Belgium colonization of Congo

bub · 04-20-08, 11:57 AM

On the request of a mod, here's a topic about Belgian colonies.

Until the very end of the XIX century, central Africa was mostly unknown. That was a big blank on world maps.

In 1885, King Leopold II of Belgium sent a British explorer, Stanley. He established the "Congo Free State"

Colonisation of the Congo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This state, 80 times bigger than Belgium, was the private property of our king.

After having eliminated rivals (African slave traders), the native tribes were required to provide state officials with fixed quotas of ivory and rubber.

On the one hand, that made our king one of the riches men ever (and numerous buildings in Brussels, such as the Justice Court (biggest building in the world) or the arcades of the Jubelpark (biggest arch of triumph in the world) have been funded with money from Congo)

But on the other hand, natives who refused to work or who didn't bring the quota of rubber, had their hand cut off. Because of starvation, wars, reductions of birth and diseases, population was halved in a few generations.

Quote:

Outside Belgium, he is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken by the King. The state included the entire area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The extraction of rubber and ivory in the Congo relied on forced labour and resulted in the massacre and mutilation of millions of Congolese (roughly half the population at the time). He ran the Congo as his personal fiefdom; for him it was a business venture. A friend of Henry Morton Stanley, he used Stanley to help him lay claim to the territory he called Congo.

Congo Free State - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Due to this brutality, Leopold II decided to give Congo to Belgium in 1908.
Under Belgian rule, the situation improved dramatically, but it was still very paternalist:

Quote:

Economic and social changes transformed the Congo into a "model colony"[citation needed]. Primary and high schools were built as well as hospitals, and many Congolese had access to them. Even the ethnic languages were taught at school, a rare occurrence in colonial education. Doctors and medics achieved great victories against the sleeping disease , trypanosomiasis - (they managed to eradicate the disease)[citation needed]. There was a medic post in every village, and in bigger cities, people had access to well equipped hospitals[citation needed]. The Administration continued with the economic reforms with the construction of railways, ports, roads, mines, plantations, industrial areas, etc.

The Belgian administration has been characterized as paternalistic colonialism. The educational system was dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and, in some rare cases, Protestant churches, and the curricula reflected Christian and Western values. For example, in 1948, fully 99.6% of educational facilities were controlled by Christian missions. Native schooling was mainly religious and vocational. Children learned how to write and read, and some mathematics, but that was all.

In 1960, after several riots, we gave Congo its independance. But we've done it too fast, and instead of a pacific transition to independence, Belgians just left the country, which felt to a civil war.

Leopold II of Belgium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

bub · 04-21-08, 05:56 PM

There has been a book about that:

King Leopold's Ghost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote:

Hochschild describes Léopold as a man of greed who, obsessed by the desire for a colony, hides his real intentions under "philanthropic" purposes. With a complex scheme of political intrigue, corruption and propaganda, he wins the assistance of one of the greatest explorers of the time, Henry Morton Stanley, as well as that of public opinion and of powerful states. Through the Berlin Conference and other diplomatic efforts, he finally obtains international recognition for his colony. He then establishes a system of forced labour that keeps the people of the Congo basin in a condition of virtual slavery.

In Hochschild's impassioned book, King Léopold takes his place with the great tyrants, having reduced the population of the Congo Free State—which Hochschild describes as being his private fiefdom—from 20 million people to 10 million in 40 years.

aegyptos · 04-24-08, 09:10 PM

Until the advent of the Twentieth Century, Leopold was probably responsible for the deaths of more people than any other single human being who ever lived.

bub · 04-25-08, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aegyptos

Until the advent of the Twentieth Century, Leopold was probably responsible for the deaths of more people than any other single human being who ever lived.

He sure ranks in the top 10 indeed