ABSTRACT
Pity the ordinary British citizen who wanted to develop an informed opinion of the Congo question. The literature described two different realities: e Truth about the Congo praised the good works of the Congo Free State, but King Leopold’s Rule in Aica detailed the misrule of a benighted and bloody land. Some pamphlets condemned the intrigues and greed of Leopold, who professed humanitarianism to exploit the Congo, while others said much the same about a shadowy group of British merchants and their humanitarian frontmen, who used compassion as a ruse to seize the country’s riches. Missionaries, journalists, explorers, and officials, some on official journeys of investigation, issued supposedly unbiased reports that came to diametrically opposed conclusions, each attacked in turn as tainted by self-interest or hidden subsidies. With the Congo so far away, our perplexed citizen had no way to independently assess these claims and counterclaims. e Times complained of “a certain feeling of hopelessness as to the utterly contradictory nature of the evidence given. When versions so entirely discrepant are forthcoming, both from those who claim to have studied the question here and from those who have investigated conditions on the spot, the reader may well-nigh despair of reaching any satisfactory conclusion.”2 Taking a stand meant believing one discourse over another.
