Belgian Congo

Belgian Congo, former colony (coextensive with the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) in Africa, ruled by Belgium from 1908 until 1960. It was established by the Belgian parliament to replace the Congo Free State (1885–1908)—which had been under the private administration of the Belgian king Leopold II—after international outrage over horrific abuses there brought pressure for supervision and accountability. The Belgian Congo gained independence from colonial rule in 1960.

Background

The Belgian Congo’s predecessor, the Congo Free State, was formed by Leopold in 1885 after he had spearheaded years of exploration efforts in the Congo River basin during the Scramble for Africa, when there was an acceleration of European claims on African territory. Leopold’s administration of his colony and quest to profit from its natural resources became notorious for the use of forced labor and the brutal abuse of the Indigenous Congolese. (For additional detail, see Leopold II and Congo Free State.)

International outrage over the king’s rule in his Central African colony grew and led the Belgian government to act. In 1908 the Belgian parliament annexed the colony as the Belgian Congo, thereby transferring it from Leopold’s private ownership to Belgian colonial administration.

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Belgian administration

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.

Private European and American corporations invested heavily in the Belgian Congo after World War I (1914–18). 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 (1939–45). Africans worked the mines and plantations as indentured laborers on four- to seven-year contracts, in accordance with a law passed in Belgium in 1922. Roads, railroads, electric stations, and public buildings were constructed by forced labor.

Resistance to colonial rule

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 had 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. The Congo became an independent republic on June 30, 1960.

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Timeline of European colonization of Africa

Leopold II

Colonization of Africa

Decolonization of Africa