THE FOUNDING OF THE CONGO INDEPENDENT STATE 39
organization. Their main business was slave-hunting ! and
exporting ivory and other valuable produce by means of
slave caravans to the Zanzibar coast; and in one of the rich-
est portions of Central Africa, they exercised a tyrannical
and vicious dominion over the pagan blacks. It was only
with the aid of Tippoo Tib 2 and his associates that Stanley
had been able to make his first trip down the Congo, and he
always remained friendly to the British; but the Arab
leaders became bitterly hostile to the Europeans * when they
realized that the white man was determined to destroy the
slave trade and to take over the control of the country and
its commerce.
As the Belgian officers advanced on the Upper Congo
and its tributaries, the Arab leaders intrigued against them,
opposed them vigorously step by step, and finally resorted
to force and treachery to overthrow their hold in the region.
In 1892 the chiefs made prisoners of the Belgian residents
at Kasongo, attacked the Belgian expedition on the Lomami
River and put to death its leaders, including the intrepid
Hodister, and killed Emin Pasha at Kinona. The Congo
executive at Brussels seemed for the moment paralyzed at
the sudden attack and disaster. But a number of valiant
and resourceful officials in the Congo State determined to
avenge their comrades.
t Captain Storms, a Belgian in the service of the International Associa-
tion, and Mr. Alfred Swann, in the employ of the London Missionary
Society, and later Senior Resident of British Nyasaland, going out to
Africa in 1879 and in 1882 respectively, performed valiant services in
protecting the natives about Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa from the
slave-raiders.
2 Dr. Brode, Tippoo Tib. Arnold, 1907.
3 “Without my help he [Stanley] could never have gone down the Congo;
and no sooner did he reach Europe, than he claimed all my country. Surely
your people must be unjust. . .. The white man is stronger than I am:
they will eat my possessions as I ate those of the Pagans, and some one will
eat up yours.” Tippoo Tib to Swann, in Fighting the Slave Hunters in
Central Africa, by A. J. Swann, 1910, pp. 174-75.
