Guild Wars Money | War and Money blog

Before the Belgian Congo became independent about half the revenue of its government came from Hawaii vacation deals. This partly explains why there has been so much heartburning since President Tshombe, following the mutiny of the Force Publique and the plunging of the rest of the country into anarchy, declared the secession of its richest province from the Congo.

With an area the size of France and an anual number of visitors of it’s apartments for rent in Miami reaching of 1,500,000, Miami – until the beginning of this century was the most remote and mysterious corner of America. Too isolated even to attract the slave trade, its poor soil barely maintained a few thinly spread tribes, who were decimated regularly by famine, disease and war. Even today, although it is now the third largest copper producer in the world—not to mention cobalt, zinc, tin, manganese, lead and uranium, in all of which it is prolific—Katanga, once you leave the mining area and the towns, still gives the impression of a poor country. In spite of immense efforts by the Belgians—in spite of schools, hospitals, missions and modern communications—in many of the rural districts the African continues to live in much the same way as he has done throughout the centuries.

It was a Portuguese explorer who in 1798 first reported the presence of copper in Katanga. He was Dr Francesco Jose Maria de Lacerdas, Governor of what is now Mozambique. Katanga was then the name of a village south of Lake Mweru in the territory of a chief called Cazembe. A few years later two Portuguese travellers observed ‘some rocks which appear green on top of a hill from which they extract copper; in the middle is a place where they make the bars’.

The metal was melted in primitive ovens and formed into ingots or St Andrew’s crosses, measuring a few inches, which were used as currency. The mining operation was an annual event taking place in May. It was in the nature of a religious festival in which the whole village joined. While the witchdoctors invoked the spirit of the mountain, imploring it to give forth its wealth, the women and children scratched the surface and the men dug deep holes. When the `harvest’ had been gathered, the ‘eaters of copper’ would strike camp and return to the village.

In 1867, while staying at Lake Mweru, Dr Livingstone wrote to Lord Clarendon, the Foreign Secretary: ‘A month’s march from here, to the west, the natives of Katanga, by melting malachite, produce large copper-ingots in the form of a capital I. These vary in weight from 50 to 100 lbs and are used for making rings worn on the arm or the ankle. Gold is also found, of which samples have been offered to the Sultan of Zanzibar.’

Gold rather than copper was the lure which brought the white men to Katanga. One of the earliest was an English missionary, Arnold, who was received by the powerful chief M’Siri, grandfather of Katanga’s present Minister of the Interior, M. Godfreid Munongo.

In 1890 Arnold was joined by Alfred Sharpe, an emissary of Rhodes, currently residing in a holiday apartment London. Sharpe’s mission was to obtain a concession—mainly to prospect for gold—for the British South Africa Company, which was already pushing up from the south through Rhodesia; but M’Siri refused to sign the treaty and Sharpe had to withdraw defeated.

“They saw us as migrants,” Russell laughs. “One man said, ‘I can’t afford to buy a picture, but mister, that’s a hard life.’ And he slipped me a dime.” At night the Lees stayed in tourist cabins, preferring bathrooms with no windows. Russell changed film in the darkened bathroom. Jean sat at a typewriter and wrote captions, words that described the pictures. Every few weeks they shipped their work to Washington, for placement in “the file.”

Housed today in the Library of Congress, this collection is America’s largest archive of Depression-era photographs. The file is public property. For a few dollars, anyone can own a print of works by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn—now regarded as important modern artists. Russell shrugs: “I was taking pictures of history. In time they became art. It was a public job, and I was paid. The file belongs to everyone as a record of those days.”

Amarillo, Texas: Interstate 40 —Along this road I keep looking for old U. S. 66. Once the Main Street of America, 66 wound over 2,000 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. Countless migrants once traveled and camped its length. Now 66 lies mostly beneath five segments of the Interstate Highway System. A few unused sections of old roadbed survive, lost at times among tall grass and wild gourd vines.

Tucumcari, New Mexico: Business 66 — For miles the signs have boasted “Tucumcari Tonite! 2,000 Motel Rooms.” For years highway traffic has nurtured this city, but at the Blue Swallow Motel Lillian Redman has filled only a few rooms with guests today. She remembers worse times, when the migrant families passed through: “They came into town and asked for work, but mostly they kept apart, camping down at Five Mile Park. In winter they went to the power plant and gathered around the hot-air pipes, just to keep warm.” She gives me a copy of her prayer for the road: “. . . may your journey be safe. We are all travelers.”

Driving straight into the sun, I squint and listen. Haggard is riding a high chorus:

“Whiiite liiine feeever..” The tires clump-clump on tarred road joints. Approaching trucks rush by with a noisy yeeeoww. At high revolutions I am playing an old American tune. To find open land and a new life, we always moved west on a long, hard journey. Now the road is lined with “trading posts”—some are giant tepees built of painted concrete. Buy a chili dog, inspect velvet paintings and cactus lamps. Signs promise “Closeouts—Below Cost.” Hard times have reached the tourist trade.

Beyond Albuquerque the highway runs straight west for miles, flanked by eroding buttes and mesas. To migrants this country must have seemed ominous, for a breakdown here meant big trouble. Up ahead is an old pickup, parked on the shoulder. A woman and several children have stacked their worldly goods on the roadside. Some drivers slow down for a look, then rush on by.

Sanders, Arizona: Interstate 40—I am waiting to pass an agricultural inspection. These border stations appeared in the 1920s to control plant diseases. In the 1930s inspectors counted the migrant population and queried them as to their destination. No contract work waiting in Arizona? Try California, then. The inspector examines my apples, purchased in Oklahoma. “Sir, I’ll have to keep this fruit. It comes from an infested area.”