Kassongo

Kassongo Lutela (born c. 1887 in the Congo Free State; died September 19, 1902 in Birmingham) was a captive child brought with another boy, Kondola, to the United States for public exhibition.

In 1895 Samuel Phillips Verner, then 22, answered an advertisement for a missionary to accompany the American Presbyterian Congo Mission to the Congo, then the personal possession of King Leopold II of Belgium. The APCM had attracted many Black Americans already, but church leadership insisted they be supervised by white managers. He arrived at his station in Luebo in September 1896 and prepared to work among the Baluba (Luba), a group well-represented in the village as laborers whose territory extended far to the south.

Kassongo, Kondola and eight older boys were delivered to the APCM in Luebo by Captain Commandant Paul-Amédée Le Marinel. According to Verner's account, Kassongo was a "bright-eyed, merry-souled little African, then about ten years old." He identified him as "nephew of the chief" of his native village of Lusuna, in Batetela (Tetela) territory. Though still a young boy, he had accompanied older men from his town who fought for Francis Dhanis during the Congo Arab war, and later served in a militia aligned with the Force Publique. Belgian officials soon determined that boys spending idle days in the company of militiamen could be detrimental to good order, and rather than return them to their home villages, distributed them to the Christian missions operating in the region.

Verner recounted that in Luebo, the boys were given beds and assigned to work alongside the Luba laborers prevalent in the community to earn their keep. For an hour a day they were taught by Miss Thomas and Miss Fearing, graduates of Talladega College, and a Mrs Sheppard of Birmingham, learning the Luba language along with some arithmetic, and memorization of scripture and hymns. The boys gravitated toward Verner, who treated them as personal servants. He assigned them various household tasks and had them assist in his fishing trips, and sent them on errands to neighboring villages. He paid them in cowries and cloth, which they could trade for food. Verner and the other missionaries carried out corporal punishment for misbehavior; primarily for fighting and gambling.

Kassongo was trampled to death during a mass stampede from the crowded Greater Shiloh Baptist Church prior to Booker T. Washington's scheduled address to the 1902 National Baptist Convention.

References

• "More Than One Hundred Negroes Crushed to Death as a Result of a Panic Following a Cry of 'Fire.'" (September 20, 1902) The Birmingham News, pp. 1, 7
• Verner, Samuel Phillips (1903) Pioneering in Central Africa. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee of Publication.