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
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 rule in the Congo Free State.
A photograph taken at Baringa in May 1904 by the missionary Alice Seeley Harris and published by E. D. Morel's Congo Reform Association. It shows Nsala of Wala seated beside the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter, whom the record says was killed by Congo Free State rubber-quota enforcers. The association printed it in pamphlets and lantern-slide lectures across Europe and North America, and Morel's 1904 book carried it, to move public opinion against Leopold II's regime. It is tagged fear appeal, atrocity propaganda and transfer. Content note: it depicts a murdered child's remains.
Propaganda techniques used in this photograph
- Date
- May 1904
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Alice Seeley Harris, published by E. D. Morel's Congo Reform Association
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Photograph
- Issuer type
- NGO
- Regime
- Balfour Government
- Leader
- Arthur Balfour
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Empire and colonialism, Labor, Media and information
- Event
- Congo Reform Campaign
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, 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: none found
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.
