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The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in ...
King Leopold's Legacy: The Congo under Belgian Rule 1908–1960. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges (2002). The Congo From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-84277-052-8. Freund, Bill (1998). The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800 (2nd ed ...
King Leopold II, whose rule of the Congo Free State was marked by severe atrocities, violence and major population decline.. Even before his accession to the throne of Belgium in 1865, the future king Leopold II began lobbying leading Belgian politicians to create a colonial empire in the Far East or in Africa, which would expand and enhance Belgian prestige. [2]
Belgian Congo (dark green) depicted with Belgian Ruanda-Urundi (light green), 1935. This is a list of European colonial administrators responsible for the territory of the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
The Belgians freed thousands of men, women and children slaves from Swaihili Arab slave owners and slave traders in Eastern Congo in 1886-1892, enlisted them in the militia Force Publique or turned them over as prisoners to allied local chiefs, who in turn gave them as laborers for the Belgian conscript workers; when Belgian Congo was ...
Following Stanley's expedition to the Congo, King Leopold II initially ruled Congo as his personal property following the Berlin Conference. [1] [2] On 18 October 1908, the Belgian parliament voted to annex the Congo Free State; [3] on 15 November 1908, Leopold formally relinquished personal control over the state to Belgium, forming the Belgian Congo.
Vanthemsche, Guy (2006) 'The historiography of Belgian colonialism in the Congo" in C Levai ed., Europe and the World in European Historiography (Pisa University Press), pp. 89–119. online; Viaene, Vincent. "King Leopold's imperialism and the origins of the Belgian colonial party, 1860–1905." Journal of Modern History 80.4 (2008): 741–90.
Belgian rule in the Congo was based around the "colonial trinity" (trinité colonial) of state, missionary and private company interests. [8] The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialized .