Disgruntled Natives
Lobengula, a South-African king, protested in a letter to Queen Victoria:
Some time ago a party of [European] men came to my country, the principal one appearing to be a man called Rudd. They asked me for a place to dig for gold, and said they would give me certain things for the right to do so. I told them to bring what they could give and I would show them what I would give. A document was written and presented to me for signature. I asked what it contained, and was told that in it were my words and the words of those men. I put my hand to it. About three months afterwards I heard from other sources that I had given by the document the right to all the minerals of my country.
— The Imperialism Reader, Louis L. Snyder, ed., 1962
Some time ago a party of [European] men came to my country, the principal one appearing to be a man called Rudd. They asked me for a place to dig for gold, and said they would give me certain things for the right to do so. I told them to bring what they could give and I would show them what I would give. A document was written and presented to me for signature. I asked what it contained, and was told that in it were my words and the words of those men. I put my hand to it. About three months afterwards I heard from other sources that I had given by the document the right to all the minerals of my country.
— The Imperialism Reader, Louis L. Snyder, ed., 1962
The British Justification of Colonization
 Professor Patrick N. Allitt |
"Rise and Fall of the British Empire"
Professor Patrick N. Allitt, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Emory University "In this period when more and more of the European nations were becoming involved in the colonization of Africa, the British simultaneously justified their own colonial ventures while deploring those of their rivals. The British said, 'We're bringing peace to places where there has always been war and anarchy. We're struggling to end the Arab slave trade. We're bringing in Christianity and civilization,' even though people like David Livingstone and other explorers admitted that in practice the arrival of the whites more often degraded than elevated the African people."
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King Leopold's Perspective
In his letter to Belgium Prime Minister Beernaert on the Congo, King Leopold II wrote:
A manufacturing and commercial nation like ours, more than any other, must do its best to secure opportunities for all its workers, whether intellectual, capitalist, or manual. These patriotic preoccupations dominated my life. It is they that caused the creation of the African effort...
The beginning of enterprises such as those that have so preoccupied me is difficult and onerous. I insisted on bearing the charges. A King, to give service to his country, must not fear to conceive and pursue the realization of a project so adventurous in appearance. The riches of a Sovereign consist of public prosperity. That alone can appear to his eyes as an enviable treasure, which he should try constantly to build up...
Until the day of my death, I will continue with the same thoughts of national interest that have guided me until now, to direct and sustain our African efforts...
A manufacturing and commercial nation like ours, more than any other, must do its best to secure opportunities for all its workers, whether intellectual, capitalist, or manual. These patriotic preoccupations dominated my life. It is they that caused the creation of the African effort...
The beginning of enterprises such as those that have so preoccupied me is difficult and onerous. I insisted on bearing the charges. A King, to give service to his country, must not fear to conceive and pursue the realization of a project so adventurous in appearance. The riches of a Sovereign consist of public prosperity. That alone can appear to his eyes as an enviable treasure, which he should try constantly to build up...
Until the day of my death, I will continue with the same thoughts of national interest that have guided me until now, to direct and sustain our African efforts...
| Full Letter from King Leopold II to the Prime Minister in Congo |
Criticisms from the United States of America
In his letter to King Leopold II, American politician George Washington Williams wrote:
It afforded me great pleasure to avail myself of the opportunity afforded me last year, of visiting your State in Africa; and how thoroughly I have been disenchanted, disappointed and disheartened, it is now my painful duty to make known to your Majesty in plain but respectful language...
When I arrived in the Congo, I naturally sought for the results of the brilliant programme: “fostering care”, “benevolent enterprise", an “honest and practical effort” to increase the knowledge of the natives “and secure their welfare". I had never been able to conceive of Europeans, establishing a government in a tropical country, without building a hospital; and yet from the mouth of the Congo River to its head-waters, here at the seventh cataract, a distance of 1,448 miles, there is not a solitary hospital for Europeans, and only three sheds for sick Africans in the service of the State, not fit to be occupied by a horse...
It afforded me great pleasure to avail myself of the opportunity afforded me last year, of visiting your State in Africa; and how thoroughly I have been disenchanted, disappointed and disheartened, it is now my painful duty to make known to your Majesty in plain but respectful language...
When I arrived in the Congo, I naturally sought for the results of the brilliant programme: “fostering care”, “benevolent enterprise", an “honest and practical effort” to increase the knowledge of the natives “and secure their welfare". I had never been able to conceive of Europeans, establishing a government in a tropical country, without building a hospital; and yet from the mouth of the Congo River to its head-waters, here at the seventh cataract, a distance of 1,448 miles, there is not a solitary hospital for Europeans, and only three sheds for sick Africans in the service of the State, not fit to be occupied by a horse...
| Full Letter from George Washington Williams to King Leopold II |
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