Our Ancestors were Free and Independent in their country.

ABO, a woman of Kongo-: from Ludo Martens, EPO edition: Brussels, 1995 (page 8).

“Our Ancestors were free and independent in their country. One day whites came to colonize them. From village to village, they distributed salt and salted fish in order to buy them off. But our ancestors refused. Then whites used guns. Before entering a village, they fired a cannon shot in the middle of the huts. Blacks found with a bow or a spear in their hand were shot on the spot. Whites forced us to pay taxes and to execute hard labour. Then they sent us priests with the mission to convince us to work voluntarily for whites. We didn’t even want to listen to them. Then the grabbed small children from their mothers on the pretext that they were orphans. These children worked hard in farms in order to learn the religion of whites.

Little by little they imposed their religion on us.

What is this telling us?

It teaches us that we must not love money; we must love the good lord. But THEM (whites), don’t they love money? Their companies like he Oil Mills of Belgian Congo are earning tens of millions thanks to our (Blacks’) sweat.

Not loving money is accepting a slave job for a starvation salary.

They also forbid us to kill. But THEM (whites), don’t they kill? Here in Kilamba (Congo) in 1931 they massacred over one thousand (1 000) villagers. They (their priests) forbid us to kill only to prevent us from fighting the occupying forces. Priests also forbid us to steal. But THEM, they stole from us our country, our lands, all our wealth, our palm groves.

When a Black man steals, he has to tell it at the confession to the priest. Then the priest runs to inform the white boss and the authorities, and the Black man is expelled from his job and put in prison.