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• 1 2017-03-09T11:39:26-08:00 Link to Heart of Darkness 10 image_header 2017-03-22T06:58:31-07:00 The 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness by Joesph Conrad, became infamous for its critique on imperialism and the carnage it left throughout its path. Like Conrad's novel, the reports by Fox Bourne H.R. are a nonfictional representation of the same ideal. Conrad and Bourne shared the awareness of imperialism which entailed cruel treatment of the natives with frequent brutalities and killings, forced labor for the English advantage and debunking the belief that imperialism was really to benefit the native populations. 
  
  The cruel treatments of the native include involvement from British authorities as well as common colonial citizens. Kurtz, a company official dealing in ivory, displayed beheaded natives as ornaments on his fence and also continually forced the natives to procure ivory in which only he was profiting from in selling (Conrad 3.4). In Bourne's report, it is frequently mentioned how even though slavery is abolished, white men still use and treat the natives as such. Some examples of this unfair and brutal treatment include the discovery of gold and diamonds and how the use of forced native labor sky-rocketed and how Boers utilized native orphans as indentured servants until they reached the age of 21, even though it violated the laws (Bourne 35, 26). Cruelty similar to Kurtz's actions are also present in Bourne's reports as he frequently mentions the native wars that engage with the English over land rights. The death tolls for these fights span from 513 to the thousands of natives perishing in the fight for their homelands (Bourne 16, 28). 
  
  Conrad and Bourne reveal how imperialism and colonialism were truly to the European power's advantage and not the "savage" population they claimed to be reforming. Conrad illustrates the devastation and true motivations of the European colonists as Marlowe professes that all that is visualized in Africa are

  "strings of dusty niggers with splay feet [that] arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cotton, beads, and brass-wire set into the depths of the darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory" instead of "the aim of the colonial government since 1855 to establish and maintain peace, to diffuse civilization and Christianity and to establish society" (Conrad 1.44, Bourne 28).

  The literary scenes utilized by Conrad are coupled with the false claims of British authorities that Bourne reveals through his report. With these literary and archival contributions, both authors are able to expose imperialism to its true manifestation of selfish world powers, exploitation and the deterioration of native cultures. 
  
  

   

  image sources: Man enslaving Africans. Wikimedia Commons, 9 March 2017. Dobbertin, Walther , German Federal Archive. 1906-1918. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_105-DSWA0030,_Deutsch-S%C3%BCd-Westafrika,_Getreideernte.jpg
  
  "Arab Slave Traders and their captives along the Rovuma River". Wikipedia, 7 March 2017. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo%C3%A7ambique#/media/File:Slaves_ruvuma.jpg