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Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Congo on the Year of Grace 1906
This book is written with the object of putting into the hands of the British public, at a cost which places it within the reach of many, a brief and up-to-date narrative of the Congo tragedy, avoiding side issues, and dealing with the main features of the story. Much of it will be new to all save those who have followed the Congo question as students, and even as regards the latter it is hoped that the cumulative force of recent revelations here presented in their natural sequence may lead to an even clearer perception of the problem. A crisis in this history has arrived. The Report of the Commission of Inquiry, wrung from King Leopold by the pressure of British public opinion. Professor Cattier’s volume, and the five days’ debate on these two publications which took place last February in the Belgian House of Representatives,’' have removed the last doubts which remained as to the accuracy of the charges publicly brought against the personal, uncontrolled, and unfettered management of the independent Congo state by King Leopold. Contention as to facts has disappeared. The controversial stage has, in that respect, gone for ever.
- GenresHistoryAfricaNonfiction
276 pages, Leather Bound
First published January 1, 1906
8 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
About the author
E.D. Morel
37 books8 followersEdmund Dene Morel, originally Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville, was a British journalist for the Manchester Chamber of commerce, author, pacifist, and politician, who in collaboration with Roger Casement, Morel led a publicity campaign against the independent Congo State, founding the Congo Reform Association. Furthermore he played a significant role in the British pacifist movement during the First World War, participating in the foundation and becoming secretary of the Union of Democratic Control, at which point he broke with the Liberal Party.
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December 27, 2019He is my great great grandfather.
July 29, 2019
I'd been looking for a copy of this book, and - thanks to modern on-line retail - several options were open. I settled on this edition, though it wasn't the best choice. While copied from the final original edition, and up to date on the Congo story, the master copy was in bad shape and it shows. Also, no photographs were included. That said, it doesn't detract from the value of the work itself. Morel's tract is far from an antiquarian curio. It yet resonates with contemporary themes on Africa and humanitarian intervention.
King Leopold's Congo was not the sui generis attempt at one-man colonizing Morel claimed. Morel surely knew of Cecil Rhodes, and how the same upright British Empire that demanded open trade in Leopold's hellhole had no trouble invading the Boer republics' diamond mines and goldfields and annexing them as British property. Native workers shipped to labor in South Africa might have felt some kinship with the rubber slaves of the Congo. The uproar over "conflict" blood diamonds shows the same Western corporate extractive exploitation continues unabated. Reformers condemning such an evil regime and overseeing its termination seemed powerless (as now) to stop the real "heart of darkness" at work. Much of the reason was political, the movement betrayed by the usual establishment liberals like Sir Edward Grey. With a possible conflict with Germany looming on the horizon, Belgium was needed as a "neutral ally" on the Continent. It was therefore "politic" to backpedal condemning the country and its king, and rest content with said ally's formal assurances. As Morel notes, Leopold's successor, King Albert, quietly began a reversal of the royal heritage on the Congo. But far from being the great benchmark in European-African relations as Morel hoped, the reform movement descended into compromise, to be conveniently forgotten when the Kaiser's troops crossed the border.
This irony was also underscored by the wartime fate of Roger Casement, one of Morel's British co-reformers, knighted for his work undermining Britain's commercial rivals on the Congo. Casement's equal passion for justice for his native Ireland received quite a different response from the Empire. (Look it up.) When the Belgians themselves suffered similar treatment by German troops a decade later the term "Belgian atrocities" came to mean those inflicted on whites in Louvain, not blacks in Boma; but the legacy remained. Though Belgian memory was conveniently lost - "God will punish Belgium!" as one liberal Belgian paper prophesied (p. 215) - when Belgium became the victim of aggression, many of the more exaggerated claims against German troops (cutting off children's hands) were exactly those documented against Belgian native troops in the Congo - after years of hot denial. If the Belgian Leopoldian regime Morel lambasts bears a striking resemblance to Nazi behavior in Poland, this too was not incidental. The Nazis' great crime in European history was to gore Europe's own ox by turning this legacy of savagery inward, treating white Europeans as lesser races fit only for exploitation and extermination. Though Morel does not mention Conrad's Captain Kurtz, no doubt many frustrated Gauleiters echoed the "logic" of the Congo in implementing the policies of empire.
The moral urgency throughout Morel's volume should be quite familiar to us by now, as one evil regime after another provokes unending international humanitarian crises, with aroused NGOs (like the prototypical Congo Reform Association) urging powerful Western states to "do something" for the good of humanity. Morel's rather blunt description of the benefits of free trade to follow removing Leopold as slaveowner of the Congo shows the practical dimension is never far from the surface in such crusades. Note also the "threat" of too many unsupervised natives with guns to law and order in the rest of Africa, again parallel to the diamond warlords so necessary to raw material extraction in West Africa. Thus Morel's pioneer work in modern human rights consciousness deserves study not only as a window into a forgotten era, but into our own sadly unchanged times.
King Leopold's Congo was not the sui generis attempt at one-man colonizing Morel claimed. Morel surely knew of Cecil Rhodes, and how the same upright British Empire that demanded open trade in Leopold's hellhole had no trouble invading the Boer republics' diamond mines and goldfields and annexing them as British property. Native workers shipped to labor in South Africa might have felt some kinship with the rubber slaves of the Congo. The uproar over "conflict" blood diamonds shows the same Western corporate extractive exploitation continues unabated. Reformers condemning such an evil regime and overseeing its termination seemed powerless (as now) to stop the real "heart of darkness" at work. Much of the reason was political, the movement betrayed by the usual establishment liberals like Sir Edward Grey. With a possible conflict with Germany looming on the horizon, Belgium was needed as a "neutral ally" on the Continent. It was therefore "politic" to backpedal condemning the country and its king, and rest content with said ally's formal assurances. As Morel notes, Leopold's successor, King Albert, quietly began a reversal of the royal heritage on the Congo. But far from being the great benchmark in European-African relations as Morel hoped, the reform movement descended into compromise, to be conveniently forgotten when the Kaiser's troops crossed the border.
This irony was also underscored by the wartime fate of Roger Casement, one of Morel's British co-reformers, knighted for his work undermining Britain's commercial rivals on the Congo. Casement's equal passion for justice for his native Ireland received quite a different response from the Empire. (Look it up.) When the Belgians themselves suffered similar treatment by German troops a decade later the term "Belgian atrocities" came to mean those inflicted on whites in Louvain, not blacks in Boma; but the legacy remained. Though Belgian memory was conveniently lost - "God will punish Belgium!" as one liberal Belgian paper prophesied (p. 215) - when Belgium became the victim of aggression, many of the more exaggerated claims against German troops (cutting off children's hands) were exactly those documented against Belgian native troops in the Congo - after years of hot denial. If the Belgian Leopoldian regime Morel lambasts bears a striking resemblance to Nazi behavior in Poland, this too was not incidental. The Nazis' great crime in European history was to gore Europe's own ox by turning this legacy of savagery inward, treating white Europeans as lesser races fit only for exploitation and extermination. Though Morel does not mention Conrad's Captain Kurtz, no doubt many frustrated Gauleiters echoed the "logic" of the Congo in implementing the policies of empire.
The moral urgency throughout Morel's volume should be quite familiar to us by now, as one evil regime after another provokes unending international humanitarian crises, with aroused NGOs (like the prototypical Congo Reform Association) urging powerful Western states to "do something" for the good of humanity. Morel's rather blunt description of the benefits of free trade to follow removing Leopold as slaveowner of the Congo shows the practical dimension is never far from the surface in such crusades. Note also the "threat" of too many unsupervised natives with guns to law and order in the rest of Africa, again parallel to the diamond warlords so necessary to raw material extraction in West Africa. Thus Morel's pioneer work in modern human rights consciousness deserves study not only as a window into a forgotten era, but into our own sadly unchanged times.
February 26, 2007
Although morel led the war to get belgium and ultimately King Leopold I out of the Congo Free State (Formerlly Zaire, Currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo), his prejeduces, although "well-menat" are still horrific and his presumptions preposterous. However this is all hindsight, and Morel did the best he could within the time period and the knowledge available to him.
June 8, 2024
Red Rubber
22/2024.
There’s a long history of Africa being divided, conquered, and exploited by European powers. That a violent domination by Belgium (first her King, later her people) of the Congo river basin area persisted into the 20th century is less well known. Like all human travesties, its success depended on the complacency of those who otherwise could have prevented it. In this case, the British decided to stand by and allow the Belgians to commit atrocities based on a mix of commercial and geopolitical interests that betrayed the work done decades prior in ending African slavery and establishing at least minor protections for African people. There’s an element of “major power losing face to minor power; minor power commits atrocity” that has parallels to many conflicts today.
I’m glad this was recommended to me. I’d certainly have overlooked it without a strong suggestion from a friend.
This heartbreaking book was written in 1906 to protest British complicity in the Belgian King’s heinous behavior. Britain had basically imagined civil society out of whole cloth to end the Atlantic slave trade, and it dusted off its playbook to put to work in Africa. This is a contemporary history of that struggle and its arguments. It’s a well designed pamphlet, and evidence that the structure of arguments in public affairs campaigns doesn’t change much. It’s also a litany of crimes against humanity, all in the name of consumerism and financial accumulation, and a template of the “privatize gains, socialize losses” school of corrupt capitalism.
Whether it’s rubber in the Congo in the 1900’s, cotton in Mississippi in the 1800’s, or fast fashion at a mall in your town today, the modern economic system is based squarely on theft, torture, rape, and murder. Shifting to equitable and just means of production will not be easy, but the task is as urgent as ever.
22/2024.
There’s a long history of Africa being divided, conquered, and exploited by European powers. That a violent domination by Belgium (first her King, later her people) of the Congo river basin area persisted into the 20th century is less well known. Like all human travesties, its success depended on the complacency of those who otherwise could have prevented it. In this case, the British decided to stand by and allow the Belgians to commit atrocities based on a mix of commercial and geopolitical interests that betrayed the work done decades prior in ending African slavery and establishing at least minor protections for African people. There’s an element of “major power losing face to minor power; minor power commits atrocity” that has parallels to many conflicts today.
I’m glad this was recommended to me. I’d certainly have overlooked it without a strong suggestion from a friend.
This heartbreaking book was written in 1906 to protest British complicity in the Belgian King’s heinous behavior. Britain had basically imagined civil society out of whole cloth to end the Atlantic slave trade, and it dusted off its playbook to put to work in Africa. This is a contemporary history of that struggle and its arguments. It’s a well designed pamphlet, and evidence that the structure of arguments in public affairs campaigns doesn’t change much. It’s also a litany of crimes against humanity, all in the name of consumerism and financial accumulation, and a template of the “privatize gains, socialize losses” school of corrupt capitalism.
Whether it’s rubber in the Congo in the 1900’s, cotton in Mississippi in the 1800’s, or fast fashion at a mall in your town today, the modern economic system is based squarely on theft, torture, rape, and murder. Shifting to equitable and just means of production will not be easy, but the task is as urgent as ever.
November 16, 2022
3.5 ⭐️
Fascinating read! I learned a lot! Would love to read some own voice pieces from this time period. You can totally tell this was written by a white guy.
Fascinating read! I learned a lot! Would love to read some own voice pieces from this time period. You can totally tell this was written by a white guy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews