Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert. Belgium created two colonies in Africa: the entities now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly the Republic of Zaire) and the Republic of Rwanda, previously Ruanda-Urundi, a former German African colony that was given to Belgium to administer after the defeat of Germany in World War I.. Did Portugal colonize Africa? Belgium seized Rwanda and Burundi from Germany in 1916; two years later, after the defeat of Germany in World War I, Ruanda-Urundi was formally given to Belgium as a League of Nations (later United Nations) trust territory. Since the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has successfully conducted both local and national elections. Specifically, in 1929, they eliminated all the non-Tutsi chiefs, and as a result the Hutus lost all their representation in the colonial government. Available at: http://www.diplomatie.be/fr/archives/archives.asp. Intermarriage was not prohibited in this caste system. In Rwanda, independence brought increased ethnic tensions because of the policies of the Belgian colonial administration. The Consul of Belgium and the president of the Brera Academy established a charitable foundation with the goal of building a village for artists and a hotel.[23]. The new leader signed a peace treaty with the rebel groups and appointed four vice presidents hailing from former rebel groups. These conflicts resulted in many wars and episodes of genocide. ." The large numbers of white immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social spectrum, but were always treated as superior to black citizens. When Congo became a sovereign nation on June 30, 1960, this new state was utterly unprepared to handle the enormous problems that it had to face, and it slid into years of chaos, internal disruption (e.g., regional secessions, such as Katanga's), and civil waronly to emerge in 1965 under the Mobutu Sese Seko (19301997) dictatorship, which was to last more than thirty years and thoroughly pillaged the country's enormous riches. When Belgium became a nation in 1830, it had almost no tradition of long-distance trade or colonial activity. Most of the ethnic groups speak languages of the widespread Bantu family: Kongo, Mongo, Luba, Bwaka, Kwango, Lulua, Luanda, and Kasai. Following a general analysis of French colonial rule in the AOF, a separate chapter is devoted to each colony. Despite Mobutus dictatorship, relative peace reigned during most of his regime. The people, although classified as Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, essentially spoke the same language. When did Germany colonize Tanzania? The Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [ko bl]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa between 1908 and 1960 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Belgians were always somewhat indifferent towards their colonies, which were not regarded as a vital aspect of their national identity or place in the world, despite the value that Leopold had attached to them. Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain also rushed to gain territory. Setting up an administration and waging exhausting military campaigns in order to secure the Free State's grip on a territory more than eighty times as large as Belgium turned out to be very expensive. Immediately after independence on June 30, 1960, ethnic and personal rivalriesinfluenced by Belgium, other European nations, and the United Statessent the newly independent country into political crisis. Justice was to be administered by judges named by the government (art. The Belgian claim was never formally recognised and the proposal was dropped in 1908. The killing stopped only when Paul Kagame, with the help of Uganda, led a Tutsi army that drove the Hutu-led military into exile in neighboring Congo. The Congolese petty bourgeoisie remained embryonic: local entrepreneurs or proprietors were almost nonexistent. Belgian authorities were caught practically unprepared by the sudden wave of black political activism, and subsequently engaged in a process of "precipitous decolonization." The European incursion into the west coast of Africa and the consequent slave raids increased the migrations of refugees into Kongo. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. The Legacy of Belgium's 19th and 20th Century African Colonies. The Portuguese established a relationship with the king of Kongo but stayed in the modern Angolan coastal areas. During World War I, Britain captured the German holdings, which became a British mandate (1920) under the name Tanganyika Territory. Consequently, the Belgian Parliament agreed in 1908 to accept the Congo as its own colony, in order to avoid international intervention or a takeover by a foreign power. Uprisings, revolts, assassinations, and other acts of resistance were common during King Leopold's rule. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. The colony was founded in 1908 following the transfer of sovereignty from the Congo Free State, which was the personal property of Belgium's king, Leopold II. The concept of internal colonialism has become so widely used and applied that almost every minority group in the world has b, The 1994 genocide in Rwanda represents one of the clearest cases of genocide in modern history. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. In 2001, when Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards, he was succeeded by General Joseph Kabila, his son. As the strategic importance of Mobutu disappeared with the end of the cold war, little or no attention was paid to the Congo. When both countries became independent on July 1, 1962, Rwanda was governed by a Hutu president, Burundi by a Tutsi king. He proclaimed himself king-sovereign of Congo Free State at a time when France, Britain, Portugal, and Germany also had colonies in the area. There were other small LubaLunda states in Congo. https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/africa-belgian-colonies, "Africa: Belgian Colonies He described his view of the colonial enterprise in these words: Our only program, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral and material regeneration, and we must do this among a population whose degeneration in its inherited conditions it is difficult to measure. The Congo under Belgian Rule 19081960. The second king of Belgium, Leopold II, was a very ambitious man who wanted to personally enrich himself and enhance his country's prestige by annexing and colonizing lands in Africa. The Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [ko bl]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa between 1908 and 1960 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Finally, the constant interventions of the Belgians in the affairs of their former colonies of Congo and Rwanda have made ethnic and political rivalries worse. Starting in the 1880s, in what became known as the "Scramble for Africa," European countries raced to occupy the continent, seeking economic and strategic gains. Although Great Britain held several, Belgium, Intelligence and Security Agencies, http://www.diplomatie.be/fr/archives/archives.asp, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/belgiums-african-colonies. Burundi is a small country in Central Africa, which borders with Rwanda, Zaire, and Tanzania. "[1] In 1876, he told delegates at an international conference on geography which he sponsored in Brussels that: To open to civilization the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. From the 1920s on, heavy investments in the exploitation of the colony's rich mineral resources transformed the Congo into a major actor in the world economy. Despite the modest improvements in the lives of the Congolese, the Belgians created two separate societies in the Congo: the whites and the natives. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. These countries accounted for more than 30% of Africa's population. The Congo From Leopold to Kabila. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. The United States and Belgium provided the money that Mobutu used to bribe the Congolese army to commit treason against their properly elected government. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. Leopold II personally accumulated considerable wealth from exports of rubber and ivory acquired at gunpoint. Belgian native policy, which had rigidified the ethnic boundaries between Tutsi and Hutu and consequently had exacerbated the ethnic identity of these groups, was largely responsible for the intensification of ethnic rivalry between these groups after the end of foreign rule. Towards the end of colonial rule, the governor general at the time, Lon Antoine Marie Petillon (in office 1952-1958), wanted to grant Africans more civil rights. The colonial authorities also obliged these agriculturalists to produce export crops (e.g., cotton), which made them vulnerable to the ups and downs of world markets. * As many as 10 million people are estimated to have died in Congo from killings, famine and disease . 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. They occupied a large part of this German colony. 1992. The term is also applied to a group of nationals wh, c. 1875 Second, these leaders exacerbated ethnic rivalries and tensions to stay in power. Their regime in the Congo used forced labour, and murder and mutilation on indigenous Congolese who did not fulfill quotas for rubber collections. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Katan Bensamoun, Yvette, Rama Chalak, and Jacques-Robert Katan. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Besides the cold war rivalry, the other main reason for killing Lumumba and supporting the secession in the provinces of Katanga and Kasai was for Belgians to secure controlling interests in the rich mineral resources of the Congo. When did Belgium colonize Congo? What were the former British colonies in Africa? In the Western press, this conflict was portrayed as a racial and cultural one, between the tall, aristocratic, pastoral Tutsis, and Hutus who were uneducated peasant farmers. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. For example, Belgian and other foreign interests engineer these conflicts so they can continue to loot the resources of Africa. It was established by the Belgian . In 1876 he commissioned Sir Henry Morton Stanleys expedition to explore the Congo region. The Portuguese colonial empire was the first and the last European empire overseas, from the conquest of Ceuta (1415), in Morocco, North Africa, until the formal handover of Macau to the People's Republic of China (1999). Encyclopedia.com. The Scramble for Africa: The Scramble for Africa was a period of rampant colonialism of African territories by European powers, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. The scramble for colonies. [21] The agreement was approved by the Belgian parliament on 13 July 1931. A map, published in Portugal in 1623, showing a representation of Africa as understood by colonizers. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. In order to wipe out the stain of Leopoldian ill treatment of the African population and gain international respectability, the Belgian authorities tried to turn the Congo into a "model colony." [15] By the 1950s the Congo had a wage labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony.[16]. Several Belgian colonial policies sowed the seeds of racial and ethnic rivalries that led to the killings of millions of Africans and also sent millions more into exile from the former Belgian colonies. Kabilas inability to disarm the Hutu militia and to share power with his former Tutsi allies led to war with his allies. N'Daywel Nziem, Isidore. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. [22], In 1919, the island of Comacina was bequeathed to King Albert I of Belgium for a year, and became an enclave under the sovereignty of Belgium. Whereas the Hutus were farmers, the Tutsis were cattle herders. The Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR), among others, used force and brutality to extract profit from the territory. . Here are some facts about Belgian rule and the two countries' difficult bilateral ties since. They also shared the same culture, ate the same or similar foods, and practiced the same religion. As the first census did not take place until 1924, it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period and these figures have been disputed by some who, like William Rubinstein, claim that the figures cited by Adam Hochschild are speculative estimates based on little evidence. 2002. A rich Hutu who purchased a large herd of cattle could become a Tutsi, while a Tutsi who became poor would drop into the Hutu caste. [CDATA[ "Archives Africaines" of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brussels (Archives of the former Belgian Ministry of Colonies). Hutus went on a rampage, killing Tutsis in their midst with the aim of exterminating them. These three protagonists had an enormous influence in the colony, and assisted each other in their respective ventures, even if their interests did not always coincide and, indeed, sometimes openly conflicted. Leopold II became known as the "Butcher of the Congo," where millions of Africans died as a result of the brutality of his rule. The Belgians, in turn, gave the Tutsis privileged positions in politics, education, and business. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. They favored certain ethnic groups, especially the ones that would allow them to continue to colonize and plunder the rich natural resources of the Congo. Germany had only been unified in 1871 and . Consequently, colonial policy was determined by a small group of persons, in particular the minister of colonies, a handful of top civil servants in the Ministry of Colonies, some prominent Catholic ecclesiastics, and the leaders of the private companies that were investing increasing amounts of capital in the colony. It also annexed Katanga, a territory under the Congo Free State flag, which Leopold had gained in 1891, when he sent an expedition which killed its king, Msiri, cut off his head and hoisted it on a pole. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied, and the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers raised by the indigenous population. During its colonisation era, Belgium controlled several colonies/concessions during its history, the Belgian Congo (modern DRC) from 1908 to 1960, and Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi) from 1922 to 1962. The city of Tianjin (Tientsin), a treaty port in China (18601945) included nine foreign-controlled concessions (Chinese: ; pinyin: zujie). The main aim of these so-called volus in resisting the Belgian colonial administration was to redress the gross inequality. 1822) [19]. There are also Nilotic-speaking peoples near Sudan and some pygmies in northeastern Congo. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Their refusal led Leopold to create a state under his own personal rule. This well-planned genocide started when the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were shot down, allegedly by Tutsi rebel soldiers. A third economic sector consisted of large-scale plantations (e.g., palm oil production by the enterprise founded by the British businessman William Lever [18511925]), also oriented toward export. After the June 1960 elections, Lumumba became prime minister and Kasavubu the ceremonial president. When France, in the early 1880s, started to develop a political hold along the banks of the lower Congo, the AIC (which, in the meantime, had hired the British explorer Henry Morton Stanley (18411904) as its local manager) also began to conclude treaties whereby African chiefs recognized the association's sovereignty. 1998. On the Congo Free State's own domains, as well as on the vast tracks of land that had been conceded to private companies, brutal and repressive practices took the lives of large numbers of Africansthough exact figures are impossible to establish. ." In reality, Belgium's political parties and public opinion showed little interest in Congolese matters. Biafra Revisited. 7 What were the former British colonies in Africa? Belgium is a small country in northwest Europe that joined Europe's race for colonies in the late 19th century. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over 10,000,000 km 2 (3,900,000 sq mi), the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire.During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire; it . Maurel, Auguste. Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. In April of 1885 Belgium's parliament made Leopold the sovereign ruler of this new "state," called the Congo Free State, incorporating all lands not directly occupied by Africans. Sadowski, Yahya. From early April 1994 through mid-July 1994, members, Africa, Modern U.S. Security Policy and Interventions, African American Catholics in the United States (History of), https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/africa-belgian-colonies. The archives of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade show that Leopold investigated possible colonies in dozens of territories. Forrest, Joshua B. With the promise of open trade, Leopold convinced world powers to recognize what eventually became the Association Internationale du Congo (AIC) as the legal authority over a vast territory in the heart of Africa. As was the case with the other former German colonies, the League of Nations entrusted both of these territories to the victorious power as "mandates." The Belgians even took the few leadership positions that the Hutus had and gave them to the Tutsis. Supporters of the second option led by Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) won the day and the Belgian Congo became independent on June 30, 1960. This was the situation until King Leopold II of Belgium made the Congo his personal possession, and it became the only colony owned and run by a single individual. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. In the first years of the twentieth century, the Congo question became an important international issue, since the British government took this matter to heart, especially after an official enquiry commission, appointed by king Leopold, had confirmed the existence of excesses (1904). 2004. //