Ignacio Carballar, Spain and her Empire: 1878-1905, (Journal for European Studies: 1989)
…Of all the 19th century European nations that dreamt of a glorious future, none yearned for it more than Spain. As the original european Great Power, the nation had seen its overseas empire tore itself apart in the early 19th century. Now, the surprise handover of the Congo Basin saw over 2,500,000 square kilometres plopped on Madrid’s lap, the single greatest addition of territory since the loss of the Viceroyalty of Peru [1]. The fact that most of equatorial Africa was awarded so due to colonial deadlock was immaterial; for the average Spaniard, it signified the chance of a new national beginning.
And this mentality of achieving former greatness was in full play during the last decade of the 19th century. The rising investments in Cuba and the Philippines, coupled with the profits of vine rubber in Congo, spurred a colonial mania in the metropole. Pro-colonial officials touted the rebirth of the Spanish Empire while investors lined up to profit from the resources of equatorial Africa. Newspapers were awash with exotic tales of the Congolese interior, interspersed with salacious news from Manila and Havana. Even authors were swept up in the mania, and despite some tiffs with British and Italian writers over accusations of plagiarism, many Spanish serials and dime novels spun fantastical stories of explorers adventuring through the jungles or fending off attacks by Cuban rebels or Mindanao fanatics.
But the biggest dream of all was chased by the Madrid government itself: a return to being a Great Power. Spain had lost that title through the independence of Latin America and the internal discord that followed the Napoleonic wars. Now, it sought to reclaim that ancient heritage. Diplomatic links were strengthened across Europe and the Americas while officials began prodding the sultanate of Morocco to accept unequal trade treaties. Investments were made in the transport network across Iberia and for a short while, there was even a joint proposal with the United States to dredge Mexico’s Chivela Pass and create a transoceanic rail-canal through the isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Such ambitions were the talk of metropolitan Spain during the 1890’s, but beneath all the glamour, the Spanish Empire was far from well. In Cuba, the insurrection of 1879 was swiftly quelled, but discontent over the island’s political freedom was never fully resolved. Likewise, the Philippines simmered under the call for reform, coupled with rising demands to end the corruption and abuses done by the dominating Franciscan and Dominican friars. Despite a number of nationalists being exiled to the Congo basin, Filipino separatism brewed underneath the surface of the archipelago.
Such were the conditions that lay beneath the trumpeting words of pro-colonial officials. In time, the fates of both Havana and Manila may have turned out differently, if it weren’t for the wealth that was found in the empire’s latest possession…
Mario Paul Mbasogo, Colonial Congo (Lodja University Press: 1997)
…Today, it is easy to forget that the handover of tropical Africa to Spain was a measure of compromise by the Great Powers, whom viewed with suspicion any prospective claimant to the region from anyone among their number. But compromises only work when they are most convenient for everyone. The potential riches of the region, and the prestige that comes with owning it, made the large basin attractive to hold, especially to those Powers whom have planned their African expansion prior to 1885.
And as such, the gnawing of the Congo borderlands began as soon as the Brussels Conference ended. Portugal went first, with dubious explorers being funded from Lisbon to race across Angola and Mozambique to reach the valued copper stronghold of Katanga. Despite repeated protestations from their neighbour, Portugal’s effort bore fruit with the signing of commercial treaties with the Lunda and Yeke kingdoms in 1887 and 1888, extending Portuguese Africa to a wonky version of what the Pink Map had envisioned.
The only thing that stopped a complete Afro-Lusophone girdle was Nyasaland and Mutapa, which were caught in British orbit at the very last moments. The Eastern Rift Valley was eyed by both Great Britain and their South African colonies, not least because of the supposed valuable mineral deposits therein and the dream of a Cape-to-Kilwa railroad that would cement British interests writ large on the continent. Using Zanzibari guides, British explorers fanned out across the savannahs and plains of Tanganyika, signing as many trinket treaties with local chiefs as possible to get ahead of their Portuguese and Spanish competitors. Before long, the eastern Congo was on their sights and by 1890, the kingdoms of Kagera and the states of Rwanda and Burundi all fell under the orbit of the Union Jack.
To say that the new Spanish administration at San Sebastián were gobsmacked was an understatement. Far too late, they realized that their claims to the region had to be enforced and scrambled to assemble what forces they could muster. Unfortunately, the morass of Zanzibari slave traders whom have created their own fiefdoms in the eastern Congo made for a gruelling enforcement, with slavers conducting ambush raids against the newly formed (and ill-adapted) Spanish Expeditionary Corps. When the last of the slavers were driven off by the mid-1890’s, the losses were permanent; almost all the Great Lakes kingdoms were snatched, with Buganda and Bunyoro falling to the Germans while Ankole was agreed between all Powers to be an independent buffer state (including a grudging Spain). Yeke and Lunda were equally lost, with Portugal stamping out any notion of returning the kingdoms back.
But luck smiled upon them in the north, and a string of agreements (and hastily built forts) kept both Paris and Berlin from going south of the Ubangi river…
Congolese workers and a Spanish overseer locating a rubber vine entwining a tree, circa 1893
…Initially, plans for the Congo mostly followed the aims of the Brussels Conference, which was to halt the slave trade and provide development to the local peoples; no one wanted to say out loud the actual reason of dividing a continent without provoking war. But once vine rubber – especially that of the
Landolphia species – was discovered to be commercially lucrative, Spanish entrepreneurs found a new purpose for entrenching themselves in Africa: undercutting the Amazonian and Southeast Asian rubber trade. While vine rubber was chemically inferior to the insulative gutta-percha of Sundaland [2], it was still good in forming essential parts for the growing bicycle industry.
And thus, the concessionaire era of the basin dawned. Huge swathes of rainforest were given off to European companies whom would force local tribes to harvest the vine sap. However, unlike Southeast Asia or Amazonia, wild rubber was unknown to most of the Congolese; they mostly know the plant for its fruit. They didn’t use the liquid for play nor fashion their weapon handles with latex, and the rubber vines themselves grew wild and untamed across the vast forest. Why should they labour so long for such a substance, especially for such meagre pay that was offered by their new masters?
So instead, the concessionaires turned to extreme coercion. Workers were forced to extract vine rubber under severe punishment, with public beatings and lashings conducted on those whom failed to fulfil their quotas. Participation was mandatory. Village thugs were employed to oversee the work gangs while the
látigo hipo – so named for the hippopotamus hide used in the whip – became a feared weapon of punishment in children’s tales. This, among other abuses, marked the start of Congo’s “Red Rubber” phase, and it would forever blot the early history of the colony.
But the Congolese did not resign to their fates. Far from it. Families fled, villages rioted, and no thug could hold back against surprise ambushes or midnight attacks. And all the while, whispers of their abuse began filtering downriver, to colonial San Sebastián and the
ilustrado exiles working therein…
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Charlie MacDonald, Strange States, Weird Wars, and Bizzare Borders, (weirdworld.postr.com, 2014)
…The 1895 Cuban War of Devolution was the first crack in the façade.
Well, alright. It wasn’t
the first crack. But it was the first major blow to the whole ‘Spanish Empire: Reborn!!’ mania that everyone took attention to, and it pretty much started Madrid’s conga line of problems with handling the nation’s brand image. The Philippines going aflame that very same year probably didn’t help.
Part of this was because of the rise in war journalism, particularly in the United States and Europe. The improvement in communications from both Manila and Havana, ironically, allowed for reports of the conflict to reach the ears of people half a world away. True, much of the reporting was done though the exaggerated and biased ‘yellow press’, but it did provide the public with some clue as to what was happening across the ‘New’ Spanish Empire. And given how metropolitan generals were forcing Cuban presents into towns and concentration camps, public criticism quickly became heated.
Another part was because of the
Ilustrado exiles of the Spanish Philippines. For the past 30 years, many of them had campaigned for colonial reforms in the Spain itself, with some still being in Europe when the Philippines underwent their First War of Independence (strangely enough, also in 1895). The newspaper editor Marcelo Pilar was known for his contacts to European intellectuals while he was shacked up in Barcelona, and they were far from silent when the authorities finally took him in 1896. If there is one way to advocate radical changes among intellectuals, it’s when one of their number goes behind bars.
Trouble also came from the exiled nationalists in equatorial Africa; despite their distance and menial work as pen-pushers in San Sebastián, they banded together and tried to maintain themselves as a secret opposition group, with meetings conducted behind closed doors. A few even established secret correspondence with the foreign consuls of the city, which helped them immensely to spread the word out on Spain’s soon-to-be biggest PR problem: Congo.
Congo was the stone that shattered the glass façade.
For years, word had went around amongst missionary groups of the appalling abuse suffered by the Congolese, but the colonial government had always dismissed them or called them out as liars. But in August 1896, San Sebastián agreed to let a few
Ilustrado exiles to travel upriver and work in the lower Congo basin as clerks or low-level company staff for the various concessionaries. With European staff members going sick in the environment, it was thought that the ‘tropical’ Filipinos could handle working in the deep rainforest. Big mistake.
When the first bombshell of native abuses appeared in a Barcelona broadsheet, hardly anyone could believe it. But as account after account bubbled up, Spain found itself getting harder and harder to keep aloof, especially since they couldn’t find who was tattle-tailing. Matters quickly accelerated when a salacious account of the British-Congolese Rubber Company found its way to the halls of the London Parliament. Concerned over said account, they hired their own prosecutor to investigate the happenings in equatorial Africa. I wonder how he reacted when he saw how the rubber firm’s enforcers kidnapped entire families and held them hostage to force their husbands and sons to collect the latex.
Rubber baron: “I may be not a king, but I am rich enough- and cruel enough - to be one.”
From then on, the damage took a life of its own. Papers and tongues quickly connected the dots, and (dubious) reports were awash of Spanish Red Rubber funding the oppression of Cuba and the Philippines. The Black Legend of old Mesoamerica arose once again, tweaked with age to present images of suited
conquistadors ordering thugs to whip helpless African natives for valuable sap, then turning around and using their rubber wealth to direct troops to force Cubans into squalid camps and
Filipinos to execution grounds. Yellow journalists tore apart Spain’s dream of becoming a Great Power; how can such a nation be great if it does or permits such horrible things on its colonies?
Spain tried to bite back, with many officials pointing out how unfairly the nation was viewed and how many other colonies have done equally vile things. Look at France! They abuse their workers on the other side of the Congo, so why aren’t
they getting the shaft? Besides, can
you prove that the money from the rubber trade are being used in the Cuban and Philippine wars? But the adage “the more you deflect blame, the more blame people see on you,” became entrenched, and by 1897 there were open calls for Spain to allow greater transparency in where their money comes from and how was it spent. When a rebellion broke out amongst the Tetela people in the Upper Congo region (modern-day Maniema), there were pamphlets calling for Britain or Germany to do
something that could help them against Spain.
They didn’t. Whether things could’ve happened differently, we can only guess.
In any case, Spain had a full-on PR crisis by that year, which was aided by the fact that they were actually
winning the two wars, especially in the Philippines. With many
ilustrados jailed or exiled, and with local and regional ties pulling the peasantry in different ways, the sentiment for independence was only strong among the townsfolk, upper classes, and the native priesthood. Government control of the press also helped in the propaganda effort, and calls to resist the ‘insurrectionist radicals’ were answered by large numbers of volunteers. Cuba was tougher, but government forces were creeping back into the guerrilla-totting east by mid-1898.
But it was clear that things could no longer be the same. After a military mobilization by the U.S. Congress, public pro-Cuba/Philippine and anti-Congo campaigns by intellectuals and church groups, two attempted assassinations on the Spanish prime minister by anti-colonial anarchists, and several
successful murder attempts on Spanish rubber bosses back home, the writing was on the wall. They were winning the wars, but losing the peace.
"For Cuba! For Manila! For the Congolese and all you have made into corpses!"
For the sake of not bloating this article longer, I’ll just compress the last three years and summarize what happened in 1898 and 1899: ceasefire -> peace deal -> heavy debate on the colonies -> pushback -> things nearly fall apart again -> things got patched up again -> Cuba and the Philippines were made into royal dominions ala. Canada on the 15th of March 1900 -> Royal commission on Congo -> law overhauls on concessionaires -> Spanish Congo decides to plant Amazonian rubber in August 1901.
No one was fully satisfied over this. The U.S seethed because it failed to play in the Cuban conflict. Cuba itself still had racial problems. The Philippines were unhappy over the continued presence of the foreign friars. The Congolese would still be treated as second-class (the Tetela people would continue rebelling long after the 1890’s). In fact, it would be partly due to the trouble of using local labour that would force San Sebastián to use more… agreeable sources of manpower from the Americas.
Above all, the conflicts shattered Spain’s dream of becoming a respected Great Power. It showed the world it was powerful, but in a way that made other nations second-guess whether to accept them or not in their alliances.
Maybe that was why Spain and its empire went the way it did during the Great War…
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Trisakti University of Jakarta
Name: Grace Hutabangun
Date: 30/9/2011
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AUTO-PLAGRISIM CHECK
RESEARCH STUDY: The Role of Orthodox Islam in Colonial Asia (RETRY)
SECTION 5: Local and Regional Perception
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One last thing.
When metropolitan Spain took out the last dregs of Philippine separatism 1890’s, it also used the increased manpower and resources sent there to root out the insurgencies in Sulu and Maguindanao. Following the ceasefire of 1898 between the colonial government and the nationalists, attention turned to the bubbling conflicts in the Muslim south as Spaniards and volunteers fought alongside militarized tribal groups in snuffing out the embers of the sultanates.
While this was by no means sealed the conflicts, the combination of fatigue and overwhelming force finally led some residents to decide in uprooting themselves and emigrate to greener pastures. From 1898 onwards, a slow but steady trickle of Moro and Tausug men left their homes and resettled across the many islands, and states, of Sundaland.
And with them, they brought the idea that Christians should not be trusted, that secular power should not be trusted, and that indigenous tribes should not be trusted….
VERDICT: 6% SENTENCES MATCHED
BELOW THERESHOLD
MARKS: 78/100
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Notes:
1. See post #881 on the Conference of Brussels and how Spanish Congo came to be.
2. See post #896 on gutta-percha and the substance’s value to intustralization.
