Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ [Illustration: King Leopold II.] The Story of the Congo Free State Social, Political, and Economic Aspects of the Belgian System of Government in Central Africa By Henry Wellington Wack, F.R.G.S. (Member of the New York Bar) With 125 Illustrations and Maps G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1905 COPYRIGHT, 1905 BY HENRY WELLINGTON WACK The Knickerbocker Press, New York PREFACE As a student of Mid-African affairs for the past seven years, and a close observer of the rapid progress toward complete civilisation now being made in that part of the world, I have felt it my duty to lay before my countrymen the true and complete story of the conception, formation, and development of the Congo Free State. At a period of such bitter controversy concerning the government of the Congo Free State as the present, it is necessary that I should explain the circumstances under which I add this volume to the literature of that subject. During a residence of several years in the United Kingdom, I could not fail to observe the growth there of an organised campaign against the Congo Free State. That a small section of the British public, interested in the rubber trade, should by subtle means seek to delude or should even succeed in deluding, the great British nation so completely as to obtain general credence for its stories of cruelty and oppression alleged against King Leopold’s government failed to move me. It was not my concern, while enjoying the hospitality of England, to criticise the way in which her religious organisations were being used to further the selfish aims of a small _clique_ of Liverpool merchants. But when, within the past year, I perceived that the campaign of calumny against the Congo Free State was being extended to the United States, I could not longer regard the phenomenon with a merely passive interest. It occurred to me that my knowledge of Mid-African affairs might enable me to place before the American people a complete statement of the actual facts of the Congo Free State, and that my self-imposed task could not fail to be of value at a time when interested partisans were endeavouring to deceive them. Having obtained an introduction to the King of the Belgians, I informed his Majesty that I believed the American people would much esteem the true history of the affairs of the Congo written by an American, and that if his Majesty would grant me access to the archives of the Administration of the Congo Free State in Brussels, and leave me free to write the story of his enterprise in my own way, absolutely without interference or suggestion from any of his ministers or himself, I would undertake the task on my own account.