Chapter II: Part 2

On Baker’s retirement from the command of the equatorial Soudan the work was intrusted to Colonel C. G. Gordon--commonly known as Chinese Gordon. Where Baker had broken ground, Gordon was to build; what his predecessor had commenced, Gordon was to perfect and to complete. If energy, determination, and self-sacrifice received their due, then had Gordon surely won for the Soudan that peace and security which it was his dear object to obtain for it. But slaving was an old institution in this part of the world. Every habit and custom of the people had some connection with it. They had always been divided from prehistoric time into enslavers and enslaved. How could two Englishmen, accompanied by only a handful of officers, removed 2000 miles from their base of supplies, change the nature of a race within a few years? Though much wrong had been avenged, many thousands of slaves released, many a slaver’s camp scattered, and many striking examples made to terrify the evil-doers, the region was wide and long; and though within reach of the Nile waters there was a faint promise of improvement, elsewhere, at Kordofan, Darfoor, and Sennaar, the trade flourished. After three years of wonderful work, Gordon resigned. A short time afterwards, however, he resumed his task, with the powers of a dictator, over a region covering 1,100,000 square miles. But the personal courage, energy, and devotion of one man opposed to a race can effect but little. His peculiar qualities shone forth conspicuously. He underwent the same trials as formerly. He signalized his detestation of the slavers by severe punishments, by summary dismissals of implicated pashas and mudirs, by disbandment of the suspected soldiery; but the land still suffered from waste, the roads in the interior were still being strewn with bones, and after another period of three years he again resigned.

Then followed a revulsion. The Khedivial government reverted to the old order of things, Gordon’s decrees were rescinded, the dismissed officers were reinstated, venality and oppression and demoralization replaced justice and equity and righteousness, until the sum of the enormities was so great that it provoked the great revolution in the Soudan. Then ended the attempt to suppress slavery in north central Africa. All traces of the work of Baker and Gordon have long ago been completely obliterated.

Attention has been given of late to Morocco. This near neighbor of England is just twenty years behind Zanzibar. The sentiments which the English people expressed at the Mansion House and Stafford House in regard to the slave trade at Zanzibar in 1873-4 are remarkably like those which are uttered to-day respecting Morocco. But it will require something more than diplomatic missions to the court of the Sultan to suppress the Moorish slave trade. Sir John D. Hay, who during his long stay in that country won the titles of the “Mussulman’s Friend” and “Counsellor of the Throne,” was accustomed to make periodical journeys to the Moorish court, and the Sultan used to meet his representations with promises of reform and amendment, but as soon as he set out on his return to Tangier, the native officials would set themselves to undo the good caused by Sir John’s visit. Sir William Kirby Green, his successor, was also successful in eliciting assurances that the trade would be stopped, and now Sir Charles Euan-Smith lately paid a visit, but unfortunately the results have been _nil_. It is doubtful whether England alone can induce the Sultan and his ministers to press the needed reforms in the face of national opposition, or that anything less than the concerted action of England, France, Germany, and Spain can succeed. A demonstration by England alone, without the cordial assent of the other powers, would doubtless be regarded as a step towards annexation rather than as an expression of the hostility of the British nation to the slave trade. But meantime the importation of negroes from the Nigritian basin and southwestern Soudan into the public slave markets of Morocco will continue until for very shame it will irritate Europe into taking more decided steps in the name of humanity to force the ever-maundering authorities to decree the abolition of the slave trade, and to carry the decree into immediate effect. It is surely high time that the “China of the West,” as it has been called, should be made to feel that its present condition is a standing reproach to Europe. While the heart of Africa responds to the civilizing influences moving from the east and the west and the south, Morocco remains stupidly indifferent and inert, a pitiful example of senility and decay.

The remaining portion of North Africa which still fosters slavery is Tripoli. The occupation of Tunis by France has diverted such traffic in slaves as it maintained to its neighbor. Though the watchfulness of the Mediterranean cruisers renders the trade a precarious one, the small lateen boats are frequently able to sail from such ports as Benghazi, Derna, Solum, etc., with living freight, along the coast to Asia Minor. In the interior, which is inaccessible to travellers, owing to the fanaticism of the Senoussi sect, caravans from Darfoor and Wadai bring large numbers of slaves for the supply of Tripolitan families and Senouissian sanctuaries. The country is of course under Turkish authority, and vizirial letters and firmans have been frequently issued since 1848 forbidding the importation of slaves and all traffic in them, but we might as well expect the Bedouins of Arabia to cease their nomadic life at the bidding of the Pasha of Haleb as the fanatical Mussulmans of the Fezzan to abstain from slavery at the mere command of the Governor of Tripoli.

The descent of the Congo to the Atlantic in 1877 suggested to King Leopold the foundation of a state. The Berlin Conference was a consequence of the success attained by the King. The partition of Southwest Africa among France, Portugal and Belgium inspired the Germans to seek territorial possessions in the Dark Continent, and the movement of Germany excited Great Britain to action, and thus public attention was once more diverted to eastern Africa.

From the Abyssinian frontier as far as the Portuguese possessions, and stretching inland to a line which may roughly be said to be about east longitude 30°, was an area covering about 1,500,000 square miles which belonged to no power. It was agreed that it should be divided into three spheres of influence. The Germans fixed upon the southernmost, the Italians upon the most northern; the British chose the central. Each power contracted to confine its operations within its own sphere, and to proceed to organize and administer it as opportunity offered upon a civilized basis. There was no intention to launch out into any enterprise of conquest, but each power proposed to make its title good by renting or leasing tracts within its sphere from the native princes or tribal chiefs, by making treaties with them for the sovereignty of their lands, in return for annual subsidies and protection from violence, meanwhile being certain of immunity from all interference or opposition from its neighbor.

The Germans were the earliest to commence work. Through the agency of a company they made a treaty with the Sultan of Zanzibar for his long strip of coast land, undertaking to pay him a certain sum per annum for the right of collecting the customs. But the imprudent conduct of the officers, their imperious and peremptory manner of proceeding, impelled the Arabs to attempt to drive them from the coast. At Kilwa, Dar Salaam, Bagamoyo, and Saadani the officers of the German company were attacked; some had to fly, others were massacred, and innocent British missionaries returning home after a long residence in the interior were waylaid and murdered by the excited natives; and the first attempts of German colonization ended disastrously. Naturally the imperial German government could not brook this humiliation, and Major Wissmann, a well-known explorer, was appointed with full powers to suppress the revolt. Within two years the Arabs were crushed, but the German position in East Africa became completely changed in consequence. It had been originally proposed to hold the East African coast by lease from the Sultan, with the view of including the Hinterland as far as Lake Tanganika within the sphere of their colonizing operations when results would permit; but the Germans now claimed nearly the whole of the east coast and east central Africa. This led in 1890 to the Anglo-German Convention, by which the German frontier was drawn south of latitude 1° S., across the Victoria Nyanza, thence east to the Indian Ocean, skirting the northern base of Kilima-Njaro to Wanga, a few miles south of the port of Mombasa. The British territory extended north from Wanga on the sea as far as the mouth of the Juba River, a distance of about 450 miles, thence inland as far as the Congo State. These two great divisions of Africa, now converted into British and German territory, included the major part of the area wherein the slave trade of the east central part of the continent so long flourished. The countries west of Lake Nyassa, extending westward to Portuguese territory and south to the Zambezi, conceded to the great South African Company, absorbed the remainder of the slavery area. These last are under the control of a British commissioner, Mr. H. H. Johnston, to whom is granted an annual subsidy of £10,000 from the South African Company, and who, with the aid of two British gunboats now on their way to Lake Nyassa, must shortly succeed in closing the interior of Africa in that direction to all slave caravans.

Since the Anglo-German Convention the Germans have shown themselves ready and willing to do their part towards the suppression of the slave trade in the same thorough manner that they met the rising of the Arabs. The coast towns are fortified and garrisoned; they are marking their advance towards Lake Tanganika by the erection of military stations; severe regulations have been issued against the importation of arms and gunpowder; the Reichstag has been unstinted in its supplies of money; an experienced administrator, Baron von Soden, has been appointed an imperial commissioner, and scores of qualified subordinates assist him. The Belgian Antislavery Society is sending a steamer, _viâ_ the Congo, Kasai, Sankuru, and Lumami, to Lake Tanganika as a cruiser for that lake; the German Catholic African Society is sending another steamer, in charge of Major von Wissman, _viâ_ the Zambezi, Shiré, Lake Nyassa, and Stevenson Road to Tanganika. These two steamers will effectually prevent slaves being transported across the lake from the eastern part of the Congo State. In German East Africa itself slave hunts have ceased for many years; but it is traversed in several places by slave caravans, principally from the southwest and west. These routes will now be closed by the cruisers on Lakes Nyassa and Tanganika, and the stations along the Stevenson Road. Henceforward we need have no concern about that part of Africa. The northern boundaries, a thousand miles in length, are not so well guarded, though the Germans are engaged in the transport of a steamer to Lake Victoria, and possess three stations along the southwestern shores; but between Lakes Tanganika and Victoria is a broad tract of country which will no doubt have to be watched, lest the slavers, finding this unguarded, may unite in making this a pathway to the coast.

These strategic efforts to the west and southwest of German East Africa, and the continuous upward advance of the stations and flotillas of King Leopold towards the east, limit the operations of the slave-traders to that narrowing and untravelled area lying between Stanley Falls and Lake Tanganika, and will have the effect of determining the Arabs to seek outlets eastward through British East Africa, which, in its present state, is most backward in fulfilling the objects of united Europe. Were it not for the condition that British East Africa is in to-day we could say that the slave trade in equatorial Africa was completely extinguished, and we could almost point to the period wherein even slavery would be extirpated.

The partition of Africa among the European powers, as will have been seen, was the first effective blow dealt to the slave trade in inner Africa. The east coast, whence a few years ago the slavers marched in battalions to scatter over the wide interior of the continent for pillage and devastation, is to-day guarded by garrisons of German and British troops. The island of Zanzibar, where they were equipped for their murderous enterprises, is under the British flag. Trading steamers run up and down the coast; the Tana and Juba rivers are being navigated by British steamers; two lines of stations secure communications inland for 300 miles from the sea. Major von Wissman is advancing upon Lake Tanganika; Herr Boorchert is marching upon Lake Victoria; Captain Williams is holding Uganda. These results have followed very rapidly the political partition of the continent.

The final blow has been given by the act of the Brussels Antislavery Conference, lately ratified by the powers, wherein modern civilization has fully declared its opinions upon the question of slavery, and no single power will dare remain indifferent to them, under penalty of obloquy and shame.

The first article of the Brussels act is as follows:

“The powers declare that the most effective means for counteracting the slave trade in the interior of Africa are the following:

“1. Progressive organization of the administration; judicial, religious, and military services in the African territories placed under the sovereignty or protectorate of civilized nations.

“2. The gradual establishment in the interior by the responsible power in each territory of strongly occupied stations in such a way as to make their protective or repressive action effectively felt in the territories devastated by man-hunters.

“3. The construction of roads, and, in particular, of railways connecting the advanced stations with the coast, and presenting easy access to the inland waters and to the upper reaches of streams and rivers which are broken by rapids and cataracts, so as to substitute economical and speedy means of transport for the present means of portage by men.

“4. Establishment of steamboats on the inland navigable waters and on the lakes, supported by fortified posts established on the banks.

“5. Establishment of telegraphic lines, assuring the communication of the posts and stations with the coast and with administrative centres.

“6. Organization of expeditious and flying columns to keep up the communication of the stations with each other and with the coast, to support repressive action, and to assume the security of roadways.

“7. Restriction of the importation of fire-arms.”

The above articles concern three powers especially, Great Britain, Germany, and the Congo State, so far as regards the efficient counteraction of the slave trade. In examining them one by one, we find that Great Britain, which in the past was foremost in the cause of the slave, has done and is doing least to carry out the measures suggested by the great Antislavery Conference. We must also admit that as regards furthering the good cause, France is a long way ahead of England.

The Congo State devotes her annual subsidies of £120,000 and the export tax of £30,000 wholly to the task of securing her territory against the malign influences of the slave trade, and elevating it to the rank of self-protecting states.

The German government undertakes the sure guardianship of its vast African territory as an imperial possession, so as to render it inaccessible to the slave-hunter, and free from the terrors, the disturbances, the internecinal wars, and the distractions arising from the presence or visits of slavers. It has spent already large sums of money, and finds no difficulty in obtaining from Parliament the sums requisite for the defence and the thorough control and management of the territory as a colonial possession. So far the expenses, I think, have averaged over £100,000 annually.

The French government devotes £60,000 annually for the protection and administration of its Gaboon and Congo territory. These two objects include in brief all that the Antislavery Conference deemed necessary, for with due protection and efficient administration there can be no room for slave hunting or trading.

Now the question comes, what has England done in the extensive and valuable territory in East Africa which fell to her share as per Anglo-German agreement signed July 1, 1890? The answer must be that she has done less than the least of all those concerned in the extirpation of the slave trade.

The Germans have crushed the slave-traders, have built fortified stations in the interior, have supplied their portion of the east coast with a powerful flotilla of steamers, are engaged in transporting cruisers to the three great lakes on their borders, have surveyed and are extending surveys for several railways in the interior, have not lost time in discovering ways of evading the territorial wants, but have set about to supply these wants as indicated by the International Conference of Brussels; and were we able to obtain an instantaneous photograph of the present movements of the Germans throughout their territory, we should know how to fully appreciate the hearty spirit with which they are performing their duties.

And were we able to glance in the same way as to what is occurring on British soil, we should be struck by the earnestness of the Germans as compared with the British.

Both governments started with delegating their authority to chartered companies. On the part of the Germans, however, the imprudence of their agents imperilled their possessions, and the imperial government set itself the task of reducing malcontentism to order, and settling the difficulties in its own masterful manner, and is engaged in providing against their recurrence before surrendering the territory again to the influences of the company.

The British East African Company, on the other hand, has been comparatively free to commence its commercial operations, undisturbed by armed opposition of aborigines or of Arab and Swahili residents. The welcome given to it has been almost universally cordial. The susceptibilities of the Arabs were not wounded, and the aborigines gratefully recognized that the new-comers were not hostile to them. Concessions were obtained at a fair price, and on payment of the stipulated value the company entered into possession, and became, with the consent of all concerned, masters of the British East African territory--a territory far more ample than what the founders of the company had hoped for at first.

Had the British East African Company confined its transactions and operations to the coast, it is well known that the returns would have been most lucrative, for over and above the expenditure we see by their reports that there would have been a yearly net gain of over £6000 available for dividend, which by this time would have been trebled.

But the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 expressly stipulated (Article VI.) that all powers exercising sovereign rights or having influence in the said territories (shall) undertake to watch over the preservation of the native races and the amelioration of the moral and material conditions of their existence, and to co-operate in the suppression of slavery, and, above all, of the slave trade; (that) they will protect and encourage all institutions and enterprises, religions, etc., re-established or organized, which tend to educate the natives; and in Article XXXV. it is stipulated that the power which in future takes possession of a territory, or assumes a protectorate, recognizes the obligation to insure in the territories occupied by it on the coasts of the African continent the existence of an adequate authority to enforce respect for acquired rights.

Therefore the back-land of British East Africa could not remain the theatre of slave raids, or unclaimed.

It devolved upon the occupants of the sea-frontage to exercise their sovereign rights, and in the due exercise of these to watch over the native races of the back-lands, and to co-operate for the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. It was incumbent upon them also to protect and encourage the Christian missions, without distinction of nationality or creed, which were established in Uganda--the most important because most populous and most promising of these back-lands. And to insure its acquired right to those countries it was necessary that the British company should be represented by adequate authority there, otherwise it would be in the power of any person, society, or power to bar its claim to them by actual occupation.

Following the declarations of the powers at the Berlin Conference in 1885 is the act of assembled civilization at Brussels in 1890, emphasizing and reiterating the conditions upon which sovereignty shall be recognized. They point out in detail what ought, what indeed must be done. They say that the responsible power _ought_--which is almost equivalent to _must_ in this case--to organize administration, justice, and the religious and the military services, to establish strongly occupied stations, to make roads, particularly railroads, for the sake of easy access to the inland waters, to inaugurate steamer service on the lakes, erect telegraphic lines, and restrict the importation of fire-arms.

The British East African Company as a commercial company is unable with its own means to meet these conditions. What it can it will, and its ability is limited to a sacrifice of all the dividends available from its commercial operations on the coast for the benefit of the whole territory, and subscribing a few more thousands of pounds to postpone retreat. Yet as the delegate of the British government the company is bound not to neglect the interior. It is pledged to insure the protection of British subjects in Uganda, to protect the Waganda from internecine and factional wars, to place steamers on Lake Victoria for the protection of the lake coasts, and to prevent the wholesale importation of fire-arms. But in the attempt to do what Europe expects to be done the company has been involved in an expense which has been disastrous to its interests. It has established adequate authority in Uganda, but the maintenance of the communication between Uganda and the coast is absolutely ruinous. It has to pay £300, or thereabouts, the ton for freight. Thus, to send 150,000 rounds of ammunition, which is equal to twelve tons, costs £3600. To send the cloth currency required for purchase of native provisions for the force costs £12,000. Add the cost of conveyance of miscellaneous baggage, European provisions and medicines, tools, utensils, tents, besides the first cost of these articles and the pay of the men, and we at once see that £40,000 per annum is but a small estimate of the expense thus entailed upon the company. Meantime the transportation of steamers to Lake Victoria, the erection of stations connecting the lake with the sea, and many other equally pressing duties, are utterly out of the question. The directors understand too well what is needed, but they are helpless. We must accept the will for the deed.

This much, however, is clear: Europe will not hold the British East African Company, but England, responsible for not suppressing the slave trade and slave hunt. The agreement with Europe was not made by the company, but by Great Britain through her official and duly appointed representatives. When her official representatives signed the act of the Brussels Antislavery Conference, they undertook in the name of Great Britain the important responsibilities and duties specified within the act. The representatives of all Europe and the United States were witnesses to the signing of the act. To repudiate the obligations so publicly entered into would be too shameful, and if the majority in Parliament represents the will of the people there is every reason to think that the railway to the Victoria Nyanza, which is necessary for carrying into effect the suggestions of the Antislavery Conference, will be constructed.

I have been often asked what trade will be benefited by this railway to the Nyanza, or what can be obtained from the interior of Africa to compensate for the expense--say £2,000,000--of building the railway. There is no necessity for me to refer to the commercial aspect of the question in such an article as this, but there are some compensating advantages specially relating to my subject-matter which may be mentioned.

First. England will prove to Europe and the world that she is second to no other power in the fulfilment of her obligations, moral or material.

Second. She will prove that she does not mean to be excelled by Germany, France, or Belgium in the suppression of the slave trade and the man hunt, nor is averse to do justice to the Africans whom she has taken under her wing.

Third. She will prove that the people on British territory shall not be the last to enjoy the mercies and privileges conceded to the negroes by civilization, that the preservation of the native races and their moral and material welfare are as dear to England as to any other power, that the lives of her missionaries shall not be sacrificed in vain, that the labors of her explorers are duly appreciated, that she is not deaf to the voices of her greatest and best, and, in brief--to use the words uttered lately by one of her ministers--she will prove that “her vaunted philanthropy is not a sham, and her professed love of humanity not mere hypocrisy.”

The objective point for the British East African Company, for the people and government of Great Britain, is the Victoria Nyanza, with 1400 miles of coast-line. So far as the British as a slavery-hating nation are concerned, their duties are simply shifted from the ocean coast to the Nyanza coast, 500 miles inland. The slave-trader has disappeared from the east coast almost entirely, and is to be found now on the lake coasts of the Victoria, or within British territory. The ocean cruiser can follow him no farther; but the lake cruiser must not only debar the guilty slave-dhow from the privilege of floating on the principal fountain of the Nile, but she must assist to restrict the importation of fire-arms from German territory, from the byways of Arab traffic, from the unguarded west; she must prevent the flight of fugitives and rebels and offenders from British territory; she must protect the missionaries and British subjects in their peaceful passage to and fro across the lake; she must teach the millions on the lake shores that the white ensign waving from her masthead is a guarantee of freedom, life, and peace.

To make these great benefits possible, the Victorian lake must be connected with the Indian Ocean by a railway. That narrow iron track will command effectively 150,000 square miles of British territory. It is the one remedy for the present disgraceful condition of British East Africa. It will enable the company to devote the thousands now spent wastefully upon porterage to stimulating legitimate traffic, and to employ its immense caravans in more remunerative work than starving and perishing on British soil; to grace the surroundings of its many stations with cornfields and gardens; to promote life, interest, and intellect, instead of being stupefied by increasing loss of brave men and honest money. It will create trade in the natural productions of the land, instead of letting Arabs traffic in the producers. Clarkson long ago said that legitimate trade would kill the slave traffic; Buxton repeated it. Wherever honest trade has been instituted and fairly tried, as in the southern part of the United States, in Jamaica and Brazil, as in Sierra Leone and Lagos, in Old Calabar, in Egypt and the lower Congo, always and everywhere it has been proved that lawful commerce is a great blessing to a land by the peace it brings, by its power of creating scores of little channels for thrifty industry, by the force of attraction it possesses to draw the marketable products into the general mart. And this is what will surely happen upon the completion of the Victoria Nyanza Railway, for the slave trade and slavery will then be rendered impossible in British African territory.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

Page 37: “peformed this feat of strength” changed to “performed this feat of strength”

Page 38: “undertaken to peform” changed to “undertaken to perform”

Page 76: “over and above the expediture” changed to “over and above the expenditure”