One woman and her camera saved millions
In the summer of 1902, Alice Seeley Harris stepped out on her porch to meet with a sobbing man in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The visitor, Nsala of Wala, handed Alice a package wrapped in plantain leaves.
Years later while speaking to an audience in Surrey, England, Alice said, “To my own horror, out fell two tiny pieces of human anatomy; a tiny child’s foot, a tiny hand.”
Nsala of Wala had failed to gather his rubber quota for the day, and Belgian-appointed overseers had killed his wife and daughter and given him the child’s severed limbs. He brought the grisly remains to Alice, a missionary with a British Baptist organization.
Alice brought out her camera, a rare device in that time and place, and captured an image that would eventually help undermine King Leopold II of Belgium, who was conducting a reign of terror in what was then called the Congo Free State. Alice’s photo of the tiny body parts and other images documenting Belgian brutality helped spearhead reform efforts in the region.
Remembering the mighty impact of this tiny Englishwoman is a good way to mark International Women’s Day, with its theme of Embrace Equity, on March 8. In an era when women were expected to remain in the background, Alice chose to speak and act for the rights of a powerless and persecuted population. Her voice and her photographs helped change the world.
Born in 1870 and raised in Somerset, England, Alice always had a heart for people suffering from poverty and injustice. She found a like-minded man in John Hobbis Harris, and they set sail for the Congo four days after their 1898 marriage, planning to teach literacy to isolated rural tribes.
John and Alice soon noticed unusual numbers of children and young adults who were missing hands, legs, and feet. They wondered if the missing limbs were the result of illness or religious rituals. Instead, they learned that Congolese workers were often mutilated for missing rubber-harvesting quotas or other minor infractions. The brutality was routine in the Congo Free State, which was privately owned by King Leopold.
Using a mercenary army called Force Publique, Leopold essentially enslaved the locals, using rape, torture, and murder to enforce his authority. The brutality of the Force Publique was so horrific that it may have wiped out about half of the population in just a few years. It’s hard to know how many people died under Leopold’s control — estimates range from a million to as many as 15 million.
John and Alice Harris had no inkling about Leopold’s brutality before they arrived in Africa. But when they recognized the scope, Alice, an amateur photographer who had packed a camera to document insects and wildlife, turned her lens to document the abuse.
Photography was rare and prohibitively expensive at the time, but Alice recognized the potential of the visual medium to document the suffering in a way that would reach the masses. Possessing an artist’s eye, she took hundreds of photos, many of them featuring victims cradling arm stumps in white linen.
Alice and John and other witnesses to the brutality began letter-writing campaigns, contacting reporters, politicians, and others in power. They shipped off glass slides of their photographs along with their letters and eventually traveled all over Europe and America, displaying Alice’s photos and lecturing about the situation. Those photos helped catch the attention of influential people such as Mark Twain, who wrote a damning pamphlet, “King Leopold’s Soliloquy,” to raise awareness of the brutality.
Despite being harassed and threatened by Leopold’s allies, John and Alice continued to speak up and display her photographs to alert the world to the atrocities. International outrage grew, and Leopold was forced to step away from the Congo Free State in 1908.
John was knighted in 1933 for his role in exposing the abuse, but Alice’s role was less celebrated at the time. Alice lived to be 100 and spoke publicly about the Congo atrocities well into her 90s. But her heroics had mostly faded from view until historians recently began to recognize the power of her photographs.
Some of Alice’s photographs were featured in a 2021 book, “What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 18431999,” which won the prestigious Kraszna-Krausz photography book award. Her life was chronicled in a 2014 biography, “Don’t Call Me Lady,” by Judy Pollard Smith, and a play about her is in the works.
Alice’s photos and life story continue to testify to the abject cruelty suffered by millions of people in the Congo. And they also illustrate the difference one woman can make in the fight against cruelty and for equity.