Forced Labor In Congo Essay

A brutal system of forced labor was harvested in the Congo. “As the 1890s began, the work whose sanctity Leopold prized most highly was seizing all the ivory that could be found. Congo state officials and their African auxiliaries swept through the country on ivory, raids, shooting elephants, buying tusks from villagers for a pittance, or simply confiscating them (118). At the beginning, the state most wanted porters. Porters were needed most at the points where the river system was blocked by rapids. “Moving dismantled steamboats to the upper section of the river was the most labor-intensive job of all: one steamboat could compromise three thousand porter loads. Unfortunately, the porters were not treated well by this system, and Edmond Picard,

Early missionaries and human rights advocates began to circulate news of the atrocities committed in the Congo. Women, as well as their children, were imprisoned as hostages. Flogging, starvation, and torture were routine. Tribes resisting enslavement were murdered. Incentives were provided for the people’s brutality towards the Africans. “By going along with the system, you were paid, promoted, awarded medals. So men who have been appalled to see someone using a chicotte on the streets of Brussels or Paris or Stockholm accepted the act, in this different setting, as normal” (122). Any last bit of evidence of the savagery committed in this horrific time period was destroyed. “Leopold and the Belgian colonial officials who followed him went to extraordinary lengths to try to erase potentially incriminating evidence from the historical record” (294). The Congo state records were burned to ashes too. One’s participation in this brutal regime was erased from their collective