Land of Tears: The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa

by Robert W. Harms

A prizewinning historian's epic account of the scramble to control equatorial Africa
In just three decades at the end of the nineteenth century, the heart of Africa was utterly transformed. Virtually closed to outsiders for centuries, by the early 1900s the rainforest of the Congo River basin was one of the most brutally exploited places on earth. In Land of Tears, historian Robert Harms reconstructs the chaotic process by which this happened. Beginning in the 1870s, traders, explorers, and empire builders from Arabia, Europe, and America moved rapidly into the region, where they pioneered a deadly trade in ivory and rubber for Western markets and in enslaved labor for the Indian Ocean rim. Imperial conquest followed close behind.
Ranging from remote African villages to European diplomatic meetings to Connecticut piano-key factories, Land of Tears reveals how equatorial Africa became fully, fatefully, and tragically enmeshed within our global world.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction, World History

544 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 21, 2015

Reviews

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

the colonization of the Congo by the Belgians has always been a harsh topic to read about albeit an interesting one. This book focused on three explorers and how their journeys shaped the colonization of Equatorial Africa by European countries. It focuses on the annexation of the Congo by King Leopold (king of the Belgians) and how he was able to masquerade his attempts at colonization with an anti slavery movement all the way till the end. If you are interested in

[Martyn Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I had been looking for, and not known it. It covers the European intrusion into Equatorial Africa (the Congo) at the end of the 19th century with a wide-angle view of events that keeps the reader from getting bogged down in colorful stories like those of Henry Morton Stanley or King Leopold. The author, Robert Harms, has a knack for portraying the global ramifications of this intrusion, describing how piano factories in Connecticut profited from Congo ivory and how the anti-slavery movement in England was for a while bamboozled by King Leopold. Best of all, the Arab trade in ivory and slaves, centered at Zanzibar, is covered in detail and becomes an actor in this story.

The author barely mentions Joseph Conrad, but for anyone interested in The Heart of Darkness, this book gives a full view of the world into which Conrad entered as a short term pilot of a steamboat on the Congo River. Conrad's novella makes it appear that his narrator steadily leaves behind "civilization" as the boat journeys into the heart of the continent, to its eventual rendezvous with Kurtz. But that geography was a convenient fiction, since people were coming and going from east and west. Arab traders from the east didn't really fit in with Conrad's mental geography, and they of course disappear.

Joseph Conrad portrayed a system centered on the acquisition of ivory (horrible to imagine the systematic slaughter of elephants through this period), but a few years later the main concern is rubber. And the author explains how and when that transition took place, and how rubber turned out to be just as fleeting of a profit-driver as ivory. To an extent that's greater than any other colonial experience I've encountered, the Belgian exploitation of the Congo was a brutal rape of the land for the shortest of short term profits. This was done through a reward system that encouraged brutal acts on the part of European colonials.

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I have read quite a few books on the exploration of the Nile, I know little about the exploration and development of the countries along the Congo River. Centering on the lives of the American Henry Morton Stanley, the Zanzibari Tippu Tip, and the French-Italian explorer Pierre Savignon de Brazza, we find out about the initial exploration of this area in the 1870s and then the exploitation of this area for slaves, ivory, and eventually rubber. The early history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by the Belgian king, King Leop0ld, and that of the Republic of Congo by the French government comes out well. The book includes many good maps and pictures. It is well-documented, and is written in a very interesting manner.

[Michael Confoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Heart of Darkness here. The greed of King Leopold in the Congo, murder, cut off hands, disease, Arab slavery, corporate slavery, African slavery until almost the 20th Century, then the French join in French Congo. Millions of Africans will end up dying, perhaps 3 million. All for colonies and now countries, drawn up on maps in Berlin and Ostend.

[Eric Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those interested in the topic, this book is the genuine article: not just deep research, but deep thought.

It seems that publishing companies have decided the way to write about history is with parallel stories of a few significant or famous individuals, and Harms does some of that here, focusing on the intertwining paths of a couple major figures. It's mildly annoying. Many nonfiction creators gush about the holy craft of Telling A Story, but Telling A Story sometimes gets in the way of telling the truth. It can be a choice that reduces the real world to a simplified fantasy and real people to mere characters. While Harms indulges in this a little, he does a good job of not limiting himself to the individual as the sole unit of focus, which helps. He can analyze group dynamics, political economy, geography, knowledge and technology, social organization, etc. He goes beyond presenting the accounts of his subjects and investigates whether those accounts are actually true (they often aren't). There is a lot to commend about this book for working within the constraints of the "popular history" genre while not sacrificing insight and deeper analysis.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the beginning, I found this book to be fascinating -- that there was cross-continental trade in the early 1800's. but then it became more brutal as Arab traders enslaved indigenous Blacks to transport ivory (tons of ivory -- how many elephants were killed for pianos and billiard balls). Then it was interesting but sad to see how the land was divided among European powers, based on explorers and exploiters. Finally, though, the treatment of humans was just too horrific.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. A clear, compelling narrative, focused on three explorers/traders in late 19th c. central Africa. The “Arab”/Zanzibari ventures are most eye-opening and in sharpest contrast to traditional Eurocentric histories. Harms also focuses on ivory trade as key forerunner of the horrifying rubber slavers. Highly recommended.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This looks at the exploration and colonization of the Congo River area in the late 19th century, focusing on three individuals: Henry Stanley (who worked for the Belgians), Pierre de Brazza (with the French), and Tippu Tip (who was with the Sultan of Zanzibar). The first half covers all three men's exploits into the region, and their initial efforts to develop trade agreements with the locals for ivory, which was the driving force for all of them. It then shows the development of how the Belgians and French established their colonies, and concludes with the transformation of the trade into rubber and the exploitation that came with that. Notably Harms makes clear that while Tippu Tip was an African he was treated as an equal with the Europeans, and dominated eastern Congo, effectively ruling over it as his own fiefdom. It creates a powerful narrative, and demonstrates that there was no initial plan by the colonial powers to fully exploit the region, but instead that it happened organically, and that there were even attempts to stop that from occurring. It is a great companion to King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hothschild, which looks specifically at the Belgian Congo and the devastation done there, and gives a fuller look to how the Congo was colonized from both the west and east (indeed, initial explorations came from the Indian Ocean via Zanzibar, not from the mouth of the Congo River itself).

[Emily Levit · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather scholarly book. Not for the casually interested. Maybe not even for those more than casually interested. It purported to be centered around 3 key explorers, Stanley, Tippu Tip, and Brazza. That felt more like a promise the author used to rope readers in. After chapter 3, it becomes a geographical place name, river name, village name, and chief name dump of research that was very hard to see the bigger picture through, and very hard to care about.

An informative map in the front cover of the main areas being discussed repeatedly would have immediately made this book so much more approachable. There were just so many rivers and villages I couldn't remember them all, and I was constantly flipping back in the chapter to find a relative map to try and follow along. Could have been completely avoided.

Harms clearly did a lot of research, but maybe would have benefited from a co-author to help him narrate the story of his research and pull it all together better.

[Praveen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical non-fiction but it reads like a novel. One paragraph that encapsulates the subject matter will be following:

...Descending the Congo River toward Brazzaville with the awe-inspiring but ultimately monotonous rainforest towering on both sides, Challaye felt a desire to reread Dante's Inferno. Even though he did not have the book, Dante's images, words, and phrases flashed through his head: "Abandon all hope; rivulets of blood; land of tears; abyss of pain; regions of eternal grievance." He concluded his meditation by writing, "For as long as I live, I will retain the sadness of having seen a genuine hell with my own eyes."

[Scott Gann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book about the history of Equatorial Africa! It’s difficult to believe that human beings were treated so horrifically not to mention the poaching of elephants for ivory. I loved learning about the different participants in this time of history, but wished he would had elaborated more on the effects to the Elephants and environment

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive look at the exploitation of Africa.

[Emmy Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to read into the colonization of the Congolese but important and necessary. Well written even though a long one.