posted
If you or anyone else thinks anything here is wrong I'd appreciate it being pointed out so that I can get a more accurate picture of things
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Before explaining the mottus operandi it may be well to state how the Belgians obtain the force necessary to enable them to eat up whole populations. For in the Congo state in 1902 the total number of white men of all nationalisties was only 2,346. Of these 1,465 were Belgians, who held almost all the important military and civil positions. As the native population of Congoland numbers some twenty or thirty millions, it is curious to discover how such a handful of whites can reduce the black millions to virtual slavery. The trick is not very difficult. A white officer with a few armed men at his back summons the chiefs in a district to a palaver. Each chief is asked in return for so many pocket-handkerchiefs, to furnish a certain number of slaves. If he agrees the slaves of the black chief become the slaves of the white officer, who subjects them to military discipline, arms them with rifles, and uses them to punish any chief who is slow in supplying his quantum of slaves. Refusal to furnish the stipulated contingent is treated as an act of war. The villages of the recalcitrant’s are burnt down, their stores looted, their gardens destroyed, and the natives themselves shot down until they have had enough of it and submit to escape extermination. Their submission is accepted on condition they supply double the contingent of slaves first asked for. The slaves thus handed over are first called Liberes, then put in irons until their bondage can be riveted with military discipline in the nearest camp.
As every district officer receives 2£ head mercy for every slave thus enrolled in focrce publique, the State found little difficulty in organizing a standing army of slaves, nominally free, but absolutely at the disposal of the State, which now numbers 15,000 men. To a native African this force publique is the irresistible power which renders impossible any resistance to the Belgian vampire which is draining the life-blood of Congoland.
quote: Mr. Grogan—by no means a sensationalist …travelled through Congoland … He writes :— I saw myself that a country apparently well-populated responsive to just treatment in Lugard's time is now a a wilderness ; the scattered inhabitants, living almost without cultivation in the marshes, thickets, and reeds, madly fleeing even from their own shadows. Chaos, hopeless abysmal chaos, from Mweru to the Nile ; in the south, tales of cruelty of undoubted veracity, but which I could not repeat without actual investigation on the spot ; on Tanganyika, absolute impotence, revolted Askaris ranging at their own sweet will ; on Kivu, a hideous wave of cannibalism ranging unchecked through the land; while in the north, the very white men, who should be keeping peace where chaos now reigns supreme, are spending thousands in making of peace a chaos of their own. I have no hesitation in condemning the whole State as a vampire growth, intended to suck the country dry, and to provide a happy hunting-ground for a pack of unprincipled outcasts and untutored scoundrels. The few sound men in the country are powerless to stem the tide of oppression.— From " The Cape to Cairo," p. 227.
posted
Ok The Explorer or anyone else please answer this. How does 2,346 whites dominate 30,000,000 natives?
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
markellion, you have unfinished business here. I don't prescribe to this sort of switch and bait goal post game that you are attempting to sucker me into.
On second thought, what the heck; GO...
Notice how markellion speaks of Europeans influencing the spread of cannibalism in one occasion, and then, in another, he cites a piece referring to "Force Publique", but markellion interprets this to be symbolic of the will of the people(?)
1) Where does your citation speak of Leopold getting Africans to kill each other, "on their own sweet will"?
2)What do you understand by "Force Publique"?
3)What do you understand by the "Askari"; *what* were they supposedly "ranging at their sweet will"?
Can't be over-emphasized; you have to demonstrate that you understand what your own sources say, and be able to establish thereof, if they make sense, or are even reliable.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ok about "Force Publique". How does 2,346 whites force 30,000,000 blacks to do anything? Is it possible that similar forces that allowed Belgians to rule were also the same forces that allowed the slave trade to happen including the "Zanzibari" slave trade?
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you understood what "Force Publique" is in the first place, the null and void aspect of your question would be obvious to you, and we would have answers to the pressing questions above already.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Serving under these European officers were an ethnically-mixed African soldiery. Many were recruited from warrior tribes in the Upper Congo. Others were drawn from Zanzibar and West Africa
posted
Nobody is saying anything about "irrelevancy" or "relevancy"; please keep with the topic. Your lack of mindfulness of what "Force Publique" is, on the other hand, is telling -- wouldn't you agree?
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:reports from foreign missionaries and consular officials detail a number of instances where Congolese men and women were flogged or raped by soldiers of the Force Publique, permitted to run amok by their officers and NCOs.
Y'all should know that European explorers accused Africans and other indegeneous people of cannibalism to validate or legitimize their conquest. It was part of the so called White men's burden. Why do you think they called Africans savages and heathen? It was part of the plan. If Africans were cannibals then people like Livingston, diego Caa and Stanley would have been eaten by locals.
Then how did the depopulations of the country happen? The bellow quote mentions once populated and cultivated lands as now being barren. And your skeptical about the cannibalism?
quote: Mr. Grogan—by no means a sensationalist …travelled through Congoland … He writes :— I saw myself that a country apparently well-populated responsive to just treatment in Lugard's time is now a a wilderness ; the scattered inhabitants, living almost without cultivation in the marshes, thickets, and reeds, madly fleeing even from their own shadows. Chaos, hopeless abysmal chaos, from Mweru to the Nile ; in the south, tales of cruelty of undoubted veracity, but which I could not repeat without actual investigation on the spot ; on Tanganyika, absolute impotence, revolted Askaris ranging at their own sweet will ; on Kivu, a hideous wave of cannibalism ranging unchecked through the land; while in the north, the very white men, who should be keeping peace where chaos now reigns supreme, are spending thousands in making of peace a chaos of their own. I have no hesitation in condemning the whole State as a vampire growth, intended to suck the country dry, and to provide a happy hunting-ground for a pack of unprincipled outcasts and untutored scoundrels.The few sound men in the country are powerless to stem the tide of oppression.— From " The Cape to Cairo," p. 227.
quote:MFECANE 1817-1828 More destruction was caused by those whom Shaka defeated, than by his own forces. Such was the case of the Hlubi and the Ngwane. Bereft of all social order, these refugees took to looting and pillaging wherever they went. They reduced the landscape in the Natal and much of the Orange Free State into a wasteland. This period of change became known as the Mfecane, which is said to derive originally from a Zulu word meaning "crushing". For the past ten years the word and ideas behind it have aroused much debate and argument.
Many South African historians now believe that Europeans, and slave traders in particular, played a much larger part in upheaval in the region in the first quarter of the 19th century than was previously thought, and that too much emphasis has been put on Shaka's impact.
posted
According to this the state pays 2 cents for a pound of rubber. If a minimum amount of rubber is not given the natives' wealth is looted "and, of course, everything of value is taken."
quote:Seven years later, in 1892, Major Parminter, an Englishman who had been one of the pioneers of the Congo, reported as follows as to the way in which the unanimous resolutions of the Berlin Conference had been carried out in Africa :— "The application of the new decrees of the Governmcru signifies this—that the State considers as its private property the whole of the Congo Basin, excepting the sites of the native's villages and gardens. It decrees that all the products of this immense region are its private property, and it monopolises the trade in them. As regards the primitive proprietors —the native tribes—they are dispossessed by a simple circular ; permission is graciously granted to them to collect such products, but only on condition that they bring them for sale to the State for whatever the latter may be pleased to give them. As regards alien traders, they are prohibited in all this territory from trading with the natives."—"Civilisation in Congoland," p. 134.
The soldiers are sent in different directions. The people in the towns are attacked, and «hen they are running away into the forest, and try to hide themselves and save their lives, they are found out by the soldiers. Then their gardens of rice are destroyed, and their supplies taken. Their plantains are cut down while they are young and not in fruit, and often their huts are burnt, and, of course, everything of value is taken. Within my own knowledge forty-five villages «ere altogether fcurrt ('.own.—"Civilisation in Congoland," p. 211.
quote:Altogether the King is said to have invested a sum of not more than 6,500,000 dois, in founding and exploiting his African Empire. The Empire as a political organization has not yet produced a surplus. But the deficit is a mere bagatelle compared with the enormous profits which the King is said to draw from his African domains.
THE PROFITS ON RUBBER.
…..The foundation-stone of the profits made by King Leopold lies in the fact that he has a standing army of about 15,000 men, most of whom are admittedly cannibals, with whose aid he is able to collect rubber from the natives, who sell it at two cents a pound. This rubber sells at Antwerp at from sixty to seventy-five cents a pound. . The margin of profit is therefore very considerable. As the State sells about 2,000 tons of rubber every year at Antwerp some conception may be formed of the King's profits.
quote:In 1889, four years after the Berlin Act, which is the charter of the Congo State, he made a will bequeathing to the Belgian nation all his sovereign rights in the State, and all the advantages attached to that sovereignty. In return for this Belgium advanced 200,000 at once to the Congo State, and promised a subsidy of ,£40,000 a year for the next ten years without interest. The King on his part promised that he would borrow no more money, and that at the end of ten years Belgium should be free to take over the State. Notwithstanding this promise the King, being in straits in 1895, borrowed £20,000 from the Bank of Antwerp. The King from his privy purse subsidised the Congo State to the extent of 40,000 a year. Notwithstanding all these subsidies and loans the Congo State has never down to the present day been able to make both ends meet. The deficit, however, was small, and it was abundantly met by the profits which the King made by exploiting the ivory and rubber of his domaine privi.
The King has invested first and last about ;£1,000,000 in floating and subsidising the parent enterprise. Upon this sum he has not received a penny dividend. But under the cover of this benevolent investment of a million sterling professedly spent to secure the open door to open up Africa to the free trade of all nations, he Has created monopolies covering a million square miles of territory, reserving to himself a minimum of fifty per cent, of their profits. As the market value of the shares of these monopolies according to the Stock Exchange quotations of 1900 was, in two out of the five companies thus formed, over ;£3,600,000, the operation from the point of view of the financier must be pronounced a brilliant success. King Leopold is not a world-wide operator. He sticks to his own little patch of a million square miles. But in that small corner of the world he has won his crown as one of the most ruthless and successful of the Money Kings of the modern world.
posted
I really hope people take interest in this I mean isn't it important that Brittan was behind the East African slave trade? Isn't it important to know how Europeans have been able to dominate? If you look at the history of the scramble for Africa isn't much of it involving hiring African mercenaries?
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Whither or not these accounts are exaggerated we know for certain that once populace areas were reduced to a waste land. In other places in Africa the slave system was also used to the advantage by Europeans colonialists
quote: Seventy years later (1884=85) anxiety to promote the welfare of the Negro was announced as one of the motives for the Berlin conference. Europe and America undertook to employ every means to end the inland slave= trade. Muhammadan states for the first time in history participated with Christian powers in an enterprise of philanthropy. Their presence recalls the homely rhyme that "when the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be", for the sincere endeavors of Egyptian and Zanzibari rulers of Islamry were inspired by European influences. Though Christendom succeeded between 1817 and 1877 in ending the export of slaves to America and in hampering that to the orient, the inland traffic grew worse. From 1875 to 1890 Africa lost sometimes five hundred thousand, sometimes one million inhabitants annually. In 1890 America, Europe, Persia and Zanzibar "in the name of God" confessed that the European powers were morally accountable for the devastation, and resolved at Brussels to secure peace for Africa, to complete such slight results as they had already obtained since 1885 and to guarantee the extermination of the traffic. Belgium has since accomplished something, Britain a little, the others less toward the redemption of their pledges for their respective realms.
posted
Is it possible that Leopold was allowed to have all this power as a way to keep the natives from benefiting from trade? Just like the Indian merchants the British and other Europeans could benefit by selling goods to the Indians while the Indians controlled trade over East Africa. It might seem strange to grant the Indians the means to all of this power but it served the interest of many Europeans. In both cases the actions of the Belgians and Indians were completely ignored.
Their seems to be two important aspects of this colonial system in the Belgian Congo. one which has been completely ignored.
1. The state demands a minimum amount of rubber and ivory and if the natives don't comply they are brutally dealt with
2. Their were laws passed specifically for preventing the natives from selling ivory and rubber to anyone other than the state. Anyone violating this strict monopoly is brutally dealt with. The state was "a monopoly of the strictest kind."
The King was much too shrewd to go into the business in his own name. He only collected taxes in kind, which he did by the aid of his agents, who employed the armed forces of the State in compelling the natives to bring in a stipulated quantity of rubber and ivory. He issued a series of decrees carefully calculated to place the native population and all its belongings absolutely at his disposition. The natives were forbidden, in 1891, to kill any elephants unless they brought their tusks to the officers of the Congo State ; in 1892 they were forbidden to collect any rubber unless they brought it to the officers of the Congo State ; and all merchants receiving either rubber or ivory from the natives were denounced as receivers of stolen goods. By this means the State which had abjured all monopolies established a monopoly of the strictest kind.
posted
Oh, it is quite well known what Leopold is well known for, a blood-thirsty piece of sh*t, and a coward who had others do his dirty work for him. The above is certainly not ignored. It isn't wise to assume that just because people don't go harping on about it all day, that these sub-human activities have been erased in people's minds, particularly the victims and their descendants.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I was talking about point 2 of the above. The stated purpose of the "Congo Free State" was that European merchants from different nations were supposed to be able to go and trade. As the quote above shows it was a strict monopoly and Europeans were prevented from purchasing ivory, rubber ect. Everything indicates that the different European nations would remove Leopold from power for ignoring international agreements for trade (not humanitarian reasons). However this was compltetely ignored and he was allowed to keep his monopoly. This is obviously a conspiracy
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Your "point 2" is tacitly included in my post.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
This implies that imports into the Congo state had some significance. If anyone has information on that I'd appreciate it
Like I said in so many ways the other European nations would have been against this monopoly and would have not allowed this to happen except for a conspiracy
quote: Before that campaign had been begun the King had applied to the Powers in 1885 to release him from the obligation not to impose import duties, on the ground that the expense of putting down slave-trading had exhausted his resources. The representatives of the Powers met again in Brussels in 1889-1890 and permitted him to impose a duty of ten per cent, ad valorem upon all imports into the Congo. There was no doubt that up to this time the King had often been hard pressed for money. He had either invested himself or secured the investment of ,£500,000 before the recognition of the Congo as an International State. This, according to Mr. Stanley, he had given free of return, without any hope of return further than a mere sentimental satisfaction.
posted
Remember that with all the work in attaining ivory and rubber the natives probably wouldn't have time for simple things like providing their own food. Europeans could sell canned goods and basic essentials to the Congo state.
Natives that don't give enough rubber are attacked and their wealth is also looted. I wonder if this loot is important in maintaining this system
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
To make this better to understand in this part of the article that I have quoted so many times it says that in the north white men are simply encouraging the chaos. Implying that this chaos was going on anyway. And even then these white men seem to be spending money and not participating in the fighting.
Now I'll go back to a point I made earlier. How do 2,346 whites dominate 30,000,000 blacks?
quote: Mr. Grogan—by no means a sensationalist …travelled through Congoland … He writes :— I saw myself that a country apparently well-populated responsive to just treatment in Lugard's time is now a a wilderness ; the scattered inhabitants, living almost without cultivation in the marshes, thickets, and reeds, madly fleeing even from their own shadows. Chaos, hopeless abysmal chaos, from Mweru to the Nile ; in the south, tales of cruelty of undoubted veracity, but which I could not repeat without actual investigation on the spot ; on Tanganyika, absolute impotence, revolted Askaris ranging at their own sweet will ; on Kivu, a hideous wave of cannibalism ranging unchecked through the land; while in the north, the very white men, who should be keeping peace where chaos now reigns supreme, are spending thousands in making of peace a chaos of their own. I have no hesitation in condemning the whole State as a vampire growth, intended to suck the country dry, and to provide a happy hunting-ground for a pack of unprincipled outcasts and untutored scoundrels. The few sound men in the country are powerless to stem the tide of oppression.— From " The Cape to Cairo," p. 227.
posted
markellion, do you just make questionable claims about your own sources just to bump up your thread? I wonder, because this cannot be any clearer
while in the north, the very white men, who should be keeping peace where chaos now reigns supreme, are spending thousands in making of peace a **chaos of their own**.
Isn't it about time you take advice in carefully reading what you post?
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
So you admit that this was Africans killing each other right? Like the slave trade or wars going on right now
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Pay *special* attention to what I'm telling you in the very last section of my post. Your last remark suggests that you have already overlooked the advice.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I edited the last post. This is similar to the earlier slave trade or wars going on right now. Right?
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Are you provoking me to insult your intelligence?
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
My whole point is that what was going on in the Belgian Congo was similar to the earlier slave trade (except with allot more European control)
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
To be sure, what do you mean by "earlier slave trade" here?
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
The one that was financed by Indian subjects of the British
Belgian control and that of Europeans in other places in Africa relied greatly on economic forces. This is how they also got African mercenaries which were essential for colonialism. This has been the scourge of Africa since the mid-seventeenth century which was a time of increasing importance for the slave trade
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
The attainment of local African mercenaries is at basic, no different from the attainment of those in say, Iraq or Afghanistan. This is why such forces have unpredictable loyalty prospects [vis-a-vis the controlling imperialist power]...and which is why, in "Belgian" Congo's case, recruitments from places outside of Congo mainland was seen as a necessity.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
How did How does 2,346 whites dominate 30,000,000 blacks?
If you look at the history there was great use of mercenaries and this is because of economics, the same economics that allowed the slave trade to happen
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: ...and which is why, in "Belgian" Congo's case, recruitments from places outside of Congo mainland was seen as a necessity.
Good point. With the slave trade war became seen as a business for many Africans so with the end of the slave trade they could continue the business of war as mercenaries and thus supported European colonialism
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
You missed the "good point". The fundamental basis for the minority, but well armed white imperialist apparatus to "dominate", is conquest. Then from there, after sufficiently destroying local infrastructure and pre-existing dynamics of subsistence, sections of locals are targeted with recruitment into a colonial army, and usually supplemented by recruitments from other [usually occupied] localities, while capitalizing on ethnic differences where opportunity is seen. This is not equivalent to Slave trade, where these local forces are equal trading partners to the controlling imperialist power.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
You can make up any lame explanation but what you said is not satisfactory in explaining how 2,346 whites dominate 30,000,000 blacks!
If you read the first page of this thread you'll see this has been continuous since the mid-seventeenth century. I really hope people more people start realizing this. People act like it is somehow insignificant why much of Africa is in the state it is. Also handkerchiefs were important for the slave trade. The African rulers were receiving two cents worth of merchandise for each pound of rubber
"Kongo Slavery Remembered by Themselves: Texts from 1915" by MacGaffey, Wyatt:
quote: It is quite a false idea," reported Sir Harry Johnston, "that you can go anywhere in Africa with any sort of bead or any kind of cloth. Each district has its peculiar tastes and fancies to consult, and you might starve in one place with bales of goods that would purchase kingdoms in another. Between Vivi and Isangila you will find red handkerchiefs, striped cloth, brass 'tacks,' gin and wire useful. At Manyanga blue beads rule the market; at Stanley Pool brass rods."[ 38] In Vungu, a piece of cloth called bela was highly regarded; "it was about the size of your hand, and worth about 50 centimes. One bela would buy an iron cleaning-rod for a gun; rods were valued, because they could be bent and worn as bracelets.
quote: [quote]A white officer with a few armed men at his back summons the chiefs in a district to a palaver. Each chief is asked in return for so many pocket-handkerchiefs, to furnish a certain number of slaves. If he agrees the slaves of the black chief become the slaves of the white officer, who subjects them to military discipline, arms them with rifles, and uses them to punish any chief who is slow in supplying his quantum of slaves. Refusal to furnish the stipulated contingent is treated as an act of war.
…..The foundation-stone of the profits made by King Leopold lies in the fact that he has a standing army of about 15,000 men, most of whom are admittedly cannibals, with whose aid he is able to collect rubber from the natives, who sell it at two cents a pound. This rubber sells at Antwerp at from sixty to seventy-five cents a pound. . The margin of profit is therefore very considerable. As the State sells about 2,000 tons of rubber every year at Antwerp some conception may be formed of the King's profits.
posted
I have said what needs to be said; however you take it, is entirely up to you.
Ps - Onus is placed on you to show that colonial mercenaries are seen as being on equal footing with the controlling imperialist party, as opposed to subordinates under control of said party, and that the underlying dynamics is not as I noted, but that it is equivalent to the Slave Trade. Enlighten us on how colonial mercenaries are fully in charge of their own operations and running their "business", and determine the conditions of "trade", as one would expect between trading partners in a slave trade.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I really apologize I looked at the first page and the one about Kongo slavery I didn't post here and I thought I posted this one about Globalization. I left out allot of essential reading
Early Globalization and the Slave Trade Trips around the world were essential for sustaining slavery by Robert Harms
quote: The demise of the French East India Company in 1706 (it was later resurrected as the Company of the Indies) caused a problem for French slave traders. It was impossible for them to remain competitive in the slave trade without ready access to cowry shells and Indian textiles. So vital was the Asian trade to the slave trade that a consortium of merchants raised over a million livres to start a company to replace the defunct French East India Company. In requesting authorization from the French Council of Commerce, the merchants cited the difficulties they were having in obtaining the products of Asia that were vital for the slave trade. The slave trade could not function successfully, they argued, unless they had direct access to cowry shells and Indian textiles...
posted
For what I'm saying to make any sense there is some things to read first. John Hobson explains the importance of annexing tropical territories "These new markets must lie in hitherto undeveloped countries, chiefly in the tropics, where vast populations live capable of growing economic needs which our manufacturers and merchants can supply"
quote: No mere array of facts and figures adduced to illustrate the economic nature of the new Imperialism will suffice to dispel the popular delusion that the use of national force to secure new markets by annexing fresh tracts of territory is a sound and a necessary policy for an advanced industrial country like Great Britain. It has indeed been proved that recent annexations of tropical countries, procured at great expense, have furnished poor and precarious markets, that our aggregate trade with our colonial possessions is virtually stationary, and that our most profitable and progressive trade is with rival industrial nations, whose territories we have no desire to annex, whose markets we cannot force, and whose active antagonism we are provoking by our expansive policy. I.VI.2
But these arguments are not conclusive. It is open to Imperialists to argue thus: "We must have markets for our growing manufactures, we must have new outlets for the investment of our surplus capital and for the energies of the adventurous surplus of our population: such expansion is a necessity of life to a nation with our great and growing powers of production. An ever larger share of our population is devoted to the manufactures and commerce of towns, and is thus dependent for life and work upon food and raw materials from foreign lands. In order to buy and pay for these things we must sell our goods abroad. During the first three-quarters of the century we could do so without difficulty by a natural expansion of commerce with continental nations and our colonies, all of which were far behind us in the main arts of manufacture and the carrying trades. So long as England held a virtual monopoly of the world markets for certain important classes of manufactured goods, Imperialism was unnecessary. During the last thirty years this manufacturing and trading supremacy has been greatly impaired: other nations, especially Germany, the United States, and Belgium, have advanced with great rapidity, and while they have not crushed or even stayed the increase of our external trade, their competition is making it more and more difficult to dispose of the full surplus of our manufactures at a profit. The encroachments made by these nations upon our old markets, even in our own possessions, make it most urgent that we should take energetic means to secure new markets. These new markets must lie in hitherto undeveloped countries, chiefly in the tropics, where vast populations live capable of growing economic needs which our manufacturers and merchants can supply. Our rivals are seizing and annexing territories for similar purposes, and when they have annexed them close them to our trade. The diplomacy and the arms of Great Britain must be used in order to compel the owners of the new markets to deal with us: and experience shows that the safest means of securing and developing such markets is by establishing 'protectorates' or by annexation. The present value of these markets must not be taken as a final test of the economy of such a policy; the process of educating civilised needs which we can supply is of necessity a gradual one, and the cost of such Imperialism must be regarded as a capital outlay, the fruits of which posterity will reap. The new markets may not be large, but they form serviceable outlets for the overflow of our great textile and metal industries, and, when the vast Asiatic and African populations of the interior are reached, a rapid expansion of trade may be expected to result.
posted
The bellow, which I already quoted, does make it seem imports were important because a duty of 10% was supposed to be important to his financial success. Plus the other nations of Europe tolerated the existence of the Congo state despite it being a monopoly while the state was supposedly established for open trade to all Europeans. I think this is because they were selling their merchandise to the state while the state monopoly could keep absolute control over the Africans.
Plus the natives had to spend all their time collecting ivory and rubber and were forbidden to trade with anybody other than the state. I would think in this way the natives would also be dependent on the state for all the essentials of life and thus would be forced to rely on European made merchandise. In this way Europeans would have an outlet for their merchandise. In one way or another this has been kept a secret to make it seem like imports and African reliance on European merchandise wasn't important
quote: Before that campaign had been begun the King had applied to the Powers in 1885 to release him from the obligation not to impose import duties, on the ground that the expense of putting down slave-trading had exhausted his resources. The representatives of the Powers met again in Brussels in 1889-1890 and permitted him to impose a duty of ten per cent, ad valorem upon all imports into the Congo. There was no doubt that up to this time the King had often been hard pressed for money. He had either invested himself or secured the investment of ,£500,000 before the recognition of the Congo as an International State. This, according to Mr. Stanley, he had given free of return, without any hope of return further than a mere sentimental satisfaction.
The King was much too shrewd to go into the business in his own name. He only collected taxes in kind, which he did by the aid of his agents, who employed the armed forces of the State in compelling the natives to bring in a stipulated quantity of rubber and ivory. He issued a series of decrees carefully calculated to place the native population and all its belongings absolutely at his disposition. The natives were forbidden, in 1891, to kill any elephants unless they brought their tusks to the officers of the Congo State ; in 1892 they were forbidden to collect any rubber unless they brought it to the officers of the Congo State ; and all merchants receiving either rubber or ivory from the natives were denounced as receivers of stolen goods. By this means the State which had abjured all monopolies established a monopoly of the strictest kind.
posted
Lets put this in another way. In what time in the history of mankind was there something similar to 2,346 people be able to control 30,000,000 other people? And why is this not done with Iraq or Afghanistan?
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is no putting it this way or another. You said I "made up" what I told you. So, here is the task awaiting you:
Onus is placed on you to show that colonial mercenaries are seen as being on equal footing with the controlling imperialist party, as opposed to subordinates under control of said party, and that the underlying dynamics is not as I noted, but that it is equivalent to the Slave Trade. Enlighten us on how colonial mercenaries are fully in charge of their own operations and running their "business", and determine the conditions of "trade", as one would expect between trading partners in a slave trade.
My job is not to "satisfy" you with the contents of my position, but to challenge you on your's.
BTW, it is in relation to my feedback to this from you:
Good point. With the slave trade war became seen as a business for many Africans so with the end of the slave trade they could continue the business of war as mercenaries and thus supported European colonialismPosts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by markellion: And why is this not done with Iraq or Afghanistan?
Colonial mercenaries of a "minority" imperialist presence is already going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are you saying you are ignorant of this?
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Comparing this to Iraq and Afghanistan does not make any sense. What are the troop ratios in those two countries? I will agree with you if you can show ratios comparable to 2,346 occupiers able to control 30,000,000.
Also it is interesting the operation was running a deficit. Its strange how the other European nations would allow all of this wealth to go to one man and it definitely looks like there is some hidden conspiracies here
quote: Altogether the King is said to have invested a sum of not more than 6,500,000 dois, in founding and exploiting his African Empire. The Empire as a political organization has not yet produced a surplus. But the deficit is a mere bagatelle compared with the enormous profits which the King is said to draw from his African domains.
quote:Notwithstanding all these subsidies and loans the Congo State has never down to the present day been able to make both ends meet. The deficit, however, was small, and it was abundantly met by the profits which the King made by exploiting the ivory and rubber of his domaine privi.
Comparing this to Iraq and Afghanistan does not make any sense.
Of course it won't make sense to you, if you don't understand what is being compared in the first place.
quote: What are the troop ratios in those two countries?
Does it matter, in relation to what you are replying to?
quote: I will agree with you if you can show ratios comparable to 2,346 occupiers able to control 30,000,000.
I think you have me greatly misunderstood. I don't intend to *convince* you to agree with me; rather, I'm *challenging* you to answer to the request I made of you above, and the ones prior, i.e. the unanswered ones which you seem to think I've forgotten about.
On the side, where do you come up with those figures? Do you have reliable census data taken in Congo for the specific time in question? If so, let's have it.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote: Before explaining the mottus operandi it may be well to state how the Belgians obtain the force necessary to enable them to eat up whole populations. For in the Congo state in 1902 the total number of white men of all nationalisties was only 2,346. Of these 1,465 were Belgians, who held almost all the important military and civil positions.
posted
And that 30,000,000 that you keep nattering about, I hope is from the same time frame. If so, let's have the specifics.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Before explaining the mottus operandi it may be well to state how the Belgians obtain the force necessary to enable them to eat up whole populations. For in the Congo state in 1902 the total number of white men of all nationalisties was only 2,346. Of these 1,465 were Belgians, who held almost all the important military and civil positions. As the native population of Congoland numbers some twenty or thirty millions, it is curious to discover how such a handful of whites can reduce the black millions to virtual slavery.
posted
You are engaging in outright deceit. This highlighted bit does NOT come from the source you are citing.
Wait, I take the above back, having double checked. But here is the question. How did the author get that number, when it said that no census of Congo was taken at the time?...and it shows, because the author is guessing between two dubious numbers.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic