I'm going to go off on a tangent here, but uh, what? Even your link doesn't go so far as to suggest that hands being cut off "never happened." It argues Hochschild was incorrect about the practice being deliberate, widespread policy practiced on the living (i.e., the Force Publique went into a village, gathered everybody, and cut off their hands).

Even Gilley, the author of your post, acknowledged that hands were cut off of the dead in order to account for the ammunition used, though he emphasizes that the practice predated the establishment of the Congo Free State. That's also a claim that Hochschild makes in the book itself:

> Although some Congo peoples, like the Pygmies, were admirably peaceful, it would be a mistake to see most of them as paragons of primeval innocence. Many practiced slavery and a few ritual cannibalism, and they were as likely to make war on other clans or ethnic groups as people anywhere on earth. And traditional warfare in this part of Africa, where a severed head or hand was sometimes proof of an enemy killed in battle, was as harsh as warfare elsewhere. In the far northern Congo some women were maimed, as still happens today, by forced clitoridectomies, a practice no less brutal for being a cultural initiation rite.

One doesn't preclude the other. Beyond that, there's a great deal of historical evidence that supports the use of severed hands to account for ammunition used, and also evidence that severing the hands of the living was not unknown. Hochschild cites multiple sources to support this, even if most hands were taken from corpses. Which, given the numbers involved, is still an atrocity. There are diary entries from missionaries, photographic proof from multiple photographers, and more to support this and the presence of atrocities more broadly.

As Hochschild points out in his response[0] to Gilley, "the regime's own Manuel du Voyageur et du Résident au Congo, has detailed instructions for state officials about how to take hostages." The sheer amount of documentary evidence of atrocities in the Belgian Congo is quite clear. We also have diary entries and written reports from some of the perpetrators themselves, including Charles Lemaire, whose quotation Gilley took issue with.

If you really want to talk about "manipulative and deceptive" narratives "driven by a certain political agenda," you probably shouldn't be quoting Bruce Gilley. His reputation for his rather flawed defenses of colonialism, the most famous of which[1] was fiercely criticized even by fellow conservative academics,[3] is well-known. And while some of the response to that article could be labeled as more emotional than about his specific claims and practices, plenty of ink has been spilled criticizing his arguments. Gilley is quite explicit in his defense of colonialism and his arguments for the return of a neo-colonialism today. For those arguments to hold any sway, he pretty much has to find a way to explain away colonialism's sordid history of atrocities and exploitation. At the very least, extraordinary claims such as Gilley's require exceptional documentation he has not provided.

0. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-ghost-still-haun...

1. https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/the_case_for_col...

2. https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-against-case-colonialis...