Map Shewing Revenue Divisions of the "Congo Free State"
- Title:
- Map Shewing Revenue Divisions of the "Congo Free State"
- Alternate Title:
- Revenue Divisions of the "Congo Free State"
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Morel, Edmund Dené
- Date:
- 1919
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2558.02
- File Name:
- PJM_2558_02.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1900 - 1919
- Subject:
- Imperialism
Other Moral & Social
Slavery/Race - Measurement:
- 10 x 17 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map is part of the long and ultimately successful effort to end the exploitation, enslavement and brutal treatment of the Congolese by King Leopold II of Belgium. See generally Hochschild 2006.
At the Berlin Conference on Africa in 1885, Leopold convinced other European leaders that he was personally engaged in philanthropic and humanitarian activities in the Congo. Given a free hand, he proceeded to rule the area as his private property, entirely separate from the nation of Belgium. Renaming his domain the "Congo Free State," he pillaged its valuable rubber, ivory, and other resources for his personal benefit. His brutal private army (the "Force Publique"), intimidated the natives into service as forced labor through hostage taking, rape, torture, mutilation, and murder. The horrors of the Congo were reflected in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, published in 1899.
Edmund Morel was a trusted shipping company employee who was dismayed to find at the turn of the century that his firm's ships unloaded rubber and ivory from the Congo and returned carrying only uniformed soldiers and weapons. He left his position and undertook to right the situation, working with Roger Casement, a former British Consul in the Congo who had authored a devastating report to Parliament detailing the situation on the ground.
Morel enlisted the support of well-known writers such as Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle, and engaged in tireless writing and speaking to inform the public. Out of a "smoldering sense of outrage," he soon became "the greatest British investigative journalist of his time." Hochschild 2006, 187. "The crusade that E. D. Morel . . . orchestrated . . . exerted a relentless, growing pressure on the Belgian, British, and American governments. Almost never has one man, possessed of no wealth, title, or official post, caused so much trouble for the governments of several major countries." Ibid. 209.
This map is one of two that appeared in Morel's book, Red Rubber, first published in 1906. The first map, ID #2558.01, shows the continent of Europe overlaid with the Congo basin on the same scale, stretching from Edinburgh to Constantinople and Stockholm to Sardinia. It dramatically illustrates the size of the area controlled by Leopold, in a manner easily understood by European and American readers. (Persuasive cartographers often use this technique to demonstrate the relative significance of a country or geographic area. For other examples in the collection, Search > relative size.)
The second map, ID #2558.02, showing "Revenue Divisions of the 'Congo Free State,'" illustrates the greed, deception, and scope of atrocities in the country. Leopold had contended that the revenue accruing to his exclusive benefit came only from a small area of the Congo, the "Domaine de la Couronne" (shown in red on the map). Morel accurately describes this as "Revenues retained by the King and not accounted for in any way whatsoever."
The great majority of the Congo's vast area was held in two other forms of ownership. The "Domaine Prive" or "so-called 'public revenue' area" (orange on the map) was also held by the King, but in keeping with his philanthropic facade, its revenues were to be used to cover the costs of the enterprise, including infrastructure, supplies, and personnel. Not only were the natives thus enslaved to pay for their own suffering, but Morel argued that the revenues from the Domaine Prive exceeded the expenses, resulting in further profits for Leopold. The remaining portion of the Congo was held by "Concessionaires," commercial trusts established to exploit the resources of specific areas (yellow on the map). Here again, Leopold personally profited; in these areas, "Revenues [are] shared by the King and Partner, whom he controls." Leopold's share was "usually one-half." (p.123)
On the map, every area of the Congo is dotted with small letters "x." These are the results of meticulous data gathered by Casement, Morel and many others, "Localities whence specific reports of atrocities have been received." Morel's book provides the details of scores of these reports, as well as extensive analysis of the costs and revenues of the "Congo Free State."
Red Rubber, one of Morel's numerous works, was originally published in 1906. As a result of the relentless pressure from foreign governments and the public, Leopold's personal rule came to an end in 1908, when the state of Belgium annexed the area as the colony of Belgian Congo. As events in the Congo improved, Morel concluded in 1913 that "the agitation was finally successful in obtaining its objects" (pp. x, 223-25) and turned his talents and moral sense to other areas. These maps come from the 1919 "New and Revised Edition" of the book, which added the later developments.
During World War I, Morel was an outspoken and effective anti-war pacifist and spent six months in prison as a result. In 1922 he was elected to Parliament on the Labour ticket, ousting his incumbent opponent, Winston Churchill.
This copy of Red Rubber was owned and heavily annotated by the American Marxist historian Herbert Aptheker. It has also been inexplicably rebound, upside down, in the covers of a work on a World War I Evacuation Hospital.
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- Morel, Edmund Dené. 1919. Red Rubber. The story of the Rubber Slave Trade which flourished on the Congo for twenty years, 1890-1910. New and Revised edition. New York: B. W. Huebsch, Inc.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.