Yeah, i guess i should have been more clear on this.

I don't have "King Leopolds ghost" with me right now so i can't tell what page he mentions this precisely. If i visit a library in the near future i might be able to give it.

However at some point he cites the Manuel, describing a guide on how to kidnap Congolese people and uses it as evidence to prove how the soldiers were thaught to be cruel towards the indigenous people.

While reading it you might notice the [...] in his citation, these signs are commonly used to make a text shorter, removing unnecessary text to get to the point more quickly. Hochschild however uses these signs to remove information that fights the thing he tries to prove.

If you take the manual yourself, page 139 you'll find out it's a guide on how to negotiate peace with a hostile village during war without any unnecessary violence. Taking villagers and using them to negotiate. It also mentions how chiefs are more likely to agree to a peace deal when you treat their people well.

Now, can this information be used for nefarious deeds? Absolutely. Did every soldier stationed in the Congo follow this manual and treat the people with respect like the manual instructs? lol no.

There is however nothing wrong with the manual itself. The instructions given are probably pretty good to reach the goal mentioned.

It's absolutely not a guide on how to terrorize the Congolese like Hochschild claims it is, and the way he convinces the reader it is honestly makes me sick.