In Heart of Darkness, why the blacks bullied themselves?

The colonials were new to the indigenous people. They also brought guns which pretty much ended any kind of confrontation. If they ran, they were killed. The colonials also practiced divide and conquer. Certain tribes and individuals were favoured there by weakening the people as a whole.

The portrayal of blacks in the novel is as that of a unit or group. The novel shows no individuality, and rarely passes by the descriptions, "Black shapes...black bones...black neck." No one is unique...... their treatment by the hands of the whites is not unique.

Initially, a few of the blacks were lured in by the white men with the use of good treatment and the implementation of rules. These men, once snared, became the tools by which others were enslaved. Degradation and mistreatment caused many of the blacks to run away and hide, "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair....And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die."(Marlow)