Background   About the Collection   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 ‘types’ 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’. You can search the ‘Tags’ for a particular region, city, or village e.g. ‘Kasai’.   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 person’s 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.
Contact   Email: [email protected]   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 Léopold'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, ‘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 - 63   Sharon Sliwinski, ‘The childhood of human rights: The Kodak on the Congo’, Journal of Visual Culture, 5:3 (2006), pp. 333 - 63   Links   ‘Brutal Exposure’ at the International Slavery Museum Interview with Alice Seeley Harris ‘Congo Dialogues: Alice Seeley Harris and Sammy Baloji’, Autograph ABP T. Jack Thompson, ‘Light on the dark continent: The photography of Alice Seeley Harris and the Congo atrocities of the early twentieth century’ Óli Jacobsen, Daniel J. Danielsen and the Congo: Missionary campaigns and atrocity photographs (Brethren Archivists and Historians Network, 2014)

Antislavery Knowledge Network, University of Liverpool

Both museums and art galleries have engaged with the history of slavery and colonialism in the Congo Free State. In different ways these institutions have grappled with representing this complex history. This collection contains examples of exhibitions that have been shaped by the history and legacy of colonial violence in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Importantly some of these exhibitions also showcase the extraordinary art and culture of Congolese people in the past and the present.

Background   About the Collection   The ‘Congo Atrocity Lantern Lecture’ was a campaigning devise used by the Congo Reform Association to raise awareness in Britain of the brutal labour regime which took place when the Congo Free State was the personal possession of King Leopold II during the period 1884-1908. The lantern slides included a range of images which represented different experiences of enslavement from transatlantic slavery through to conditions in the Congo Free State. Some of the lantern slides reproduced photographs taken by the British missionary Alice Seeley Harris which depicted the violence and mutilation inflicted on the local population in pursuit of rubber.   The Congo Reform Association was founded in 1904 by Edmund Dene Morel and Roger Casement to highlight the issue of exploitation in the Congo Free State. Despite their efforts the initial public success of the campaign had started to wane. In 1905 Alice Seeley Harris and her husband John returned from the Congo Balolo Mission where they had been posted and began to take an active role in the Congo Reform Association. The Harrises offered a solution for reanimating the campaign – a lantern lecture tour that would showcase Alice’s photography and incorporate elements of the popular missionary speaking tours that had been used to evangelise across Britain and the United States.   The lantern lecture shows utilized the popularity of the genre as a form of mass entertainment. Using missionary networks it was shown in chapels and meeting houses across Britain. The lantern slides were accompanied by a lecture which was delivered by the Congo missionaries. As the shows grew in popularity it became necessary to develop a standard narration that could be delivered by any speaker. The standard lecture focused on the idea that the Congo Free State represented a corruption of the spirit of empire rather than an acute symptom of a structure that was inherently unjust. The accompanying lecture notes made it clear that African people and their culture should not to be regarded as equal to that of the Europeans. The lecture expressed sentiments framed by a belief in Britain’s empire as part of the ‘civilising mission’ – this was an attempt to remake colonised people in the image of the coloniser. Far from anti-colonial the lecture reinforced the need to participate in the imperial project, particularly in relation to spreading Christianity through the establishment of more mission outposts.   Guide for users   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’. You can search the ‘Tags’ for a particular region, city, or village e.g. ‘Kasai’.   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 person’s 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.   The ‘Congo Atrocity Lantern Lecture’ used a selection of photographs from a wider collection of 509 images created by Alice Seeley Harris. To view the full collection you can search ‘Related Items’ or you can click through to the ‘Alice Seeley Harris Archive’.   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. Contact   Email: [email protected]   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 Autograph ABP. Thanks to the London School of Economics for their kind permission to reproduce the lantern lecture notes. 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   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   Dean Pavlakis, British humanitarianism and the Congo reform movement, 1896-1913 (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015)   Andrew Porter, ‘Sir Roger Casement and the international humanitarian movement’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 29:2 (2001), pp. 59-74   Links   Archive of Edmund Dene Morel held at the London School of Economics

Antislavery Knowledge Network, University of Liverpool

This collection documents an art commission funded by the Arts Council England. Photographer Letitia Kamayi was invited to respond to an archive of photography produced by the British missionary Alice Seeley Harris during her time in the Congo Free State in the late nineteenth and early 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. This project enters into a photographic dialogue with those images to think about the nature of the archive and the politics of representation.
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but raised and residing in London, Kamayi’s interests lie in the introduction of self-representation for Black Bodies, the Congo, and Africa more broadly. Using the medium of photography and art, her work draws on personal experiences, lost memories, and the question of identity. Whilst primarily working with medium format, she also experiments with found images and family archives.

Working with the Congolese community in London, Kamayi has created an alternative archive of life and labour within the diaspora. Disrupting the power of the colonial archive to fix the subjectivity of the sitter, Kamayi’s work challenges ideas about Congolese identity which have their roots in the representations of the colonial period. Her images engage with a process of self-empowerment through self-representation. In documenting the lives of both everyday people, as well as those who continue to campaign for rights and equality in the Democratic Republic of Congo, her archive rep- resents the richness of contemporary Congolese life.

Artist’s Statement

Kongo: You Should Know Me was my selfish way of learning more about my past, my ancestors through the images of my kinfolk.

We have the real stories that narrate the true history of Congolese people and life which all of you were too blind to see.

Here is the Congo you should know!

There is a host of missing stories not recorded, stories that my family and friends families experi- enced. Chapters and verses missing from the identity of the Congolese narrative.

Thus Kongo: You Should Know Me evolved to Kongo Archives.

Kongo Archives is extremely personal to me not merely because I am Congolese but also because there is a lot about my country I do not know and am searching for.

I believe it is also something desperately needed, especially as our country’s political structure hangs in the global balance.

It’s a necessity even!

Culture; traditions; customs; language and pretty much every thing has always been passed down orally through the stories in African customs, and now too many of those who did the passing down are fast passing away, taking with them all our history and rightful heritage.

Taking away my rightful heritage, my story, my future and connection to a national identity.

It is a cliche to say, however Kongo Archives gives a voice to every Congolese person, travelling further than just those within the confines of the project.

The archives is the stories of the past, the present and a storage unit where futures can be placed when they become part of our inevitable past.

It [Kongo Archives] is here to topple the power structures of the single story of Congolese identity, working to reform the world’s understanding of, and have embedded notions questioned of a people whose stories and lives were second to the arrival of colonial history and identity killers.

Bringing light to the stories which humanise the “so-called beasts from the dark continent” which continues till this day to suffer from decades of war and conflict whilst also being the wealthiest in natural minerals; culture and fight for peace one day.

Being Congolese I see our hidden presence in the “strangest” places, though this should not be a “strange” sight, this is the importance which representation brings! Change to people’s (and my own) opinions and views of those they are not well informed about.

Kongo Archives will bring light to the multilayers of the Congolese people both residing in and out of The MotherLand.

It is important to have this representation to solidify the very absent Congolese presence outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in places such as London; Paris and Belgium as a positive dis- play of unity; positive contribution and patriotism.

Kongo Archives aims to bring the Congolese heritage full circle through exposing the parts of our (Congolese) past and current state the world has and continues to fail to reveal. Breaking down the stereotypes of the poorest; “most dangerous place on earth to be a woman” to a country with a vast potential of peace; unconditional source of love and fight given the chance for change within it’s power structures.

Background   About the Collection   This collection documents the work of a community-based partnership between the Antislavery Usable Past project and Yole!Africa in Goma and Lubumbashi. The project is based on an archive of photography produced by the British missionary Alice Seeley Harris during her time in the Congo Free State in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The project has used the visual archive as a basis for working with young people to explore the history and legacies of colonialism during the time at which the Congo Free State was under the personal ownership of King Leopold II of Belgium.   Defining what the ‘antislavery usable past’ of these images is raises questions of power and representation. Who gets to decide? The writing of history is a powerful tool – who is included and excluded from the story, indeed, who gets to write it in the first place, is a reflection of the inequalities of the society within which that history is produced. Working with a colonial archive in Britain - a former centre of empire - raises issues about who gets to access history. For formerly colonised people their histories, or at least the portion of their histories relating to the colonial experience, are often found in the archives, museums, and art galleries of the former colonising power. Alice’s photographs, for example, eventually became part of the archive of the British and Foreign Antislavery Society, which subsequently became the present-day NGO Antislavery International. The archive is held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. For people resident within the former spaces of empire, the physical impracticality of visiting the collection means a separation from the objects, documents, and images which represent their past.   This project offers a new way of working with colonial archives and in particular with the living communities whose past is present within these images of imperial exploitation. Working with these images within the communities that they represent is an important part of ceding control of the past. The aim is to make history useful and usable by telling the stories that matter to them. Returning photographs from Alice’s archive to the country in which it was produced allows Congolese people to decide for themselves what the usable past of the images might be. Developments in digitisation mean that an archive can be liberated from its physical location. With generous permission from Antislavery International, the Bodleian Library digitised the entire surviving collection of 509 photographs. Transformed from a rather unwieldy set of boxes into a hard drive, the collection gained the mobility necessary to work with partners in the Congo.   Through the critical and creative programme of education developed by Yole!Africa, Alice’s images have circulated among young people in Goma and Lubumbashi, who actively engage them when discussing their ideas about history, identity, and memory. Their powerful and insightful analysis of the images has given the photographs new meanings, which make them relevant for the present—not only in Congo, but also in former colonizing nations. Moreover, their artistic responses to the past demand that we reflect on the priorities motivating young people in formerly colonized countries  and their critiques of contemporary society. Self-representation is central to the idea of freedom. Yole!Africa’s Executive Director Chérie Rivers Ndaliko has written about the power of self-representation stating that ‘When one’s story is one’s only possession of value, telling it becomes a matter of life and death… storytelling, more than taking arms, restores agency to those who have historically been the subject, indeed the collateral damage in this battle.’ With this in mind, we have actively sought the stories and opinions of those historically subjected to colonial domination, inviting them to amend historical records with their responses to colonial representations.   Guide for users   This collection contains a series of photographs which have been produced by young people in Goma and Lubumbashi in response to the original archive of Alice Seeley Harris images. They have been invited to recreate, contradict and recompose the images in relation to their own priorities. They explore themes of class, gender, race, sexuality, memory, labour, culture and history. These images formed part of an exhibition which took place at the Congo International Film Festival which was held at Yole!Africa in Goma in July 2018.   You can also view a film which has been created by Petna Katondolo Ndaliko which reflects on the relationship between history, memory and identity in relation to some of the issues raised by the Alice Seeley Harris archive and the histories it represents.   To access the original collection of photographs that this project engaged with you can search via the ‘Alternative Tag’ or you can click through the to ‘Alice Seeley Harris Archive’ and the ‘Congo Atrocity Lantern Lecture’.   A partner project was commissioned which explores similar issues in relation to the Congolese diaspora in London. You can access this material by clicking through to the collection ‘You Should Know Me: Photography and the Congolese Diaspora’.


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 the Antislavery Usable Past project and Yole!Africa. The images and resources are 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.
Contact   Email: [email protected]   Acknowledgements   This project would not have been possible without the tireless work, energy, and commitment (both financial and intellectual) of Yole!Africa and its Artistic Director Petna Katondolo Ndaliko and Executive Director Dr. Chérie Rivers Ndaliko. Their support and enthusiasm has seen this project through its various phases and better partners could not have been asked for. Student ambassador Bernadette Vivuya has helped as both a participant and an organiser and has been a vital part of the project. We would like to thank Carlee Forbes (University of North Carolina) for her expertise on Congolese pre-colonial art and her help with the workshop in Goma. Our thanks also to Sammy Baloji and the team at PICHA! Gallery in Lubumbashi. Thanks to Dr Robert Burroughs (Leeds Beckett University) for offering important perspectives on Congolese resistance. Further thanks go to the Antislavery Knowledge Network, based at the University of Liverpool.   Further reading   Robert Burroughs, African testimony in the movement for Congo reform: The burden of proof (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018)   Marie Godin and Giorgia Doná, ‘“Refugee voices,” new social media and politics of representation: Young Congolese in the diaspora and beyond, Refuge, 32:1 (2016), pp. 60-71   Aubrey Graham, ‘One hundred years of suffering? “Humanitarian crisis photography” and self-representation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, Social Dynamics, 40:1 (2014), pp. 140-63

Osumaka Likaka, Naming colonialism: History and collective memory in the Congo, 1870-1960 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009)
Jane Lydon, ‘“Behold the tears”: Photography as colonial witness’, History of Photography, 34:3 (2010), pp. 234-50   Patrick Mudekereza and Allen F. Roberts, ‘Picha: The second Biennale of photography and video art Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo October 2010’, African Arts, 44:3 (2011), pp. 68-75   Chérie Rivers Ndaliko, Necessary noise: Music, film, and charitable imperialism in the East of Congo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)   Mark Sealy, ‘Decolonising the camera: Photography in racial time’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Durham, 2016)
Links   Yole!Africa Antislavery Knowledge Network, University of Liverpool