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“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.”

Slavery Congo Leopold Ii Congo Free State Adam Hochschild Arab Slavery Arab Slave Trade

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

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

“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.”

Slavery Congo Leopold Ii Congo Free State Arab Slavery Congo Slavery

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

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

“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.”

Slavery Congo Leopold Ii Congo Free State Arab Slavery Indian Ocean Slave Trade

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

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

“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.”

Slavery Congo Leopold Ii Slave Trade Central Africa Congo Free Trade East African Slave Trade Misiri

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

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

“The black American missionary George Washington Williams, visiting in 1890, noted “the most revolting crimes” committed by the natives: “Human hands and feet and limbs, smoked and dried, are offered and exposed for sale in many of the native village markets. From the mouth of the Lomami-River to Stanley-Falls there are thirteen armed Arab camps; and in them I have seen many skulls of murdered slaves pendant from poles and over these camps floating their blood-red flag.” Oddly, Hochschild quotes Williams’ testimony against native practices to criticize the EIC for being insufficiently vigorous in its attempts to govern the territory. Heads I win, tails you lose. As this logical slip implies, a justifiably proportionate response to the scourge of the slave trade required keen efforts by the EIC to recruit and feed soldiers, clear villages in areas prone to slave raids, establish military and governance posts, and pursue slave armies to the death. “Accommodating the Arab slave traders would be a crime,” wrote the EIC captain, and later WWI hero, Jules Jacques de Dixmude in 1892.”

Slavery Congo Leopold Ii Congo Free State Adam Hochschild George Washington Williams Jacques De Dixmude

Author:Bruce Gilley

“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.”

Slavery Congo Congo Free State Belgian Congo Adam Hochschild Red Rubber

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

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