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Zaire THE COLONIAL STATE
From 1840 to 1872, the Scottish missionary, David
Livingstone,
engaged in a series of explorations that brought the Congo
to the
attention of the Western world. During these travels,
Livingstone
was out of touch with Europe for two years. Henry Morton
Stanley,
a journalist, was commissioned by the New York
Herald to
conduct a search for him. The two met at Ujiji, on the
eastern
shore of Lake Tanganyika, in 1871. Three years later,
Stanley was
commissioned by the New York Herald and London's
Daily
Telegraph to continue the explorations begun by
Livingstone.
With three British companions, Stanley began the descent
of the
Congo from its upper reaches, completing his journey in
1877.
Returning to Europe, he tried to interest the British
government in
further exploration and development of the Congo but met
with no
success. His expeditions did, however, attract another
European
monarch.
Stanley's adventures brought the Congo to the attention
of
Belgium's King Léopold II, a man of boundless energy and
ambition.
The European occupation of Africa was well under way, but
the Congo
River basin remained for the most part unknown to
Europeans. With
no great powers contesting its control, the area appeared
to
present an ideal opportunity for Belgian expansion.
Recruiting Stanley to help him from 1878, Léopold II
founded
the International Association of the Congo, financed by an
international consortium of bankers. Under the auspices of
this
association, Stanley arrived at the mouth of the Congo in
1879 and
began the journey upriver. He founded Vivi, the first
capital,
across the river from present-day Matadi and then moved
farther
upriver, reaching a widening he named Stanley Pool (now
Pool de
Malebo) in mid-1881. There he founded a trading station
and the
settlement of Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) on the south
bank. The
north bank of the river had been claimed by France,
leading
ultimately to the creation of the colony of French Congo.
The road
from the coast to Vivi was completed by the end of 1881
and Stanley
returned to Europe. He was back in Africa by December 1882
and
sailed up the Congo to Stanleyville (now Kisangani),
signing more
than 450 treaties on behalf of Léopold II with persons
described as
local chieftains who had agreed to cede their rights of
sovereignty
over much of the Congo Basin. In 1884 Stanley returned to
Europe.
At the Conference of Berlin, held in 1884-85 to settle
disputes
among the European nations and in essence to partition
Africa among
them, thirteen powers, following the example set by the
United
States, separately recognized Léopold II's International
Association of the Congo, which had already adopted its
own flag,
as an independent entity. Shortly afterward the
association became
the Congo Free State. By the General Act of Berlin, signed
at the
conclusion of the conference in 1885, the powers also
agreed that
activities in the Congo Basin should be governed by
certain
principles, including freedom of trade and navigation,
neutrality
in the event of war, suppression of the slave traffic, and
improvement of the condition of the indigenous population.
The
conference recognized Léopold II as sovereign of the new
state.
Shortly thereafter, in order to meet the conference's
legal
requirement of "effective occupation," Léopold II
proceeded to
transform the Congo Free State into an effective
instrument of
colonial hegemony. Indigenous conscripts were promptly
recruited
into his nascent army, the Force Publique, manned by
European
officers
(see The
Colonial Period
, ch. 5). A corps of
European
administrators was hastily assembled, which by 1906
numbered 1,500
people; and a skeletal transportation grid was eventually
assembled
to provide the necessary links between the coast and the
interior.
The cost of the enterprise proved far higher than had been
anticipated, however, as the penetration of the vast
hinterland
could not be achieved except at the price of numerous
military
campaigns. Some of these campaigns resulted in the
suppression or
expulsion of the previously powerful Afro-Arab slave
traders and
wary merchants. Only through the ruthless and massive
suppression
of opposition and exploitation of African labor could
Léopold II
hold and exploit his personal fiefdom.
Data as of December 1993
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