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King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.

Book by Bruce Gilley · 5 quotes · Leopold Ii, Adam Hochschild, Congo

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King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction. Quotes

“The further falsehoods and distortions that make up King Hochschild’s Hoax all collectively derive from the problems above. Perhaps most remarkably, the book is not really much about the history of the EIC at all. The central activity that justified, motivated, absorbed, and in the end defeated the EIC is missing: the battle against the Afro-Arab slave trade. This is akin to writing a history of the 68 years of colonial Kenya that limits itself only to the eight years of Mau Mau counter-insurgency campaign.”

SlaveryCongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateAdam HochschildArab SlaveryArab Slave Trade
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“Belgium had no prior history in the slave trade, nor of African slaves. Léopold could fight against slavery without any hint of hypocrisy, even of the ahistorical type advanced by Hochschild. And it was slavery, not rubber operations, that contemporary observers viewed as the biggest threat to the people of the Congo.”

SlaveryCongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateArab SlaveryCongo Slavery
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“The missionary Fanny Emma Fitzgerald Guinness was allowed to visit one Arab slave fort in 1890, seeing “rows upon rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of the captors” in one pen holding 2,300 souls. She estimated that for every one slave eventually sold, seven died either in the raids, in the camps, or while being transported to the Indian Ocean.”

SlaveryCongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateArab SlaveryIndian Ocean Slave Trade
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“In 1892, a Belgian trader and his entire caravan of six Europeans and 40 porters were beheaded by a thug controlled by the notorious slaver and warlord Msiri, who asked that their heads be returned to him to decorate his compound. The trader had tried to persuade Msiri and other local tyrants to sell their ivory to his company, which could transport it by river, thus obviating the need for slaves.”

SlaveryCongoLeopold IiSlave TradeCentral AfricaCongo Free TradeEast African Slave TradeMisiri
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“The reader is lured into believing that every conflict he documents is about the drive for rubber, not the drive against slavery (or inter-tribal vendettas). One of many egregious examples will have to suffice.”

SlaveryCongoCongo Free StateBelgian CongoAdam HochschildRed Rubber
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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