The Crime of the Congo by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Having claimed, as I have shown, the whole of the land, and therefore the / whole of its products, the State -- that is, the King -- proceeded to / construct a system by which these products could be gathered most rapidly / and at least cost. The essence of this system was that the people who had / been dispossessed (ironically called "citizens") were to be forced to / gather, for the profit of the State, those very products which had been / taken from them. This was to be effected by two means; the one, taxation, / by which an arbitrary amount, ever growing larger until it consumed almost / their whole lives in the gathering, should be claimed for nothing. The / other, so-called barter by which the natives were paid for the stuff / exactly what the State chose to give, and in the form the State chose to / give it, there being no competition allowed from any other purchaser. This / remuneration, ridiculous in value, took the most absurd shape, the natives / being compelled to take it, whatever the amount, and however little they / might desire it. Consul Thesiger, in 1908, describing their so-called / barter, says: "The goods he proceeds to distribute, giving a hat to one / man, or an iron hoe-head to another, and so on. Each recipient is then at / the end of a month responsible for so many balls of rubber. No choice of / the objects is given, no refusal is allowed. If any one makes any / objection, the stuff is thrown down at his door, and whether it is taken / or left, the man is responsible for so many balls at the end of the month. / The total amounts are fixed by the agents at the maximum which the / inhabitants are capable of producing."

But is it not clear that no natives, especially tribes who, as Stanley has / recorded, had remarkable aptitude for trade, would do business at all upon / such terms? That is just where the system came in.