Congo Free State
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo, was a large state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by King Leopold II, the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium. In legal terms, the two separate countries were in a personal union. The Congo Free State was not a part of, nor did it belong to, Belgium. 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. On 29 May 1885, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at the Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. The Free State was privately controlled by Leopold from Brussels; he never visited it.
The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the Belgian Parliament reluctantly annexed the state as a colony belonging to Belgium after international pressure.
Leopold's reign in the Congo eventually earned infamy on account of the atrocities perpetrated on the Indigenous people. Ostensibly, the Congo Free State aimed to bring civilization to the locals 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. Under Leopold's administration, the Free State became one of the greatest international scandals of the early 20th century. The Casement Report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of officials who had been responsible for killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903.
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. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths caused by the exploitation and the lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists. 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. Also active in exposing the activities of the Congo Free State was the author Arthur Conan Doyle, whose book The Crime of the Congo was widely read in the early 1900s.
By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres 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. In addition, a number of major Belgian investment companies pushed the Belgian government to take over the Congo and develop the mining sector as it was virtually untapped.
Background
Early European exploration
travelled around the mouth of the Congo River in 1482, leading Portugal to claim the region. Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was at the heart of independent Africa, as European colonialists seldom entered the interior. Along with fierce local resistance, the rainforest, swamps, malaria, sleeping sickness, and other diseases made it a difficult environment for Europeans to settle. Western states were at first reluctant to colonize the area in the absence of obvious economic benefits.Stanley's exploration
In 1876, Leopold II of Belgium hosted the Brussels Geographic Conference, inviting famous explorers, philanthropists, and members of geographic societies to stir up interest in a "humanitarian" endeavour for Europeans in central Africa to "improve" and "civilize" the lives of the Indigenous peoples. At the conference, Leopold organized the International African Association with the cooperation of European and American explorers and the support of several European governments, and was himself elected chairman. Leopold used the association to promote plans to seize independent central Africa under this philanthropic guise.Henry Morton Stanley, famous for making contact with British missionary David Livingstone in Africa in 1871, explored the region in 1876–1877, a journey that was described in Stanley's 1878 book Through the Dark Continent. Failing to enlist British interest in the Congo region, Stanley took up service with Leopold II, who hired him to help gain a foothold in the region and annex the region for himself.
From August 1879 to June 1884 Stanley was in the Congo Basin, where he built a road from the lower Congo up to Stanley Pool and launched steamers on the upper river. While exploring the Congo for Leopold, Stanley set up treaties with the local chiefs and local leaders. In essence, the documents gave over all rights of their respective pieces of land to Leopold. With Stanley's help, Leopold was able to claim a great area along the Congo River, and military posts were established.
Christian de Bonchamps, a French explorer who served Leopold in Katanga, expressed attitudes towards such treaties shared by many Europeans, saying:
King Leopold's campaign
Leopold began to create a plan to convince other European powers of the legitimacy of his claim to the region, all the while maintaining the guise that his work was for the benefit of the Indigenous people under the name of a philanthropic "association".The king launched a publicity campaign in Britain to distract critics, drawing attention to Portugal's record of slavery, and offering to drive slave traders from the Congo Basin. He also secretly told British merchant houses that if he was given formal control of the Congo for this and other humanitarian purposes, he would then give them the same most favoured nation status Portugal had offered them. At the same time, Leopold promised Bismarck he would not give any one nation special status, and that German traders would be as welcome as any other.
Leopold then offered France the support of the association for French ownership of the entire northern bank of the Congo, and sweetened the deal by proposing that, if his personal wealth proved insufficient to hold the entire Congo, as seemed utterly inevitable, that it should revert to France. On 23 April 1884, the International Association's claim on the southern Congo Basin was formally recognized by France on condition that the French got the first option to buy the territory if the Association decided to sell. This may also have helped Leopold to gain recognition for his claim by the other major powers, who thus wanted him to succeed instead of selling his claims to France.
He also enlisted the aid of the United States, sending President Chester A. Arthur carefully edited copies of the cloth-and-trinket treaties that Stanley claimed to have negotiated with various local authorities, and proposing that, as an entirely disinterested humanitarian body, the Association would administer the Congo for the good of all, handing over power to the natives as soon as they were ready for that responsibility.
Leopold wanted to have the United States support his plans for the Congo in order to gain support from the European nations. He had help from American businessman Henry Shelton Sanford, who had recruited Stanley for Leopold. Henry Sanford swayed President Arthur by inviting him to stay as his guest at Sanford House hotel on Lake Monroe while he was in Belgium. On 29 November 1883, during his meeting with the President, as Leopold's envoy, he convinced the President that Leopold's agenda was similar to the United States' involvement in Liberia. This satisfied Southern politicians and businessmen, especially Alabama Senator John Tyler Morgan. Morgan saw Congo as the same opportunity to send freedmen to Africa so they could contribute to and build the cotton market. Sanford also convinced the people in New York that they were going to abolish slavery and aid travellers and scientists in order to have the public's support. After Henry's actions in convincing President Arthur, the United States was the first country to recognize Congo as a legitimate sovereign state. The United States further participated in the process of recognition by sending the US Navy Congo River Expedition of 1885, which gave a detailed description of travel along the river.
Lobbying and claiming the region
Leopold was able to attract scientific and humanitarian backing for the International African Association, which he formed during a Brussels Geographic Conference of geographic societies, explorers, and dignitaries he hosted in 1876. At the conference, Leopold proposed establishing an international benevolent committee for the propagation of civilization among the peoples of central Africa. The AIA was originally conceived as a multi-national, scientific, and humanitarian assembly, and even invited Gustave Moynier as member of the International Law Institute and president of the International Committee of the Red Cross to attend their 1877 conference. The International Law Institute was supportive of the project under the belief that it was aimed to abolish the Congo Basin slave trade. Nevertheless, the AIA eventually became a development company controlled by Leopold.After 1879 and the crumbling of the International African Association, Leopold's work was done under the auspices of the "Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo". The committee, supposedly an international commercial, scientific, and humanitarian group, was in fact made of a group of businessmen who had shares in the Congo, with Leopold holding a large block by proxy. The committee itself eventually disintegrated.
Determined to look for a colony for himself and inspired by recent reports from central Africa, Leopold began patronizing a number of leading explorers, including Henry Morton Stanley. Leopold established the International African Association, a charitable organization to oversee the exploration and surveying of a territory based around the Congo River, with the stated goal of bringing humanitarian assistance and civilization to the natives. In the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, European leaders officially noted Leopold's control over the of the notionally independent Congo Free State.
To give his African operations a name that could serve for a political entity, Leopold created, between 1879 and 1882, the International Association of the Congo as a new umbrella organization. This organization sought to combine the numerous small territories acquired into one sovereign state and asked for recognition from the European powers. On 22 April 1884, thanks to the successful lobbying of businessman Henry Shelton Sanford at Leopold's request, President Chester A. Arthur of the United States decided that the cessions claimed by Leopold from the local leaders were lawful and recognized the International Association of the Congo's claim on the region, becoming the first country to do so. In 1884, the US Secretary of State said, "The Government of the United States announces its sympathy with and approval of the humane and benevolent purposes of the International Association of the Congo."