15/09/2021 21:29 No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with

tle with natives [same image as B17,…

Antislavery Usable Past

Search Items & Collections

Home
About
Murals
Narratives
Remembering 1807
Slavery in Museums
Congo
Teaching Slavery
eBook

Page:

Automatic
✖

antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1194 1/6
15/09/2021 21:29 No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with natives [same image as B17,…

No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with
natives [same image as B17, image 40]

Antislavery International, Bodleain Library, University of Oxford, 1911-1912

Organisation

Antislavery International,
Bodleain Library, University of Oxford

Country

Luanda, Angola

Theme

Women,
Photography,
Colonialism

Archival Number

MSS. Brit. Emp. S. 17 / B16 (Box 16)

Tags

antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1194 2/6
15/09/2021 21:29 No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with natives [same image as B17,…

Alice Seeley Harris Archive, Church, culture, Dutch, Loanda, Luanda, missionary, Mosaic, religion

Alice Seeley Harris Archive

This archive of photographs was produced by the British missionary Alice Seeley Harris (1870-1970) during her time in the
Congo Free State at the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Alice took over 1000 photographs depicting
Congolese life, however, it is her images of the atrocities perpetrated in pursuit of rubber that have become internationally
famous. These images were used by antislavery campaigners in Britain to raise awareness of the colonial violence which was
used to force Congolese people to labour when the country was personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium during the
period 1884-1908. Her photographs exposed the illusion that Leopold’s colony was founded on humanity and would
‘improve’ the lives of Congolese people. In Congo, as in other African colonies, European education, religion,
technology, and medicine were all used as justification for the spread of colonisation. They also helped to mask, or make
more palatable, the economic interests that drove European empire building including the theft of land, labour, and
resources for profit. In contrast to Leopold's public statements about building a better future for Congolese people, Alice's
images revealed the exploitation, domination, and brutality at the heart of the regime.

Alice's photographs should be understood in relation to both the history of the British empire and the racial thinking that
underpinned it. Colonialism was based on ideas of European cultural superiority. Images of Africa produced by people from
Europe often presented the continent’s rich and varied cultures as primitive, which produced new ways of seeing and
valuing difference for European audiences. European colonisers used images and literature to depict African culture, religion,
and society as unequal to their own – these kind of representations provided legitimacy for their claim that they had
the right to rule others. The development of photography as a form of technology was in itself taken as a sign of the
advancement of European peoples. Using this new technology to photograph the traditional ways of life in the colonies was a
way of demonstrating European progress and modernity. By the late-nineteenth century, ethnographic photography became
popular, it was a genre that represented colonial subjects as different; who could be categorised and ordered according to
physical characteristics. These characteristics were then linked to ideas about intellectual capacity and morality, qualities many
Europeans believed Africans lacked. For these reasons, despite Alice's antislavery activism, her photographs were not
intended to represent Congolese people as equals. Instead they were designed to show people in Britain why they needed to
intervene. This reinforced a sense of superiority for the British audience and confirmed their belief that the British empire
was essentially a force for good. It is important to remember that although Britain was involved in antislavery in the Congo
Free State, exploitative labour practices were common to all European empires and Britain was no exception.

Alice's photographs form part of an antislavery tradition in Britain that has spoken on behalf of enslaved people, rather than
empowering them to speak for themselves. The images represent a European humanitarian mindset in which action must be
taken on behalf of the passive victim whose helpless situation can only be addressed through appealing to a higher power, in
this instance imperial Britain. What's more, this approach overlooks the responsibility colonizing powers had in creating the
very conditions from which African people had to subsequently be saved from. Thus, Alice's photographs raise difficult
questions about who has the power to represent, who has the power to bring about change, and who is denied this capacity
both historically and in the present.

Guide for users

The photographs have been digitised along with their original captions. The original captions have been used to title each
image. This is part of the work of preservation but the captions sometimes use language and concepts that are not in common
parlance today. For example, half caste; although this language is offensive to modern audiences it is important to understand
how viewers would have understood the image during the period, including the use of racial language to shape the meaning of
the photograph. Search terms do not replicate this language.

You can search the images using geographic location. The original spelling of the place names contained within the caption
have been used for the title of the image, however, some place names have changed their spelling over time e.g. Loanda; and
Luanda. Tags have used the modern spelling of the place name. Items are tagged with place names from the period as well as
the modern place name e.g. Leopoldville; and Kinshasa. You can search via Country - the place where the image was
produced e.g. Angola.

The images have been tagged using generalised description of the individuals who feature in them e.g. African child; or
European man. These terms are inadequate as they do not allow for the specificity that should be attributed to individual
subjectivity, they also remove peoples' right to self-definition. The captions for the images do not contain the detailed
information about the sitters which would allow for a greater degree of clarity. Judging a persons race or ethnicity based on a
photograph risks wrongly attributing or imposing meaning, however, in order to make the archive searchable these terms
have been used.

Each image has a zoom function will allows the viewer to examine the photograph in detail. If you click on the image you can
navigate with the zoom to look at an individual's stance, expression, and other details. Humanitarian photography has
employed techniques which have tended to erase the individual and present a suffering mass. The zoom function has been
included so that viewers can engage with the people represented as individuals.

antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1194 3/6
15/09/2021 21:29 No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with natives [same image as B17,…

A selection of the photographs were used in the Congo Atrocity Lantern Lecture. Part of the glass slide collection owned by
Antislavery International and housed at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford has been digitised by this project. You
can search Related Items to view the lantern slides, or you can click through to the Congo Atrocity Lantern Lecture.

Both the original Alice Seeley Harris Archive and the Congo Atrocity Lantern Lecture represented African people through
the colonial gaze. In replicating these archives we are very aware of the potential to reinstate that particular way of seeing
difference. In order to make sure that this mode of representation is balanced by material which is self-representative we have
commissioned two projects Decomposing the Colonial Gaze: Yole!Africa; and You Should Know Me: Photography and the
Congolese Diaspora. You can search Alternative Tags, or you can click through to these collections to find new material
which has been inspired by and critically engages with the historic archive.

The project has also collaborated closely with the Antislavery Knowledge Network, which is based at the University of
Liverpool, and seeks community-led strategies for creative and heritage-based interventions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Copyright and takedown policy

Copyrights to all resources are retained by Antislavery International, who have kindly made their collections available for
educational and non-commercial use only. All efforts have been made to obtain copyright permission for materials featured
on this site. If you are aware of instances where the rights holder(s) has not been given an appropriate credit, please let us
know. If you hold the rights to any item(s) included in this resource and oppose to its use, please contact us to request its
removal from the website.

Email: antislaveryusablepast@gmail.com

Acknowledgements

This archive would not have been possible without the generous access given to the project by Antislavery International. In
particular we would like to thank Dr Aidan McQuade and Dr Anna Shepherd. The digitisation was completed by the
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Archivist Lucy McCann gave invaluable help with locating the full archive. We would
like to thank Nick Cistone and Linda Townsend for their assistance with this process. Mike Gardner at the University of
Nottingham has lent his technical support throughout the project. Discussions about this project were greatly enhanced by
conversations with Dr Mark Sealy (Director, Autograph ABP) and Dr Richard Benjamin (International Slavery Museum).
Congolese artist Sammy Baloji offered unique insights into the relationship between past and present forms of representation.
This project was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Further thanks go to the Antislavery Knowledge
Network, based at the University of Liverpool.

Further reading

Marouf Hasian Jr., Alice Seeley Harris, the atrocity rhetoric of the Congo Reform Movements, and the demise of King
Leopold's Congo Free State, Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23:3, (2015), pp. 178-92

Kevin Grant, 'Christian critics of empire: Missionaries, lantern lectures, and the Congo reform campaign in Britain', Journal
of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 29:2, (2001), pp. 27-58

Kevin Grant, 'The limits of exposure: Atrocity photographs in the Congo reform campaign', in Fehrenbach, Heide and
Rodogno, Davide (eds), Humanitarian photography: A history, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 64-88

Fuyuki Kurasawa, The sentimentalist paradox: On the normative and visual foundations of humanitarianism, Journal of
Global Ethics, 9:2 (2013), pp. 201-14

John Peffer, 'Snap of the whip / Crossroads of shame: Flogging, photography, and the representation of atrocity in the Congo
Reform campaign, Visual Anthropology Review, 24:1 (2008), pp. 55-77

Christina Twomey, 'Framing atrocity: Photography and humanitarianism,' History of Photography, 36:3 (2012), pp. 255-64

Mark Sealy, "http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11794/1/Sealy_Revised_Phd_Decolonizing_the_Camera-

_Photography_in_Racial_Time__.pdf' Decolonising the camera: Photography in racial time' (Unpublished PhD thesis,
University of Durham, 2016)

Sharon Sliwinski, The childhood of human rights: The Kodak on the Congo, Journal of Visual Culture, 5:3 (2006), pp. 333 -
363

Sharon Sliwinski, 'The childhood of human rights: The Kodak on the Congo, Journal of Visual Culture, 5:3 (2006), pp. 333 -
63

Links

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/exhibitions/brutal-exposure/alice-seeley-harris.aspx" Brutal Exposure at the

International Slavery Museum.

https://soundcloud.com/autographabp/alice-seeley-harris-interview" Interview with Alice Seeley Harris

https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/congo-dialogues" Congo Dialogues: Alice Seeley Harris and Sammy Baloji, Autograph
ABP

T. Jack Thompson, http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/2002-04/2002-04-146-thompson.pdf" Light on the dark

continent: The photography of Alice Seeley Harris and the Congo atrocities of the early twentieth century
antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1194 4/6
15/09/2021 21:29 No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with natives [same image as B17,…

https://olijacobsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/missionary-campaigns-and-atrocity-photographs.pdf

Daniel J. Danielsen and the Congo: Missionary campaigns and atrocity photographs (Brethren Archivists and Historians
Network, 2014)

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/politics/research/research-projects/akn/">Antislavery Knowledge Network, University of Liverpool

More in this collection...

Related Items

antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1194 5/6
15/09/2021 21:29 No caption [tablet of blue and white mosaic in old Dutch church at Loanda, depicting battle with natives [same image as B17,…

© University of Nottingham

Home
About
Murals
Narratives
Remembering 1807
Slavery in Museums
Congo
Teaching Slavery
eBook

Privacy and Cookies

Home
About
Murals
Narratives
Remembering 1807
Slavery in Museums
Congo
Teaching Slavery
eBook

antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1194 6/6