Liu Weicai, Associate Professor, Department of History, East China Normal University
Robert Harms, Land of Tears：The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa, Basic Books, 2019
The Land of Tears: The Brutal History of Colonization, Trade and Globalization in Africa, by Robert Harms, translated by Feng Xiaoyuan, Guangdong People's Publishing House, March 2022, 544 pp. 98.00 yuan
The expeditions to the interior of Africa, which began at the end of the eighteenth century, reached their climax at the end of the nineteenth century, but after more than a hundred years, the expeditions were not only for commercial expansion, religious dissemination and accumulation of knowledge, but also for the treacherous political division and ruthless economic plunder.
Before Jan Vansina wrote Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa (1990), the prevailing view was that equatorial Africa was in a harsh environment and that its inhabitants were simply constantly trying to survive. What they have is only the change of population and the movement of people, there is no history. Van Sinar tells us that the vast equatorial rainforest region is not just a touch of green on the map, it can be divided into about two hundred sub-regional societies, each of which has political and economic changes, as well as changes in ideas, values and ideologies. But even so, to this day, the equatorial rainforest and the Congo River are still dark, primitive, "distant and mysterious" in the impression of many people.
However, this area became a main stage of international competition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it connected the towns and villages in the equatorial forest and on the Congo River with Zanzibar, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London, Connecticut and other sub-stages, and African chiefs, slave ivory traders and European and American explorers, politicians, merchants, colonial soldiers, missionaries, "humanitarians" and so on boarded these "stages" in various ways, showing the turbulent tide of the great powers dividing Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. It's an intricate and dynamic set of images.
How to present these images clearly and methodically? Robert Harms' Land of Tears may give a good answer.
"Land of Tears" takes the time progression of the 1870s to the beginning of the twentieth century as the basic clue, connecting the places, people, and events with them, and the writing arrangement is like a lens shift, detailing and vividly showing the process of the struggle and partition of the equatorial African region, as well as the process of the economic, social and environmental impact and transformation of the region - according to Hams himself, it is "the process of jungle society collapse under the pressure of colonial conquest and commercial exploitation".
Robert Harms
Pivotal throughout the journey were four men: Henry Morton Stanley, Tippu Tip, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza and Leopold II of Belgium.
Born in England and raised in the United States, Stanley is best known as a journalist for searching for David Livingston, a famous explorer who "disappeared" into the jungles of the interior of East and South Africa. Subsequently, Stanley himself became an explorer and became known for crossing the continent on two of the most challenging routes— two of which Stanley wrote books titled Through the Dark Continent and In Darkest Africa. Stanley was not only an explorer, he was also a decisive and even fierce colonist, and with a certain amount of armed force, he was never afraid to fight any opponent in the jungle; He was also involved in colonial planning and contention, and served Leopold II, establishing the foundations of the Congo Free State.
Tip Tip's mixed Arab and African descent was an important condition for him to be active both on the coast of East Africa and inland in Eastern And South Africa, and as Hams put it, Tip Tip "can be African, he can be Arab, but it depends on his actual needs". But lineage is only one aspect, and Tipt Certainly has his own strengths, and in his own words, seems "simple", which is "cautiously and little by little to acquire ivory and slaves"; But it's clearly not going to be that simple, because he actually needs to "integrate into the local political ecology with trickery and force." Tipt Tipb built a loose trading "empire" centered around Manyema in the eastern equatorial rainforest, but he was well aware of the instability of this architecture. He had hoped to rely on the support of the Sultan of Zanzibar, but after encountering a wave of Europeans, he found that he could only cooperate with the Europeans, but eventually found that he did not have sufficient conditions to become a peer collaborator.
Brazza's appearance is more like that of an "old-school" explorer from before the mid-nineteenth century. Because France was initially not enthusiastic about participating in the struggle for the Congo Valley, the Italian Brazza did not initially receive attention and support from France. Brazza did not explicitly express too many colonial political demands, and he seemed to be exploring and roaming for the sake of commerce, geography or even personal interests. However, Brazza slowly stepped out of a road, and gained some foothold with a "gentle and humble" posture, the banner of "peace", and the means of hiding needles in the cotton, and grabbed a piece of the pie for France in the undercurrent of competition.
However, from a political point of view, Stanley, Tip Tip, and Brazza can only be said to be "pawns". In the 1890s, when these three explorers or adventurers in the african hinterland left, the fate of the inhabitants of equatorial Africa fell into the hands of "colonial bureaucrats, greedy concessionaires, and armed trading blocs."
It has to be admitted that King Leopold II of Belgium had a unique sense of sight and smell, and the wrist and ability to grasp and even create opportunities, and was a being that historians called "evil genius". As a small European king with little colonial experience and little real power, Leopold II set his sights on the heart of Africa and was almost determined to secure a piece of land for himself there. He first launched the banner of cracking down on the slave trade, and then launched an international organization with "vague definitions of scientific and humanitarian ambitions" under the name of the "International African Association", and won the support of Stanley, a powerful general, and finally took advantage of the contradictions between Britain, France, Portugal and other countries to "out of thin air" to win himself a land dozens of times the size of Belgium. After this, the desire for territorial dividends prompted Leopold II to use forced labor, compulsory expropriation and other extreme means, and eventually fell into the "blood rubber" international scandal, and had to transfer the territory belonging to the Belgian government.
Leopold II of Belgium
Figures such as Stanley, Tip Tip, Brazza, Leopold II, and others, along with politicians, merchants, colonial soldiers, missionaries, "humanitarians," as well as governments, business groups, and non-governmental organizations in many countries, eventually led to the collapse of traditional societies in equatorial Africa.
Looking back, it might be useful to ask, what attracts these individual and organizational forces in equatorial Africa?
The first is slaves. Although the slave trade in Africa had generally declined by the mid-nineteenth century, slave trafficking, largely run by Arabs and Swahilis, in the interior of East and South Africa and on the East African coast, continued — while europeans had de facto infiltrated in the name of combating the slave trade. Then there's ivory. Ivory accompanied slaves and remained important after the slave trade was nearly extinct. Tipt Tib was happy to emphasize that ivory belonged to him in certain areas, Stanley and Brazza found that only as many ivory as possible could be used to cover the expenses of their own expeditions or adventures, and Leopold II also found that only ivory could earn him some profits in the early days of running the Congo Free State. It is worth mentioning that these pursuits of ivory in equatorial Africa are often related to the demand for ivory keys, ivory billiard balls, ivory combs and other products in some people in Europe and the United States. Ivory is followed by rubber. The gum trees and gum-bearing vines in the equatorial rainforest were once the life-saving straw of Leopold II. Since rubber mining requires little technology and only simple tools, this makes it possible to fully involve the local population in rubber production, which in turn makes forced labour and compulsory expropriation a common practice, which ultimately leads to the involvement of missionaries, "humanitarians", as well as relevant non-governmental organizations and relevant governments.
If we can make a simplistic generalization, what happened in equatorial Africa at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century is nothing more than the pursuit of "three products" by "four people" and the series of contradictions and reactions caused by it. If sublimated and abstracted, it is the "complex interplay between humanitarianism and greed, development and destruction, global needs and regional interests" that "brings unspeakable tragedies to the people of the rainforest of the Congo Basin" that "lands in tears" to explore.
At this point, it may be possible to temporarily cover up the book "Land of Tears" and look at the history and reality beyond the "Land of Tears".
Those who know the historical development of equatorial Africa in the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century and the current situation will know that the relevant countries in the international community, business groups and "big people" who are either explicit or dark have been active in this region, and they have been chasing copper, diamonds, tropical wood and other products, and now they have begun to compete for minerals such as cobalt, lithium and tantalum that are vital to the new energy industry and the electronics industry.
That is to say, after more than a hundred years, the status of the equatorial African region itself and its relationship with the outside world have not undergone fundamental changes. What is the reason for this? What is the logic? These may be the deeper questions that arise after reading "The Land of Tears", which is also a manifestation of the value of "Land of Tears", which not only presents the intricate history of the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, but also provides inspiration for those who are interested in understanding and understanding the development of equatorial Africa from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century, the current situation and even the future fate.
Born in the African history research system of the University of Wisconsin, Harms has long been concerned with the environmental, economic and social history of Africa, especially equatorial Africa, and before "The Land of Tears", he had "River of Wealth, River of Sorrow: The Central Zaire Basin in the Era of the Slave and Ivory" Trade, 1981) and Games Against Nature: An Eco-Cultural History of the Nunu of Equatorial Africa (1999), two books related to equatorial Africa, followed by The Slave Voyage of the Diligent, based on the record of a French seafarer Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade, 2002) and Africa in Global History (2018), an attempt to examine African history and civilization from a global perspective.
Hams is adept at presenting historical material that may not be as vivid and convincing as possible, and sometimes, although it is a little less vivid than a "professional historical work", can still trust the professional standard of the material used and the analysis and comprehensive use of the data. However, in the case of Land of Tears, much of the material used by Harms is itself very vivid, such as Stanley's records, such as Tip Tip's autobiography, such as missionaries' records, such as reports and reports on colonial rule and exploitative atrocities—this may be another value of "Land of Tears", and it may prompt some readers to read more widely.
The Chinese translation of "The Land of Tears" is debatable except for a few places where the translation is debatable, and the overall accuracy is worth affirming. The Chinese translation of the subtitle seems to help highlight the "grandeur", although it does not depart from the theme presented in the content of the book, but it is still a clear "elevation" of the original subtitle from the literal point of view, which shows the wisdom of opinion.
Overall, "Land of Tears" has a strong readability, but also helps readers to understand the nature and history of equatorial Africa and understand the characteristics of the development of this region, and helps to enhance the understanding and grasp of the current situation and even the future of this region, which is a work worthy of attention.
Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang