Jameson & the Cannibalism Controversy of 1888

Travel

Jul 16

The true story of an entitled whiskey heir who funded the murder of a 10 year old slave girl

Let me paint the scene for you. The year is 1888 and John Sligo Jameson, third generation heir to the Jameson whiskey throne, in on expedition in Africa. Allegedly, there was an uprising in what is now Uganda against a German named Schnitzer, now going by the name of Emin. Britain decides to put together an undercover rescue mission, the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, led by Henry Morton Stanley. Aside from Stanley’s own men were a handful of wealthy financiers and men of influence, simply along for the ride, one of which was Jameson. Little did they know, the entire thing would end in death, disgrace, and infamy, all in the name of territorial annexation.

Stanley strikes out with 700 men and arrives in the Congo where his ships and supplies have not arrived, word had not been sent of his arrival, and the entire mission is already in shambles, but Stanley pushes on. They break into two groups: Stanley in the front with the mission of locating and rescuing Emin, and Jameson with the Rear Guard, which was meant to wait for much needed provisions and ammunitions. Stanley moves ahead, tearing through the jungle for months with no sign of Emin. Many of his men die from illness, hunger, and attacks by the locals. He traverses the jungle back and forth until finally Emin finds him, bringing supplies and essentially rescuing his own rescuers. Come to find out, Emin never intended to leave his post. The two men argue as Emin wants to stay in the Congo, and Stanley refuses to leave without him. They are at a stalemate.

In the interim, Stanley sets out in search of his Rear Guard, having not received communication in over a year. Stanley finds one man alive in Banalya (near present day Kisangani), who informs him that the entire mission has gone to shit. The remaining men were taken captive, dead, or dying, including Jameson, who was wasting away in Bangala at the time from “sleeping sickness”, a parasitic infection brought on by tsetse fly, carrying a near 100% fatality rate. According to Jameson’s own journal, the expedition was filled with violence and malice. In order to ransom food from the natives, Jameson’s group kidnapped women and children from the nearby riverbanks. They beat and killed Zanzibari soldiers enlisted to help them, treating them as slaves. At one point the group met with a slave trader, and Jameson exchanged six handkerchiefs in exchange for a young slave girl in order to observe and later sketch her being cannibalized. While Jameson would claim that it was a misunderstanding, and that he was thoroughly disgusted, he not only purchased the girl and watched her murder and dismemberment, he stayed for the preparation, cooking, and consumption, as indicated by his sketches. It was also alleged by others in the group that they’d come across cannibals earlier in their travels so there was no question that Jameson did not know that cannibalism was real, as he also later claimed. While the details of the exchange could be questioned, the facts remain: Jameson provided payment to a slaver and a girl subsequently died a horrible death.

While Stanley learns the fate of his men, his arrival has roused distrust from Emin’s own men regarding his subsequent withdrawal. Emin’s officers mutiny, removing him from office and holding Stanley’s remaining men hostage. All the while, the annexation of the Congolese land is still in question, and so Britain dispatches a second relief expedition, of which never finds Stanley. The few men left alive eventually make it out and a celebration is thrown in their honor. Ironically, a drunk Emin mistakenly steps out of a second story window, damn near killing himself, and is forced to remain in a Zanzibar hospital while Stanley flees to Britain. Even more ironically, Emin dies a year later at the hands of two slave traders.

Once home, the details of the expedition come out to the public and are met with disgust and disapproval. Nearly 2/3 of Stanley’s men died of hunger or illness, but not before leaving a wake of sickness and death along their route, infecting the locals who had no immunities to common diseases of the time. The local tribes were decimated. The story of Jameson and the cannibals spread across the continents like wildfire, even being reported by the New York Times. While Jameson never returned from the expedition, having succumbed to his illness in some sweaty shithole filled with flies, his exploits did. His widow was forced to try to reconcile the details and cover up the scandal by any means possible, including bribing one man to publicly recount his testimony and personally “editing” Jameson’s personal journal before it was made public.

All in all, the entire expedition was a miserable failure. Entire tribes were enslaved. Thousands murdered. Complete devastation of the Congolese people and its resources all for the sake of personal advancement. And one entitled prick from Ireland, strapped with cash from his daddy’s fortune, used his privilege and circumstance to watch a little girl get eaten, all in the name of art.

Long live democracy.