---
title: Nsala of Wala, with his daughter's hand and foot (1904)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nsala-of-wala-1904/
description: Missionary photographer Alice Seeley Harris photographed Nsala of Wala seated beside the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter, killed by…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Photograph of a Congolese man beside the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Nsala of Wala, with his daughter's hand and foot (1904)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/nsala-of-wala-1904.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/nsala-of-wala-1904.jpg)

# Nsala of Wala, with his daughter's hand and foot (1904)

Missionary photographer Alice Seeley Harris photographed Nsala of Wala seated beside the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter, killed by Congo Free State rubber-quota enforcers; the Congo Reform Association printed it in pamphlets and lantern-slide lectures across Europe and North America to move public opinion against Leopold II's regime.

- **Date:** May 1904
- **Period:** [Pre-1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=pre-1914)
- **Made by:** Alice Seeley Harris, published by E. D. Morel's Congo Reform Association
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [United Kingdom](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-kingdom)
- **Medium:** [Photograph](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=photograph)
- **Issuer type:** [NGO](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=ngo)
- **Regime:** [Balfour Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=balfour-government)
- **Leader:** [Arthur Balfour](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=arthur-balfour)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Themes:** [Empire and colonialism](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=empire-colonialism), [Labor](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=labor), [Media and information](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=media-information)
- **Event:** [Congo Reform Campaign](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=congo-reform-campaign)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nsala_of_Wala_in_the_Nsongo_District.jpg), retrieved September 27, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (published in Morel, King Leopold's Rule in Africa, 1904-05) Photograph by Alice Seeley Harris (credited on Commons to Alice Harris/John Hobbis Harris), Baringa, May 1904; as published by E. D. Morel, King Leopold's Rule in Africa (Heinemann, 1904; Funk & Wagnalls, 1905)

## Text on the object

Checked for printed text

No printed or legible text on this object.

Checked closely: a plain photographic print showing Nsala, the remains, a porch, lawn, palms and two onlookers, with no signage, labels, captions or inscriptions anywhere in the frame. The captions this photograph carried in Morel's pamphlets were set separately in the printed page layout, not burned into the photograph itself.

[← "Il congresso socialista di Bologna" (L'Asino cover, 1904)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lasino-congresso-socialista-bologna-1904/) ["Yamato-damashii no gochisō" (Nihon banzai hyakusen hyakushō print, 1904) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/banzai-hyakusen-yamato-damashii-feast-1904/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)