20 Distressing Images of Colonialism in the Congo

 
1904. The Congo. A man sits on a porch, staring intensely at the severed foot and hand of a child. Nsala, the man in the picture, was photographed by English missionary Alice Seeley Harris after he arrived at her mission clutching a parcel that contained what was left of his five-year-old daughter. She’d been killed and dismembered as a punishment when his village failed to meet the rubber quotas demanded by the imperial regime.  (Copyright Anti-Slavery International and Autograph ABP)

 
Alice Seeley Harris, Manacled members of a chain gang at Bauliri. A common punishment for not paying taxes, Congo Free State, c. 1904. Courtesy Anti-Slavery International / Autograph

ABP Set of children who where used in history as plant harvesters

 
A group of Bongwonga rubber workers

 
Lomboto shot in wrist and hand by a rubber concession sentry and permanently disabled as a result, early 1900s copy.

 
History of Africa Colonialism, 19th century, European colonizer carried in a hammock by 4 African porters (PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy Stock Photo)

Children with their hands cut off for punishment Alice Seeley Harris, Congo Free State, c. 1904. Courtesy Anti-Slavery 

Alice Seeley Harris, Three head sentries of the ABIR with a prisoner, Congo Free State, c.1904. Courtesy Anti-Slavery International / Autograph ABP

Alice Seeley Harris, Isekausu whose hand was chopped off by Ikombi, one of the rubber concession’s sentries, Congo Free State, c. 1904. Courtesy Anti-Slavery International / Autograph ABP

Mutilated child – Belgian Congo – Image by Alice Seeley Harris

Local Congolese king kuba. Their own tribal chiefs prospered by offering their tribe members as slaves

Congo tribe members worked for the Belgium plantations to beat their own countrymen

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Punishment in the sun

 
Artists Depiction of life in the Belgian Congo

Alice Seeley With a group of congo men

 

 

Alice Seeley 1908, Group lined up of congo slaves

 

 

 

Missionaries and anti-slavery campaigners, reverend John Haris and Mrs Alice Seely- Harris camping in the Congo in the Upper Kasai

 

 

 

Permanent scars from beatings