Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (French: État indépendant du 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 .
20. Janssen continued as an Honorary Governor-General until his death. ^ Janssens & Cateaux 1908, p. 163. He left for the Congo on 6 February 1888 and returned to Europe on 19 May 1889. ^ Janssens & Cateaux 1908, p. 165. He left for the Congo on 6 January 1889 to replace Ledeganck. ^ Janssens & Cateaux 1908, p. 48.
Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa.It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. By the end of the 19th century, the Basin had been carved up by European colonial powers, into the Congo Free State, the French Congo and the Portuguese Congo (modern Cabinda Province of Angola).
The Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [kɔ̃ɡo bɛlʒ]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo[a]) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Roughly forty companies with a capital of roughly 59.5 million francs were given a free hand to exploit the colony's resources under virtual monopoly conditions. 650,000 square miles of land, except for a few strategic locations mainly around the Congo River, were leased as concessions for a thirty-year period.
The Land beyond the Mists: Essays on Identity and Authority in Precolonial Congo and Rwanda. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0-8214-1875-8. Harms, Robert (1981). River of Wealth, River of Sorrow: The Central Zaire Basin in the Era of the Slave and Ivory Trade, 1500-1891. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300026160.
The earliest known human settlements in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been dated back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 90,000 years ago. The first real states, such as the Kongo, the Lunda, the Luba and Kuba, appeared south of the equatorial forest on the savannah from the 14th century onwards.
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]