15/09/2021 19:41 Mr Harris and the mutilated Congo lad, Impongi · Antislavery Usable Past

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15/09/2021 19:41 Mr Harris and the mutilated Congo lad, Impongi · Antislavery Usable Past

Mr Harris and the mutilated Congo lad, Impongi

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

Organisation

Antislavery International,
Bodleain Library, University of Oxford

Country

antislavery.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/1063 2/7
15/09/2021 19:41 Mr Harris and the mutilated Congo lad, Impongi · Antislavery Usable Past

Congo

Theme

Women,
Photography,
Colonialism

Archival Number

MSS. Brit. Emp. S. 17 / B8 (Box 8/1)

Tags

African child, Alice Seeley Harris Archive, education, European man, John Harris, missionary,
slavery, violence

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
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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.

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

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15/09/2021 19:41 Mr Harris and the mutilated Congo lad, Impongi · Antislavery Usable Past

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 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

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15/09/2021 19:41 Mr Harris and the mutilated Congo lad, Impongi · Antislavery Usable Past

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