reprinted in Benedetto, p. 383.

  [>] "in New York harbour": Conan Doyle, p. iv.

  [>] "no little concern": State Dept. to H. L. Wilson, 2 July 1909, quoted in Shaloff, p. 119.

  [>] "young Belgian lawyer": Morel to Vandervelde, July 1909, quoted in Slade 1, p. 371 fn.

  [>] "in a court of justice": Vinson, p. 99.

  [>] prayed for a favorable verdict: Vandervelde, pp. 90–91.

  [>] "amongst whom he lives is humanitarian": Official Organ, No. 5, Jan. 1910, p. 465.

  [>] "for over two hours": Morrison to Conan Doyle, n.d., reprinted in Official Organ, no. 5, Jan. 1910.

  [>] "were so affected ... made in Congo": William Sheppard, "The Days Preceding the Trial," in the Christian Observer, 10 Nov. 1909.

  [>] "all the power of Leopold": Phipps, p. 106.

  [>] "could not refer to the Compagnie du Kasai": Shaloff, p. 125.

  [>] "a time for thanksgiving": Phipps, p. 106.

  [>] "in Belgium after my death": De Vaughan, p. 201.

  [>] "Cutting his hands off, down in Hell": Vachel Lindsay, "The Congo," in The Congo and Other Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1916).

  [>] "remained in the house for a week": Casement in 1913 [?], Singleton-Gates and Girodias, p. 317.

  [>] "lovely, glorious language": Casement to Gertrude Bannister, March 1904, quoted in Inglis, p. 113.

  [>] "the incorrigible Irishman": Casement to Alice Green, Spring 1907, quoted in Inglis, p. 152.

  [>] "wrongdoing at work on the Congo": Casement to Cadbury, 7 July 1905, quoted in Porter, p. 267.

  [>] "people once hunted themselves": Casement to Alice Green, quoted in Inglis, p. 125.

  [>] "not British Consulate!!": Casement to Alice Green, 21 Sept. 1906, quoted in Reid, p. 78.

  [>] "nothing else counts": Casement to Parry, 9 Oct. 1906, quoted in Reid, pp. 80–81.

  [>] "still going strong on Ireland": interview with Sir Gerald Campbell in MacColl, p. 73 fn.

  [>] "humanitarian only a century after": quoted in Adams, p. 203.

  [>] "with your exact wishes": Morel to Casement, 12 June 1913, quoted in Reid, p. 173.

  [>] "a fearless soul as his is needed": Casement to Cadbury, 4 July 1910, quoted in Reid, p. 97.

  [>] "white Indians ... Irish Putumayo": from a comment by Casement written on a letter from Charles Roberts, 6 June 1913, quoted in Reid, p. 172.

  [>] "pre-Inca precept": Casement, "The Putumayo Indians" in the Contemporary Review, September 1912, quoted in Inglis, p. 206.

  [>] "any right to be accepting honours": Casement to Alice Green, 21 June 1911, quoted in Reid, p. 137.

  [>] "boy of 19, broad face": Casement 4, p. 289 (20 Nov. 1910).

  [>] "blushed to roots of hair with joy": Casement 4, p. 221 (9 Aug. 1910).

  [>] "laughed...$10.": Casement's diary for 16 Aug. 1911, quoted in Inglis, p. 194.

  [>] "in the history of the world": Conan Doyle to the Times, 18 Aug. 1909, reprinted in Conan Doyle 2, p. 138.

  [>] "partial victory": Morel to Weeks, 9 Nov. 1908, quoted in Cline, p. 64.

  [>] "no true reform whatever": Conan Doyle to the Daily Express, 13 Apr. 1910, re- printed in Conan Doyle 2, p. 152.

  [>] "not got very much staying-power": Morel to Claparède, 23 Mar. 1910, quoted in Morel 5, p. 202.

  [>] "the produce which it yields": Morel in the Morning Post, 4 June 1907, quoted in Louis 4, p. 280.

  [>] "produce of the soil belongs to the Natives": Grey to Cromer, 13 Mar. 1908, quoted in Morel 5, p. 199 fn.

  [>] "but of all Negro Africa": African Mail, 27 Aug. 1909, p. 463.

  [>] "immense improvement": Official Organ, no. 10, August 1912, p. 799.

  [>] "nearly accomplished": Casement to Morel, 13 June 1912, quoted in Louis 1, p. 119.

  [>] "replaced an irresponsible despotism": Morel's speech to the executive committee of the C. R. A., 25 Apr. 1913, in Official Organ, July 1913, pp. 986-987.

  [>] "A man of great heart ... Roger Casement": Supplement to the African Mail, 27 June 1913, p. 12.

  [>] "will not pass away": Supplement to the African Mail, 27 June 1913, p. 6.

  18. VICTORY?

  [>] "to disinherit his daughters": Robert E. Park, "A King in Business: Leopold II of Belgium, Autocrat of the Congo and International Broker," reprinted in Stanford M. Lyman, Militarism, Imperialism, and Racial Accomodation: An Analysis and Interpretation of the Early Writings of Robert E. Park (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1992), p. 214.

  [>] huge health resort: Stinglhamber and Dresse, p. 131.

  [>] twenty-five million francs' worth of Leopold's Congo bonds: Marchal 4, p. 432.

  [>] some of his Congo state bonds: Stengers 1, pp. 172, 275.

  [>] to the very end: Hyde, pp. 321–324; Ridley, p. 290; Gene Smith, p. 290; Foussemagne, p. 378. However, most reports of the last six decades of Carlota's life are second or third hand, because the Belgian royal family kept her secluded from public view.

  [>] out of which hidden pockets: Stengers 1 is the most exhaustive study of Leopold's finances, but even it finds some questions unanswerable.

  [>] $1.1 billion in today's dollars: A condensed version of Marchal's calculations (in a letter to the author, answering a question on this point, 30 July 1997) are as follows:

  • Loans to the Congo state not invested in the Congo but spent by Leopold in Europe: 110 million francs (Jean Stengers "La dette publique de l'État Indépendant du Congo (1879–1908)," in La dette publique aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles: son développement sur le plan local, régional et national (Brussels: Crédit Communal de Belgique, 1980), p. 309).

  • Estimated off-the-books rubber profits for the peak boom years, 1898–1908, mainly from rubber gathered on state land, and also including profits from the state's share of the major concession companies (A.B.I.R., the Compagnie du Kasai, and the Société Anversoise du Commerce au Congo): 110 million francs.

  Not included in the calculations are profits from earlier rubber harvests or from the state share in more than half a dozen smaller companies.

  [>] "or perhaps a single native": Alexandre Delcommune, L'Avenir du Congo Belge Menacé (1919), quoted in Michel Massoz, Le Congo de Leopold II (1878-1908), (Liège: Soledi, 1989), p. 576.

  [>] died of disease: Northrup, p. 109.

  [>] "carrying the foodstuffs!": quoted in Northrup, p. 107.

  [>] in the first half of 1920 alone: Northrup, p. 161.

  [>] "paid ten francs for each recruit": Northrup, p. 99.

  [>] Katanga mines, Matadi-Leopoldville railroad: Jules Marchal, work in progress.

  [>] 80 percent of the uranium: Cornevin 2, pp. 286–288.

  [>] search for wild vines once again: Anstey 2, pp. 144–152.

  [>] "admiration in stockbroking circles": Suret-Canale, p. 21.

  [>] just as brutal: Suret-Canale, pp. 20–28; West, pp. 165–181; Coquéry-Vidrovitch 1, pp. 171-197.

  [>] at roughly 50 percent: Vansina 3, p. 239.

  [>] fierce rebellions against the rubber regime: Vansina 3, p. 242.

  [>] nearly four hundred in a busy month: Coquéry-Vidrovitch 1, p. 181.

  [>] "which are the glory of France": Étienne Clémentel, quoted in Pakenham, p. 639.

  [>] the lives of an estimated twenty thousand forced laborers: Coquéry-Vidrovitch 1, p. 195.

  [>] discovered to be a major shareholder: Stengers 1, pp. 278–279, Marchal 3, p. 45.

  [>] extermination order (Vernichtungsbefehl): Swan, p. 51; Pakenham, p. 611.

  [>] "never heard of this before": Holt to Morel, 5 Oct. 1909, quoted in Louis 5, p. 34.

  [>] "contributed to the making of Kurtz": Conrad, p. 50.

  [>] never made public: Benedetto, pp. 30, 423–425.

  [>] and Sheppard obliged: Roth, p. 283.

  [>] "and always came to the back door": Phipps, preface.

  [>] "and left himself thus in need": Darrell Figgis, Recollections of the Irish War (New York:
Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1927) p. 11, quoted in Reid, p. 190.

  [>] "is that of the rifle": Casement to Morten, 1 May 1914, quoted in Sawyer, p. 114.

  [>] "Irish nationality can spring to life": Roger Casement in the Irish Independent, 5 Oct. 1914, quoted in Singleton-Gates and Girodias, pp. 357–358.

  [>] "drive the allies into the sea": Casement on 28 Sept. 1915, quoted in Reid, p. 309.

  [>] "Only my shroud": Basil Thompson [Casement's Scotland Yard interrogator], Queer People (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1922), p. 87.

  [>] "I was back in Ireland again": Casement to his sister Nina, 15 July 1916, quoted in Reid, p. 351.

  [>] "left Wicklow in Willie's yacht": Inglis, p. 313.

  [>] "know of the barbarous cruelties": Inglis, p. 364.

  [>] "the natural lot of men": reprinted in Singleton-Gates and Girodias, p. 498.

  [>] "how a subject nation should feel": Inglis, p. 346.

  [>] "not a trace of anxiety or fear in his features": A. Fenner Brockway, quoted in Inglis, p. 368.

  [>] "towered straight over all of us": Father Thomas Carey, writing on 5 Aug. 1916, quoted in Reid, p. 448.

  [>] "lot to execute": Ellis [the executioner] in The Catholic Bulletin, Aug. 1928, quoted in Reid, p. 448.

  [>] "the best thing was the Congo": Casement to Morten, 28 July 1916, quoted in Reid, pp. 436.

  [>] "anyone would speak to me now": Adams, p. 212.

  [>] "at his heart": Swanwick, p. 187.

  [>] and the Morel family's home: Swartz, p. 105; Swanwick p. 98.

  [>] "a change of outlook": Taylor, p. 120.

  [>] "get hold of the arch-conspirator": Daily Sketch, 1 Dec. 1915, quoted in Cline, p. 103, and Swartz, p. 111.

  [>] HIS PRO-GERMAN UNION?: Daily Express, 4 Apr. 1915, quoted in Cline, p. 110.

  [>] "Germany's agent in this country": Evening Standard, 7 July 1917, quoted in Adams, p. 210.

  [>] "there was no question about it": Alice Green to Morel, quoted in McColl, pp. 273— 274.

  [>] "his courage never failed": The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), pp. 36–37.

  [>] "proclaiming political truth": Bertrand Russell, Freedom versus Organization, 1814–1914 (New York, 1962), p. 402, quoted in Swartz, p. 50.

  [>] "safely lodged in gaol": Minute by M. N. Kearney, 10 Oct. 1916, FO 371/2828/ 202398, PRO, quoted by Cline, p. 111.

  [>] "my mission to the United States": The Persecution of E. D. Morel: The Story of his Trial and Imprisonment. With an introduction by Sir D. M. Stevenson and a prefatory note by Thomas Johnston (Glasgow: Reformers' Bookstall, 1918), p. 11.

  [>] "to each other daily when absent": Adams, p. 180.

  [>] "especially in cold weather": Morel 4, p. 60.

  [>] "proof against it": Morel 4, p. 62.

  [>] "lived to play both parts": Morel 4, p. 66.

  [>] "the result of insufficient food": Russell to Murray, 27 Mar. 1918, in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 108.

  [>] as he left for London: "E. D. Morel" by E Seymour Cocks, in Foreign Affairs: A Journal of International Understanding, vol. VI no. 6, Dec. 1924, p. 118.

  [>] "as the years pass": Morel Papers E 1, 7, quoted in Marchal 3, p. 10.

  19. THE GREAT FORGETTING

  [>] "the sepulchral city": Conrad, p. 27.

  [>] "no right to know what I did there": Stinglhamber and Dresse, pp. 52–53.

  [>] "for considerations of a higher order": Strauch to Wauters, 1911, quoted in Stanley 6, p. xi.

  [>] "in the years that have passed since that night": De Premorel, p. 97.

  [>] footnote: Émile Verhaeren. "La Belgique sanglante," quoted in Read, p. 35.

  [>] to be false: Read, pp. 78-96.

  [>] Jules Marchal: interviewed September 1995.

  [>] idealistic young colonial officers: such as Lefranc (pp. 120–121) or Gréban de Saint-Germain (p. 231).

  [>] "exploited peoples of this part of Africa": État Major de la Force Publique, L'Afrique et le Congo jusqu'à la création de l'État Indépendant du Congo (Leopoldville: 1 June 1959), pp. 10–11, quoted in Stengers 5, p. 165.

  [>] "to amount to nothing": État Major de la Force Publique, L'État Indépendant du Congo (1885-1908) (Leopoldville: 1 Oct. 1959), p. 145, quoted in Stengers 5, p. 165.

  [>] dedicated anthropologists: The pioneering work of two Belgian priests, Fathers Edmond Boelaert and Gustaaf Hulstaert, deserves special mention. See also Vangroenweghe and Anstey 3.

  [>] "the overwhelming": Nelson, p. 104.

  [>] an idiom meaning "to tyrannize": Vangroenweghe, p. 234.

  [>] "to commit this to official memory": Vansina 2, p. 230.

  [>] a curious legend: Fabian, pp. 27–28, 55, 60, 261.

  [>] only three were filled by Africans: Stengers 7, p. 271.

  [>] "worthy of our confidence": Bremen 2, p. 145.

  [>] authorized his assassination: Kelly, pp. 57–60. Kelly's careful account is based on both interviews and documents, particularly the landmark report of November 20, 1975, from the U.S. Senate investigation headed by Senator Frank Church: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities.

  [>] "the problem dealt with": John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 342, quoted in Kelly, p. 59.

  [>] "should be eliminated": Robert H. Johnson, quoted in the Washington Post, 8 August 2000.

  [>] Belgian involvement in Lumumba's death: see Ludo De Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba (New York:Verso, 2001).

  [>] was being planned: Young, p. 325; Kelly, pp. 52, 170.

  [>] several attempts to overthrow him: Kelly, p. 178.

  [>] "voice of good sense and good will": Winternitz, p. 270.

  [>] "during my presidency": George Bush, on 29 June 1989, quoted in Kelly, p. 1.

  [>] estimated at $4 billion: The Guardian, 13 May 1997.

  [>] sheep to his ranch at Gbadolite: Blaine Harden, Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent (New York: Norton, 1990), p. 38.

  [>] "his distinctive traits and customs": Pascal Bruckner, The Tears of the White Man: Compassion as Contempt (New York: The Free Press, 1986), p. 84.

  AFTERWORD

  [>] coalition of these groups: Union Royale Belge pour les Pays d'Outre-Mer.

  [>] "you were mistaken": Congorudi, Oct. 2001.

  [>] "the great king": Bulletin du Cercle Royal Naumurois des Anciens d'Afrique, no. 4, 1998.

  [>] the Guardian: 13 May 1999.

  [>] a journalist noted: Colette Braeckman, Les Nouveaux Prédateurs: Politique des puissances en Afrique centrale (Paris: Fayard, 2003), p. 35.

  [>] "book by an American": Guardian, 13 May 1999.

  [>] the Royal Museum in the future: For more detail on the evasions and denial of the 2005 exhibit, see my article, "In the Heart of Darkness," in the New York Review of Books, 6 Oct. 2005.

  [>] mentioned many more: For example, R. P Van Wing, Études Bakongo: Histoire et Sociologie (Brussels: Goemaere, 1920), p. 115; or Léon de St. Moulin, "What is Known of the Demographic History of Zaire Since 1885?" in Bruce Fetter, ed., Demography from Scanty Evidence: Central Africa in the Colonial Era (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1990), p. 303.

  [>] roughly thirteen million: Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, Histoire générale du Congo: De l'héritage ancien à la République Démocratique (Paris: Duculot, 1998), p. 344. Professor Ndaywel è Nziem informs me that further research for the next edition of his book has made him lower his estimate to ten million. But that would still imply a 50 percent loss of population.

  [>] pocketed the money: See Michela Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo (New York: HarperCollins, 2001) for this and much more.

  * * *

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The researcher who wants the most comprehensive bibliography of modern
scholarship on the colonial Congo should turn to Bibliographie historique du Zaire à l'époque coloniale (1880–1960): travaux publiés en 1960–1996 (Louvain, Belgium: Enquêtes et Documents d'Histoire Africaine, 1996), edited by Jean-Luc Vellut. What follows is a list of the works I used.

  The tyranny of alphabetical order cannot do justice to the help that other people's books gave me in writing this one. So let me first make a particularly low bow to those volumes on which I drew the most.

  Primary sources penned by some of the central characters in this story include the works listed here by King Affonso I, Roger Casement, Joseph Conrad, William Sheppard, Henry Morton Stanley, George Washington Williams, and E. D. Morel. There is no comprehensive edition of King Leopold II's voluminous, revealing output of letters and memoranda, but hundreds of them do appear in Édouard Van der Smissen's Léopold II et Beernaert: d'après leur correspondance inédite de 1884 à 1894. Some are also reprinted in François Bontinck's Aux Origines de l'État Indépendant du Congo, an important collection of letters and documents on the early days. Robert Benedetto's new anthology has made a large collection of source material on the Presbyterian missionaries' work for human rights easily available for the first time.

  Most of the major European and American figures—but none of the African ones—have had biographies written of them. I have drawn particularly on those of Stanley by John Bierman and Frank McLynn, of Casement by Brian Inglis and B. L. Reid, and of the studies (although none of them is the full-scale biography the man deserves) of E. D. Morel by Catherine Cline, A.J.P. Taylor, F Seymour Cocks, and W'S. Adams. John Hope Franklin's biography of George Washington Williams rescued Williams from obscurity and provided most of my source material for Chapter 8. Of the various biographies of Leopold, those by Barbara Emerson and Neal Ascherson were essential; most of the material about life in the king's household comes from the memoirs of his aides, Gustave Stinglhamber and Baron Carton de Wiart.

  Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa is a comprehensive diplomatic overview of that period whose novelist's-eye array of detail I have gratefully stolen from. In the Prologue, I was also inspired by The River Congo by Peter Forbath, one of the few writers to recognize the drama and tragedy of the life of King Affonso I. A number of scholarly books written in recent decades form a mine of information. Among them, I have found especially helpful the studies by Ruth Slade, Robert Harms, Stanley Shaloff, S.J.S. Cookey, David Lagergren, and the many works by Jean Stengers. Jacques Willequet's Le Congo Belge et la Weltpolitik (1894–1914) has all the delicious material about Leopold's press bribery operation.