TEACH THEM TO READ

My grandfather died on a Tuesday in Accra. No drama. He just did not wake up from his afternoon nap. He was 89 years old, blind in one eye, and he still prayed every morning at 5 AM loud enough to wake the whole compound in Kaneshie. We buried him on Thursday. On Friday, my mother said, "Open his box." Every old man in Ghana has a box. Not a bank account. A metal box. Usually a former Milo tin or a locked trunk under the bed. My grandfather's box was a dark green Belgian army box from 1958, with the lion crest half-scratched off. The key was tied with a string around his rosary. We opened it expecting land papers. Or money. There was no money. Inside was: One French Bible, swollen from Congo rains, with a cracked leather cover. A black-and-white photo of a young man in a Catholic school uniform in Leopoldville, 1956. A wooden rosary. And a thin paper, folded four times, yellow like old teeth, so fragile I was scared to touch it. My cousin Ama laughed. "Grandpa kept trash." I unfolded it. At the top, in faded blue-black ink, in French, with an official seal pressed but faded: "LEOPOLD II - ROI DES BELGES - BRUXELLES - 15 MARS 1883 - Lettre aux Missionnaires du Congo" Under it, someone had translated it by hand into English, in a different handwriting, smaller, hurried. I read the first line out loud. "Reverend Fathers and Dear Compatriots... Your principal objective in the Congo is never to teach the Africans to know God. This they already know. They speak and submit to MUNGU, NZAMBI, NZAMBÉ, and what else I don't know." The room went quiet. My uncle Joseph, who is a deacon, said, "What is this?" I continued reading. My hand started shaking so badly Ama had to hold the paper. "Your principal objective is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials. That is to say, you will interpret the gospel in a way that will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world." Second page: "Evangelize the Africans so that they may stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they may never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. Recite every day: Happy are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And the very rich, who exploit us here, are also happy, for they will be protected by God." It went on. I am not adding words. This is what was on that paper. I have photographed every line. "Teach them to read and not to reason." "Keep them from becoming rich. Teach them that to be poor is blessed. That to be rich is a sin." "Make them love poverty, like they love their superiors. Make them believe that heaven is after death, so they do not try to make heaven here on earth." "Make them forget their ancestors and their spirit world. Make them hate their own traditions. Make them believe our ancestors are the only saints." "Use the confessional as a spy system. Report any African who is planning rebellion or who is discontent. Report every secret." "Never teach them to become leaders. Never teach them medicine. Keep them as workers, as children, forever." On the back of the letter, in my grandfather's shaky, old man's handwriting, he had written in Twi, with a ballpoint pen that bled: "Wɔkyerɛɛ yɛn sɛ eyi ne Kristosom." And under it, in English, as if he knew one day his grandchildren who could not read Twi well would need to understand: "They told us this was Christianity." Under that, one more word: Bosolo. And a date: 1893. Ama started crying. Not loud. Just tears. My uncle Joseph took the paper and put on his glasses. He read it again. Then he folded it and said, "Put it back. This thing will bring trouble." But I could not sleep that night. I grew up in Sunday School in Kaneshie. Our teacher, Sister Mary, taught us every Sunday: Obey your parents. Obey your government. Obey your boss. Do not question. Humility is holiness. To be poor is to be close to Jesus. Do not fight for land, fight for heaven. Heaven is later. Endure now. Every single one of those lessons was in that 1883 letter, word for word, written 140 years before I was born, by a King who never set foot in Congo but owned it as his personal farm and killed ten million people there. Was my poverty a lesson plan? Was my mother's constant praying for a better life while working 14 hours a day frying fish at Makola, while saying "God's time is best" - was that part of their curriculum? Was my grandfather's blindness - because the mission school beat him when he tried to learn to write his own name instead of just reading the Bible - was that policy? I took a photo of the letter with my phone. Just the first page. I posted it on f*******: at 11:47 PM. I wrote: "My grandfather kept this in his box since 1958. He came from Congo to Ghana. Is this why we are still poor? Is this letter real?" I woke up at 2 AM to 47 comments. People tagging. People angry. People saying "Burn it." People saying "This is why we hate church." At 6:13 AM, f*******: deleted the post. My account was restricted for 30 days. The message: "False information. This post goes against our community standards on false news." False? I spent the whole next day in the Balme Library at University of Ghana. I searched. I did not search on f*******:. I searched in real books. The letter is not false. It is controversial, yes. Some white historians say it was never officially published by Leopold. But the text was found in the archives of the Catholic Church in Congo. It was copied by hand by Congolese catechists. The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a file: Archives Africaines, reference AA, Dossier 62. Dr. Chui Iyo of Congo wrote about it. Rev. Dr. T. Chidester documented it. The original French and Lingala copies exist in the Baptist Mission archives. It was real enough that my grandfather carried it across two countries for 65 years. I searched the name on the back. Bosolo. Bosolo was not just a village. In 1893, it was erased. The Belgian records in the museum say "Village pacified after resistance." The missionary records from the White Fathers say "Population relocated for salvation and to facilitate rubber collection." The oral history, recorded by a Congolese student in 1972, says: They burned it. Men, women, children. Because they refused to collect rubber. The priest told the soldiers to do it. The priest said they were cursed. My grandfather's cousin was born there. His name was Mputu. He never talked about it. He only said, "We walked to Ghana." The elders in my family in Accra told me never to go back. I called my great aunt. She said, "Some letters should stay buried. If you open it, you cannot close it again. The church will hate you. The government will watch you." But if I don't go, who will prove that my grandfather was not lying? Who will prove that we were not just taught Christianity, but taught obedience? I have bought a bus ticket. Accra to Aflao. Aflao to Lagos. Lagos to Kinshasa is too expensive, so I will go by road through Benin, Cameroon, and enter Congo by river. I have 400 cedis and a photocopy of a letter from a dead Belgian king. I am not a historian. I am not a pastor. I am just a boy with a metal box. But I will find Bosolo. And tomorrow, I am going to the village it destroyed to find the truth.