King Leopold’s Ghost: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

At the end of the 19th century, few Europeans thought of African colonization as an act of theft; in fact, they behaved as though Africa were an empty continent, ripe for industrialization and urban development. One of the few exceptions to this rule was George Washington Williams, an African American journalist who traveled to the Congo in 1890.

Williams was born in Pennsylvania, and fought in the Civil War on the Union side. He later fought in the American cavalry against Native Americans living on the Great Plains. Later on, he studied at Howard University, where he proved himself to be a great speaker and writer. Williams then founded a national black newspaper in Washington D.C., and, in 1882, he published a massive history of the African American experience. During an 1883 visit to the White House, Williams was introduced to Henry Shelton Sanford, then lobbying for U.S. recognition of Leopold’s landholdings in the Congo. Sanford convinced Williams that the Congo could be a home for African Americans.

Williams next traveled to Belgium to write articles about the possibility of an African American colony in the Congo. He interviewed Leopold, and was dazzled with what he perceived as Leopold’s magnanimity and Christian piety. Inspired by Leopold, Williams made a deal with a Belgian company to travel to the Congo and write a book about the territory. Thanks to funds provided by an American railway baron, Williams traveled down the coast of Africa, eventually arriving in the Congo.

In Williams’s earliest letters to Leopold, sent from the Congo, it is already clear that Williams is disturbed by the state of affairs in Leopold’s territory. He criticizes the white administrators in the Congo for using superior technology to trick African people into thinking that white men are magical. He also notes that Stanley’s name provokes shudders among the Africans. Williams points out the absence of schools or churches in the Congo, and notes the murder and torture that took place under Stanley’s rule. Williams concludes that the Congo is currently a slave state, in which white soldiers use guns, torture, and intimidation to force African people to work for nothing. Three months after penning his first letter to Leopold, Williams sends a letter to the American secretary of state, arguing that the Congo state was guilty of “crimes against humanity.”

Williams’s letters on the Congo were published in the New York Herald, Stanley’s former employer. Leopold was furious with Williams, and told his contacts in Europe that Williams was a liar. While some Belgian newspapers treated Williams as a fraud, others presented his findings as the truth. In Parliament, representatives vigorously debated the truth of Williams’s letters. Then, very suddenly, Williams died of tuberculosis. His death was celebrated in many Belgian newspapers, though other writers treated him as a martyr for the Congolese cause. Williams’s letters represent some of the first Western criticism of Leopold’s Congo territory— before Williams visited the Congo, almost a thousand Americans and Europeans had visited Leopold’s Congo, and not a single one had spoken out against it.