THE FOUNDING OF THE CONGO INDEPENDENT STATE 83
ravages and suffering caused by the slave trade in Central
Africa were thoroughly established facts and carefully con-
sidered by the conference. Nor were its members ignorant
of the other barbarous customs, such as cannibalism, the
burial sacrifices upon the death of chieftains, and the killing
of persons for witchcraft, which George Grenfell and other
missionaries have so vividly described. It was thercfore
provided in the act that all the powers should cobperate to
put an end to the slave trade; and it was understood that all
were to support the Independent State in its efforts to stop
these atrocities and to care for the welfare of the natives.
It was confidently expected that the creation of the Congo
State would be the greatest philanthropic movement of the
time; and all the promoters of the conference — including
King Leopold — seem to have been largely actuated by
motives of humanity. Stanley wrote: “All men who
sympathize with good and noble works, and this has been
one of unparalleled munificence and grandeur of ideas, will
unite in hoping that King Leopold II, the royal founder of
this unique humanitarian and political enterprise (whose
wisdom rightly guided it, and whose moral courage bravely
sustained it amid varying vicissitudes to a happy end and
a successful issue), will live long to behold his Free
State expand and flourish to be a fruitful blessing to a
region that was until lately as dark as its own deep sunless
forest shades.” England shared Stanley’s view that human-
ity and politics should go hand in hand on the Congo.
Lord Granville, in his official instructions to Sir E. Malet
(British representative at the conference) on November 7,
1884, wrote: “While the opening of the Congo markets is to
be desired, the welfare of the natives should not be neg-
lected; to them it would be of no benefit, but the reverse, if
freedom of commerce, unchecked by reasonable control,
should degenerate into license. . .. The principle which will
