The Congo
HIST 4339
Wednesday Citation Workshop
• Identify a tricky citation (e.g. primary source)
• Look it up
• Bring complete citation to class Wed
Outline
• Congo Free State
• Belgian Congo
• Independent Congo
Themes
• Belgian colonial practices illuminate other
colonialisms
• Partitioned culture groups contribute to
conflict
Congo Free
State
<www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/africa_1890.jpg>
King Leopold II’s Rule
• Profits based on rubber extraction
• Use of forced labor: hostages, chicotte
whippings
• Severed hands required as evidence of
efficient bullet use
King Leopold II’s Rule
• Governor of the Equatorial District of the
Congo Free State: “As soon as it was a
question of rubber, I wrote to the
government, ‘To gather rubber in the district...
one must cut off hands, noses and ears’”
(Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost 165)
International Reaction
• International scandal by turn of century
• 1908: Belgian government purchase of Congo
from Leopold
• 1909: Leopold’s death
International Reaction
• 1912: US poet Vachel Lindsay, “The Congo:”
“Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.”
Belgian Congo (post-Leopold II)
• 1908: Belgian state takeover
• Focus on practical and vocational education
• 1958: Collapse of world copper market
renders Congo unprofitable
Belgian Congo (post-Leopold II)
• Belgian announcement of
imminent independence
• Congolese nationalist groups:
—Congolese National
Movement, led by Patrice
Lumumba
—Alliance of Kongo People, led
by Joseph Kasavubu
Lumumba
Kasavubu
Belgian Congo (post-Leopold II)
• June 30, 1960: independence
of Republic of Congo
—Lumumba Prime Minister
—Kasavubu President
Lumumba
Kasavubu
Belgian Congo (post-Leopold II)
• June 30, 1960: independence
ceremony
• —Belgian king’s paternalistic
speech
—Lumumba’s fiery response
The Guardian (1 July 1960)
Lumumba
Independent Congo
• Immediate political turmoil
(mutiny, Katanga secession)
• Sept 14, 1960: Army Chief of
Staff Mobutu seizes power
• Jan 1961: Lumumba’s flight,
capture, execution
Mobutu
Independent Congo
• Feb 1961: Mobutu restores power to
Kasavubu
• 1965: Mobutu coup (Congo becomes Zaire)
• 1994: Rwandan genocide, refugees to Zaire
Independent Congo
• 1997: Rwanda invades Zaire, installs Laurent
Kabila as pres.
—Zaire renamed Congo
• 1998: new conflict (“Africa’s world war”)
Independent Congo
• 2001: Kabila assassinated, succeeded by his
son, Joseph Kabila
• 2006: Joseph Kabila elected president
• 2012: M23 captures Goma, retreats
“Independence ChaCha”
Indépendance cha cha tozui e
Oh! Kimpuanza cha cha tubakidi
Oh! Table Ronde cha cha ba gagné o
Oh! Dipanda cha cha tozui e
(Independence cha cha, we’ve won it
Oh! Independence cha cha, we’ve achieved it
Oh! The round table cha cha, we’ve pulled it off
Oh! Independence cha cha, we’ve won it)
[the word for independence is given in French,
Lingala and Kikongo]