Volume 11 SAGE SERIES ON AFRICAN MODERNIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT Catherine Coquery-VRJrovitch Paul E. Lovejoy Editors The Workers of Aifrican Trade fj SAGE PUBLICATIONS Beverly Hills London New Delhi Copyright © 1985 by Sage Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: SAGE Publications, Inc. 275 South Beverly Drive Beverly Hills, California 90212 SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. SAGE Publications Ltd M-32 Market 28 Banner Street Greater Kailash I London EC1Y 8QE New Delhi 110 048 India England Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: The workers of African trade. (Sage series on African modernization and development ; v. .11) "The chapters in this volume were originally presented at a conference held at York University, Toronto, in September 1983"—Acknowledgments. Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Transport workers—Africa, Sub-Saharan—History— Congresses. 2. Africa, Sub-Saharan—Commerce—History— Congresses. I. Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine II. Lovejoy, Paul E. III. Series. HD8039.T72A3575 1985 380.T0967 85-2259 ISBN 0-8039-2472-0 FIRST PRINTING 12 THE STATE'S BAKONGO BURDEN BEARERS WILLIAM J. SAMARIN In taking possession of the heart of Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Belgians used Bangalas to carry their guns and Bakongos to bear their burdens. These were the first and most important Congolese—as opposed to expatriate—soldiers and porters of the initial period of colonization. They were critical for the Belgian enterprise, and for that reason their development was pursued consciously and vigorously. The intimacy of their involvement in the conquest of the Congo (now Zaire) River basin is portrayed iconographically in the innocent souvenirs recorded with the help of the new technology of photography: There in the picture is a group of porters at rest, some with their loads still on their heads (to show how carrying was done); to the side, in some kind of uniform, stands a man with self-conscious attention, rifle at shoulder. Author's Note: Financial support for this chapter came from the University of Toronto (International Studies Programme and the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Programme), the American Philosophical Society, the Social Sciences Research Council (U.S.A.), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am grateful not only to these organizations but also to R. P. Abbé Michel Coune, head of the Abbaye St. André, for access to its library, and to R. P. Alexandre Gillès de Pélichy, Roger Liotard and Jean Liotard for access to the papers of Victor Liotard in Paris, and to Ann-Claude de Mazières for introducing me to the Liotard family, and to my colleague and friend, Peter R. Reich. 269 270 THE WORKERS OF AFRICAN TRADE Map 12.1 : The Coast to Stanley Pool in the Nineteenth Century This present study crops the soldier from the picture and enlarges that of the porters. Yet, as in a cinematic documentary, there will be flashbacks to the soldier, because we cannot fully understand why the Bakongos were porters without understanding why Bangalas were soldiers. The names of these peoples, it should be understood from the outset, are labels of convenience. The Europeans participating in colonial events used the name Bangala as an ethnic one, but it applied in only a general way to the riverine populations between, say, the mouths of the Kwa and Mongalla Rivers on the Zaire (see Map 12.1). Some of them would have been what Europeans later came to identify as Bobangis, but many others—all possibly speaking closely related dialects—were included. Convenience does not, of course, fully ex- plain the way Europeans perceived the indigenous populations. They were all more or less engaged in ad hoc ethnography; and like all ethnography it had its intellectual if not ideological presuppositions. In other words, the social, political, and economic structures that Euro- William J. Samarin 271 peans "saw" in Africa were based in part on what they observed in the field but also in part in what they brought with them as cultural (hence intellectual) baggage. Therefore the "tribes" they identified were to some degree or other of their own making. This topic is discussed in great detail with respect to the so-called Bondjo (Samarin, 1984d). It is to be expected that ethnicity (that is, the historical reality of a people) would in some cases be problematic. It is so with the Bangala, even though the Zairean historian, Mumbanza mwa Bawele, for ex- ample, argues (1971, 1974) for the existence of an authentic people— organized beyond low-level kin and clan units and self-conscious of their identity. There is more justification for the use of Bakongo as an ethnic designation. (Since the first syllable of Bakongo is only a plural prefix, I prefer to use Kongo as the ethnic designation). That is to say, it has a much older history. In any case, regardless of the amount of integra- tion of their societies in political units, such as that of the Kongo kingdom with which the Portuguese first came in contact, they spoke more-or-less closely related dialects, some of which, however, were not immediately mutually intelligible. This is not to say that nineteenth- century Europeans always recognized a vast Bakongo ethnolinguistic entity. Indeed, it is a fact of some significance that at the time when they were all talking about the so-called Bangalas, they were not equally categorical about Bakongos. The latter were generally referred to as the natives of the Lower Congo, or more explicitly Loangos, Kabin- das, and other such ad hoc names. The exploitation of the Kongo peoples had already had a history of almost four hundred years when King Leopold II of Belgium sent the Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo (replaced in 1883 by the International African Association) up the Congo River. They had been involved in trade, mining, and most of all in selling each other (and others) into slavery (Broadhead, 1971; Martin, 1970, 1972). The introduction of colonialism only altered the nature of interaction between Europeans and Kongos. THE RECORD OF PORTERING The Kongo peoples were indispensable for the establishment of Leopold's African empire (Liebrechts, n.d.: 201, published around 1900 or 1909). Transportation figures alone demonstrate the truth of this assertion. Calculate the number of kilograms of goods that had to be transported from the start of the cataracts to Stanley (now Malebo) 272 THE WORKERS OF AFRICAN TRADE Pool, assigning 30 kilograms (65 pounds) per person, and one will have an idea of the number of human beings involved.1 But this would only be the minimum, because every caravan required "support persons"— people to cook for the porters (many of whom must have been women) and others to carry the personal belongings of the porters (some of whom might have engaged in a little trade of their own); and children were frequently in these caravans, serving in different capacities. Figures for loads coming into and going out of the region give some idea of the number of human beings involved in portering, but they represent only the minimum volume of trade, being official figures of the Congo Free State. In early years, before the Belgian government had established its bureaucratic hold on the territory, much would have transpired, and much would have been transported, without the knowledge of its representatives. European recruitment of local porters began between 1879 and 1883 (Van Schendel, 1932). These years represent the period of H. M. Stanley's first two trips up the Congo River, which includes the found- ing of the station at the Equator, so important for the subsequent recruitment of Bangalas into the work force. During this period he was concerned with establishing the claims of King Leopold in com- petition with the French. Speed in advancing into the interior was the most important factor. Nonetheless, he had 50 tons of shipment at Vivi, headed for Leopoldville, in 1880 (Stanley; 1885: 1, 159). When he arrived at Banana in December 1881, he had 600 tons of goods (Stanley, 1885: 468); not all of this went to Leopoldville, because some stayed at intermediate stations. Stanley himself provides little infor- mation about his recruiting of indigenous personnel: only that Kabin- das were hired at the coast, that he had 206 workers at Vivi, that in March 1880 he had a work force of 110 not counting natives, and that his personnel needed 400 pounds of rice per day (Stanley, 1885: 31, 153, 196, 216, 221). Gisanura's estimate of Stanley's shipments to Leopoldville in 1883 is 54 tons or 1830 loads (Gisanura, 1971: 87). Whatever we might make of Stanley's account of these first years, Liebrechts is explicit in saying that Stanley had in addition to 150 Zan- zibaris the "renfort incertain" of some Kabindas to take over Stanley Pool and that early in 1883 a crew of 80 Zanzibaris had the heaviest responsibility of portering for the Pool (Liebrechts, n.d.: 22, 45). The absence of Kongo porters is confirmed by Wauters (1890a: 221), who reported that in 1883-1884 the International African Association found only "quelques rares auxiliaires" among the Lower Congo peoples. Yet 1200 porters had been used in 1883 (Congo Illustré, 1892: 19) and William J. Samarin 273 in 1882 through 1884 Leopoldville was being supplied every three to four weeks by goods from the coast with a crew of 40 porters (Guiral, n.d.: 237, published in 1889).