King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

"...Niendo thought that, by giving presents of much food, he would induce the strangers to pass on without harming us. And so it proved...soon after the sun rose over the hill, a large band of soldiers came into the village, and we all went into the houses and sat down. We were not long seated when the soldiers came rushing in shouting, and threatening Niendo with their guns. They rushed into the houses and dragged the people out. Three or four came to our house and caught hold of me, also my husband were tied together with cords about our necks, so that we could not escape. We were all crying, for now we knew that we were to be taken away to be slaves. The soldiers beat us with the iron sticks from their guns, and compelled us to march to the camp of Kibalanga, who ordered the women to be tied up separately, then to each cord, and the men in the same way. When we were all collected--the soldiers brought baskets of food for us to carry , in some of which was smoked human flesh..." (pg. 133)

The story described in the quote is that of an African woman named Ilanga. The importance of this quote is not only the content but also the rarity of it. During the Belgian colonization of the Congo many Africans went through the same atrocities as Ilanga did. Most of the accounts of this era are from European soldiers that administered the tortures. Because of this many of the stories are biased by either downplaying the acts violence or by not even mentioning them. Illanga shows us a first hand depiction of the brutalities. She, like many Africans, was living peacefully in her village but was taken hostage to be used as a slave. As a slave she would have to do an assortment of both laborious and shameful jobs such as working the fields or as mistresses to their white owners. The men would have to become soldiers or carriers, which were people who would have to carry about 60 pounds worth of tools or resources. Many of the slaves would die of beatings or of exhaustion. There would be other horrific stories like a captain decorating his house with the heads of Africans of the beating of all the kids in a town because two of them laughed in the presence of a white man. This passage is essential in the book. The author is successfully attempts to shed light on the holocaust that has occurred in the Congo. This history of the Congo is not known to many. Many consider King Leopold as one of the world's greatest humanitarians but Hochschild strongly shows the reality of the circumstances.

Personally, the passage is extremely powerful. As a reader one cannot help but feel bad for Ilanga. She is an innocent victim to the merciless greed of King Leopold. To King Leopold, and his subjects in the Congo, the life of an African was literally worthless. I compare this account to those of victims during the holocaust. Although, King Leopold did not want to eliminate every African in the world, the end result was the same: the extermination of a huge amount of the population. The passage shows us exactly how horrifying the colonization of the Congo was.