?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 800
THE RAPE OF THE CONGO (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) STANLEY, HENRY M. Meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. . .Mr. Henry M. Stanley will deliver an Address. The Condition of the Slave trade in Africa will be Considered. A formal invitation, 3-1/2x4-1/2 inches on pink stock together with an autograph note signed by Charles H. Allen of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, requesting copies of a pamphlet; the former on the Anti-Slavery Society's official letterhead. London, 1885
an invitation to hear the salesman's pitch for what would become an extraordinary crime against humanity. In 1877, the noted explorer Henry Morton Stanley was sent to the Congo region at the expense of King Leopold of Belgium, ostensibly to examine and evaluate the extent of the slave-trade there. Upon Stanley's return in 1885, under the guise of putting an end to the slave-trade, Leopold claimed an enormous area along the Congo, where military posts were established. Stanley was to become the de facto overseer of "The Congo Free State," as it was called. The meeting that Stanley was to speak at was meant to attract both moral support and investors. Over the course of 1885 to 1908, the Congo was systematically plundered by Belgium together with many willing supporters from France, England, Portugal and the United States---all of whom were "given" pieces of the Congo area in exchange for their support. In addition to untold quantities of rubber, ivory and other natural resources, it is estimated that over the period of 1885 to 1908, tens of thousands of natives were killed, with whole villages moved or destroyed by Stanley himself. The present invitation comes with a letter from the Anti-Slavery Society's secretary, Charles H. Allen, requesting copies of a pamphlet, possibly Stanley's prepared talk. For more on Stanley and the Congo Free State see Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
