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Who colonized Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Central Africa — the powers that ruled Democratic Republic of the Congo, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Belgium — first King Leopold II personally, who held the Congo Free State as private property from 1885 to 1908, then the Belgian state until independence on 30 June 1960.

The Congo is the clearest case of colonialism as pure extraction. Between 1885 and 1908 the territory was not a Belgian colony at all — it was the personal property of Leopold II, run by a concession army that met rubber quotas by taking families hostage and cutting off hands as proof of expended ammunition.

Reference

Who ruled Democratic Republic of the Congo, and when

before 1885
Kingdoms of Kongo, Luba, Lunda and others
1885–1908
Congo Free State — Leopold II personally
1908–1960
Belgian Congo
since 1960
Democratic Republic of the Congo

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Belgium
Independence
30 June 1960
Population loss, 1885–1908
Commonly estimated at around ten million
Legal status 1885–1908
Private possession of one man, not a Belgian colony
Extraction
Wild rubber, then ivory, copper, cobalt and uranium

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1885

    The Berlin Conference recognises Leopold II's personal claim.

  2. 1890s

    Rubber quota system; hostage-taking, mutilation and mass killing.

  3. 1904

    Casement Report documents the atrocities for the British Foreign Office.

  4. 1908

    Belgium annexes the territory under international pressure.

  5. 1960

    Independence; Patrice Lumumba elected prime minister.

  6. 1961

    Lumumba assassinated with Belgian and American involvement.

Context

What the record shows

Belgian state rule after 1908 ended the worst of the quota terror but kept the extractive economy and added a colour bar in education and employment so complete that the country had a handful of university graduates at independence.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised the Congo?
Belgium. King Leopold II held it personally as the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908; the Belgian state then governed it as the Belgian Congo until 1960.
How many people died in the Congo Free State?
Estimates of population loss between 1885 and 1908 centre on roughly ten million from killing, starvation, exhaustion and disease under the rubber quota system.
When did Congo become independent?
30 June 1960.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Democratic Republic of the Congo

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.