The Belgian Congo, coextensive with the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a colony in Central Africa ruled by Belgium from 1908 until 1960. It evolved from the Congo Free State, a privately owned territory under King Leopold II, and transitioned into a Belgian colony following international condemnation of the abuses perpetrated there.
Map of Belgian Congo in 1914
From Congo Free State to Belgian Colony
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (French: État indépendant du Congo), was a vast state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by King Leopold II. Leopold was able to seize the region by convincing other European states at the Berlin Conference on Africa that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work and would not tax trade. Via the International Association of the Congo, he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo Basin. Leopold's reign in the Congo Free State eventually earned infamy on account of the atrocities perpetrated on the Indigenous people.
The Atrocities and International Outcry
The Congo Free State aimed to bring civilization to the Indigenous people and to develop the region economically. In reality, Leopold II's administration extracted ivory, rubber, and minerals from the upper Congo basin for sale on the world market through a series of international concessionary companies that brought little benefit to the area. The loss of life and atrocities inspired literature such as Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and raised an international outcry.
Debate has been ongoing about the high death rate in this period. The highest estimates state that the widespread use of forced labour, torture, and murder led to the deaths of 50 per cent of the population in the rubber provinces. During the Congo Free State propaganda war, European and US reformers exposed atrocities in the Congo Free State to the public through the Congo Reform Association, founded by Casement and the journalist, author, and politician E. D. Morel.
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By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers led to the end of Leopold II's absolutist rule; the Belgian Parliament annexed the Congo Free State as a colony of Belgium. It became known thereafter as the Belgian Congo.
Belgian Rule and Administration
Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private-company interests. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. The colony was divided into hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" (politique indigène).
The official Belgian attitude was paternalism: Africans were to be cared for and trained as if they were children. They had no role in legislation, but traditional rulers were used as agents to collect taxes and recruit labor; uncooperative rulers were deposed. In the late 1950s, when France and the United Kingdom worked with their colonies to prepare for independence, Belgium still portrayed the Congo as an idyllic land of parent-child relationships between Europeans and Africans.
The governance of the Belgian Congo was outlined in the 1908 Colonial Charter. Executive power rested with the Belgian Minister of Colonial Affairs, assisted by a Colonial Council (Conseil Colonial). Both resided in Brussels. The highest-ranking representative of the colonial administration residing in the Belgian Congo was the Governor-General. From 1886 until 1926, the Governor-General and his administration were posted in Boma, near the Congo River estuary. From 1923, the colonial capital moved to Léopoldville, some 300 km further upstream in the interior.
Initially, the Belgian Congo was administratively divided into four provinces: Congo-Kasaï, Equateur, Orientale, and Katanga, each presided over by a Vice-Governor-General. The colony was divided into four provinces (six after the administrative reforms of 1933). Each province was in turn divided into a few districts (24 districts for the whole Congo) and each district into a handful of territories (some 130-150 territories in all; some territories were merged or split over time). A territory was managed by a territorial administrator, assisted by one or more assistants.
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In terms of the legal system, two systems co-existed: a system of European courts and one of indigenous courts (tribunaux indigènes). These indigenous courts were presided over by the traditional chiefs but had only limited powers and remained under the firm control of the colonial administration.
Belgians living in the Congo had no say in the government and the Congolese did not either. No political activity was permitted in the Congo whatsoever.
Public order in the colony was maintained by the Force Publique, a locally recruited army under Belgian command. The colonial state-and any authority exercised by whites in the Congo-was often referred to by the Congolese as bula matari ("break rocks"), one of the names originally given to Stanley.
Economic Exploitation
Private European and American corporations invested heavily in the Belgian Congo after World War I. Large plantations (growing cotton, oil palms, coffee, cacao, and rubber) and livestock farms were developed. In the interior, gold, diamonds, copper, tin, cobalt, and zinc were mined; the colony became an important source of uranium for the United States during World War II. Africans worked the mines and plantations as indentured labourers on four- to seven-year contracts, in accordance with a law passed in Belgium in 1922.
King Leopold II: The Horrors Of The Congo Free State
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The economic development of the Congo was one of the colony’s top priorities. Rubber had long been the main export of the Belgian Congo, but its importance fell in the early 20th century from 77% of exports (by value) to only 15% as British colonies in Southeast Asia like British Malaya began to farm rubber. New resources were exploited, especially copper mining in Katanga province.
World War I increased demand for copper, and production soared from 997 tons in 1911 to 27,462 tons in 1917, then fell off to 19,000 tons in 1920. Diamond- and gold-mining also expanded during the war. The British firm of Lever Bros. greatly expanded the palm oil business during the war, and output of cocoa, rice and cotton increased.
After the First World War, priority was given to investments in transport infrastructure (such as the rail lines between Matadi and Léopoldville and Elisabethville and Port Francqui). From 1920 to 1932, 2,450 km of railroads were constructed. The government also invested heavily in harbor infrastructure in the cities of Boma, Matadi, Léopoldville and Coquilhatville. Electricity and waterworks in the main cities were also funded. Airports were built and a telephone line was funded that connected Brussels with Léopoldville.
The mining industry-with the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (U.M.H.K.) as a major player-, attracted the majority of private investments (copper and cobalt in Katanga, diamonds in Kasai, gold in Ituri). During the economic boom of the 1920s, many young Congolese men left their often impoverished rural villages and were employed by companies located near the cities; the population of Kinshasa nearly doubled from 1920 to 1940, and the population of Elizabethville grew from approximately 16,000 in 1923, to 33,000 in 1929.
In agriculture, too, the colonial state forced a drastic rationalisation of production. The state took over so-called "vacant lands" (land not directly used by the local population) and redistributed the territory to European companies, to individual white landowners (colons), or to the missions. In this way, an extensive plantation economy developed. Palm-oil production in the Congo increased from 2,500 tons in 1914 to 9,000 tons in 1921, and to 230,000 tons in 1957.
Resistance and Independence
African resistance challenged the colonial regime from the beginning. A rebellion broke out in several eastern districts in 1919 and was not suppressed until 1923. Anti-European religious groups were active by the 1920s, including Kimbanguism and the Negro Mission in the west and Kitawala in the southeast. Unrest increased in the depression years (1931-36) and during World War II. Because political associations were prohibited at the time, reformers organized into cultural clubs such as Abako, a Bakongo association formed in 1950.
The first nationwide Congolese political party, the Congo National Movement, was launched in 1958 by Patrice Lumumba and other Congolese leaders. In January 1959, riots broke out in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) after a rally was held calling for the independence of the Congo. Violent altercations between Belgian forces and the Congolese also occurred later that year, and Belgium, which previously maintained that independence for the Congo would not be possible in the immediate future, suddenly capitulated and began making arrangements for the Congo’s independence.
In 1960, as the result of a widespread and increasingly radical pro-independence movement, the Belgian Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of the Congo under Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Poor relations between political factions within the Congo, the continued involvement of Belgium in Congolese affairs, and the intervention by major parties (mainly the United States and the Soviet Union) during the Cold War led to a five-year-long period of war and political instability, known as the Congo Crisis, from 1960 to 1965.
Belgian Congo in World War I and World War II
The Belgian Congo was directly involved in the two world wars. During World War I, an initial stand-off between the Force Publique and the German colonial army in German East Africa (Tanganyika) turned into open warfare with a joint Anglo-Belgian invasion of German colonial territory in 1916 and 1917 during the East African campaign. After World War I, under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany ceded control of the western section of the former German East Africa to Belgium, and Ruanda-Urundi would go on to become a League of Nations mandate territory, under Belgian administration. These areas did not become part of the Belgian Congo.
During World War II, the Belgian Congo served as a crucial source of income for the Belgian government in exile in London after the occupation of Belgium by the Nazis. The Belgian Congo and the rest of the Free Belgian forces supported the war on the Allied side in the Battle of Britain with 28 pilots in the RAF (squadron 349) and in the Royal South African Air Force (350 Squadron) and in Africa. The Force Publique again participated in the Allied campaigns in Africa. Belgian Congolese forces (with Belgian officers) notably fought against the Italian colonial army in Italian East Africa, and were victorious in Asosa, Bortaï and in the Siege of Saïo under Major-general Auguste-Eduard Gilliaert during the second East African campaign of 1940-1941.
On 3 July 1941, the Italian forces (under General Pietro Gazzera) surrendered when they were cut off by the Force Publique.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1885 | Establishment of the Congo Free State under Leopold II. |
| 1908 | Belgian Parliament annexes the Congo Free State, creating the Belgian Congo. |
| 1914-1918 | World War I: The Force Publique participates in the East African Campaign. |
| 1940-1945 | World War II: The Belgian Congo supports the Allied forces, contributing resources and troops. |
| June 30, 1960 | The Belgian Congo gains independence as the Republic of the Congo. |
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