Morrison: witness to massacre
Published in UncategorizedA most telling story is that of William M. Morrison of the American Southern Presbyterian Mission. Morrison and his colleague William Shepherd were witnesses to a brutal massacre in the Kasai region. Morrison sent a report to his US headquarters, but was reminded that he ‘must observe all proper deference to the powers that be and avoid anything that might give any colour to a charge of doing or saying things inconsistent with its purely spiritual and non-political nature’. The New York Times, however, got hold of the story. Morrison sent further reports to the Aborigines Protection Society in England. In 1903 the Society organised a high-level public meeting, with Morrison as the chief speaker and with politicians present. Morrison spoke eloquently of the harsh effects of maladministration in the Kasai and of the missionary dilemma:
‘The word of the King who sits in Brussels is absolute in the Congo State. We missionaries know that if he speaks the word we shall all have to leave tomorrow. Those 15,000 soldiers will be sent to expel us. Hence we are afraid to speak.’
He also made it plain that he did not think it right to remain silent. Morrison’s truth-telling cost him personally. When he returned to the Congo he lived under threat of retribution by the rubber-trading companies and Leopold’s forces for many years, but he kept up his critical reports. Eventually he and Sheppard were charged with libel by the Kasai Rubber Company. Fortunately they had a fine defence lawyer and the case was dismissed.
Personal Histories
On this Day
May 11
- 1971 Seán Lemass (71), revolutionary, founding member of Fianna Fáil and taoiseach (1959–66), died.
- 1917
Above: Dr David Walker’s photograph of the Fox, captained by F.L. McClintock in 1857–9, one of the earliest taken in the Arctic
Belfast-born Dr David Walker (80), surgeon, naturalist and photographer on Captain F.L. McClintock’s expedition to the Arctic (1857–9) which discovered the remains of Sir John Franklin and his crew, died in Portland, Oregon. Though barely twenty years old at the time and with no nautical experience, Walker acquitted himself with distinction on McClintock’s famous expedition. Apart from looking after the crew, protecting them from scurvy, he conducted numerous scientific observations and experiments, using instruments provided by the Royal Society, and collected a huge quantity of flora, fauna and geological specimens. He also took some of the earliest photographs of the Arctic, using the captain’s primitive camera. On his return he was much honoured. Elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Linnean Society, he also wrote the scientific appendix for McClintock’s best-selling account of the voyage. And then, just a few years later, he totally disappeared from that world. In 1865, after an expedition to British Columbia to collect flora specimens, he crossed the border and signed up as an army surgeon with the US Cavalry, then engaged in the Indian Wars on the north-west frontier. Fourteen years later he left the army and became resident doctor and US government land registrar in the infamous Californian gold-mining town of Bodie, and ten years after that moved to Portland, Oregon, where he continued as a doctor. There was no mention of his passing in the British or Irish press. His funeral was private, the local newspaper recording that he had often asked that no display of any sort be made ‘after the sunset call came and his soul passed out to sea’.
- 1916 ‘It is the first rebellion that ever took place in Ireland where you had the majority on your side. It is the fruit of our [the Irish Parliamentary Party’s] life work … now you are washing out our whole life’s work in a sea of blood …’—John Dillon, Irish Parliamentary Party MP for East Mayo, in a speech condemning the executions of the 1916 insurgents to a hostile House of Commons.
- 1917 Belfast-born Dr David Walker, who served as surgeon, naturalist and photographer on Captain F.L. McClintock’s 1857–9 expedition to the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin, died.
- 1971 Seán Lemass, founder member of Fianna Fáil and taoiseach (1959–66), died.
- 1745 During the War of the Austrian Succession, the French, under Marshal de Saxe, defeated a British and Allied force in the Battle of Fontenoy. Though rendering distinguished service on such famous battlefields as Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, Fontenoy marked the crowning moment of France’s Irish Brigade, with Lord Clare’s late charge turning imminent defeat into total victory.
- 1823 John Thomas Troy, archbishop of Dublin since 1784 and effectively the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, died.