What crime was so cruel that it was impossible to forget?
“The nameless, little slave girl never screamed throughout the ordeal”

There have been so many unspeakable deeds of monstrous evil committed throughout history. But, there is a handful of crimes that defy imagination, let alone belief.

Sometimes a story can be so disturbing that even retelling of the events that had taken place long ago could be deeply traumatizing.

However painful, these stories must be told so that we are cognizant of the monster, lying in wait deep inside every human soul for the opportunity to rear its ugly head at the least expected moment.

We know all too well that once awakened, it is capable of committing unimaginable atrocities enshrouded in many intricate layers of justification, from religion to ideology.

Time and time again it has been demonstrated that sense of infallibility and forgetfulness of the past can easily unleash that lurking, hidden dark side of the merciless human soul.


While on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, led by renowned explorer Henry Morton Stanley, into central Africa during the late 19th Century, James Jameson, heir to the Jameson Irish whiskey empire, expressed his interest in seeing a much-rumored cannibalism firsthand.


To realize his psychopathic fantasy, he purchased a slave girl in preteens and coldbloodedly handed her over to local tribesmen who butchered her and then feasted on her flesh while she was still alive.

Worse yet, Jameson is said to have sketched out the gruesome scene, later turning his rough illustrations into a series of watercolors (the first picture below).

Although this expedition was seemingly intended to bring much-needed supplies to Emin Pasha, the governor of an Ottoman Turkish province in Sudan that was cut off by a bloody revolt, in fact, it had a more sinister agenda which was to annex more land for the Belgian Free State colony in the Congo.

Despite the varying details of the barbaric incident, Jameson’s diary and the account of his translator on the expedition indicate that by June 1888, Jameson was in command of the rear column of the expedition at Ribakiba, a trading post deep in the Congo known for its cannibal population. During the journey, Jameson’s right-hand man was Tippu Tip, a local slave trader and dealmaker.


What had taken place during the expedition became publicized when published by the New York Times, based on Assan Farran’s (a Sudanese translator on the journey) affidavit.


According to the witnesses, Tippu Tip, the slave trader, negotiated with the tribal chiefs of the village to purchase a young, slave girl, for whom Jameson reportedly paid six handkerchiefs.


According to Farran, the Sudanese translator, the chiefs told their villagers, “This is a present from a white man, who wishes to see her eaten.”

“The girl was tied to a tree,” said Farran, “the natives sharpened their knives the while. One of them then stabbed her twice in the belly.”

In James Jameson’s own diary he wrote, “Three men then ran forward, and began to cut up the body of the girl; finally her head was cut off, and not a particle remained, each man taking his piece away down the river to wash it.”


Sadly, both Jameson’s and his translator’s accounts corroborate the fact that the little girl never screamed throughout her unimaginable ordeal.

“The most extraordinary thing was that the girl never uttered a sound, nor struggled, until she fell,” wrote Jameson.

“Jameson, in the meantime, made rough sketches of the horrible scenes,” recounted Farrad in his testimony. “Jameson afterward went to his tent, where he finished his sketches in watercolors.”

In his own diary, Jameson oddly doesn’t even fully deny making these drawings, writing, “When I went home I tried to make some small sketches of the scene while still fresh in my memory.”

Shortly after the accusations about Jameson made their way to Stanley in 1888, Jameson died from a fever he had contracted, but not before writing a rebuttal of the incident.

Although admitting that he was present during the incident of cannibalism, he claimed that he had opposed it. He even acknowledged giving the handkerchiefs, but instead of payment, he claimed that they were given as gifts to the chiefs as a token of his appreciation for them being such generous hosts. His rebuttal seems rather absurd in hindsight, and as other members of the group would later attest to Jameson’s rather low character.

Ironically, James Jameson never faced justice for his alleged crime. Despite the public outcry and the incident becoming a well-publicized scandal on a global scale, Jameson’s family, with the help of the Belgian government, was able to cover up the horrific event. One positive outcome of this otherwise blood-curdling crime was that this expedition became the last of its kind in Africa.

If it had not been for the diary of a psychopathic whiskey heir and his honest translator, the world would have never learned the harrowing story of that nameless, little slave girl who had been so barbarically slaughtered just to satisfy the insatiable curiosity of a bloodthirsty monster disguised as a human being.

Nota bene:

After seeing an unabashed torrent of explicit and implicit racist remarks, I am compelled to explain to those who have, genuine or feigned, difficulty understanding the purpose of this post.

First, this is NOT a post on cannibalism nor African culture. This story is about Jameson!

Second, there is nothing in the post that could be, implicitly or expilicitly, interpreted as condoning cannibalism or the tribesmen! The tribesmen are, indeed, culpable in the act of brutally murdering the slave girl. But, their puppetmaster was Jameson who paid the slave trader to orchestrate the heinous show.

Jameson knew all too well what would happen to the girl at the hands of the cannibals. Jameson was aware of the fact that what would take place in that jungle village was utterly barbaric, inhumane, immoral, and last but least a punishable crime.

Third, neither my post nor responses to comments implied anything to be interpreted as: since the tribesmen’s culture allowed cannibalism, they should be automatically cleared of any wrongdoing.

In the incident, there were two sides; one knew that cannibalism was wrong, and the other considered it perfectly okay so much so that, in that region, some cannibalistic practices were performed as part of religious rituals. These are NOT my personal views but facts.

It was Jameson’s responsibility to prevent the incident from happening because he was the expedition’s rear column leader and more importantly had armed men and financial means to stop the incident but he chose not to, and thus became a willing participant in an act considered criminal and immoral in Europe.

Fourth, what makes Jameson’s crime even more egregious is that it was deliberate and premeditated.

Fifth, what clearly separates Jameson from the cannibalistic tribesmen is his knowledge of immorality and illegality of the incident. If nothing else, Jameson could have, at least, acted like a good Samaritan. But he did not because he paid for the grisly show to have his share of adrenaline rush.

Again, the original post was about JAMESON, and HIS choices, decisions and actions. It was NOT a post on cannibalism or the tribesmen! I do not know or really care how some sickos come to interpret this story as condoning cannibalism and the murderous tribesmen, but is totally WRONG, and absurd!

A final note to those who, under the pretext of absolving Jameson and laying the full blame on the cannibalistic tribesmen, are posting borderline or outright racist remarks, your dismissive attitude is really sickening and in the same vein as Jameson’s indeed.

Be warned that any racist remark or innuendo will be deleted promptly.