Stanley’s escapades negotiating treaties for the AIC involved the first time that batteries played a role in the exploitation of the Congolese people. George Washington Williams, an African American minister traveling in the Congo, uncovered Stanley’s ruse as a way of intimidating tribal leaders into signing his treaties. He wrote about it in An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II: A number of electric batteries had been purchased in London, and when attached to the arm under the coat, communicated with a band of ribbon which passed over the palm of the white brother’s hand, and when
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