THE POISONWOOD
BIBLE
The Okapi—an animal closely related to
zebras and giraffes. They are found in the
Congo region, in the deep jungle. The male
Okapi has fur covered horns, as pictured to
the right.
The Belgian Congo—After the
Congo Free State
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King Leopold was relieved of rule of the Congo Region in 1905 by
the country of Belgium. Under Belgian rule the worst excesses
(such as forced labor) of the Free State were gradually diminished.
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The Congo was still regarded almost exclusively as a field for
European investment, and little was done to give Africans a
significant role in its government or economy.
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European concerns established more large plantations, and vast
mining operations were set up.
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Africans formed the labor pool for these operations, and
Europeans were the managers.
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By the end of the 1920s, mining (especially of copper and
diamonds) was the mainstay of the economy, having far
outdistanced agriculture.
Missionaries
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Christian missionaries (the great majority of whom were
Roman Catholic) were very active in the Congo, and they
were the chief agents for raising the educational level of the
Africans and for improving medical services.
However, virtually no Africans were educated beyond the
primary level until the mid-1950s, when two universities were
opened.
A noteworthy indigenous religious movement was that of
Simon Kimbangu, who, educated by Protestant missionaries,
around 1920 established himself as a prophet and healer.
He soon gathered a large following and, although not explicitly
anti-Belgian, was jailed in 1921 by the colonial government,
which feared that his movement would undermine its
authority.
The Belgians outlawed Kimbangu's movement, but it
continued clandestinely and became increasingly antiEuropean.
The Independence Movement
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In 1955, when demands for independence were mounting throughout
Africa, Antoine van Bilsen, a Belgian professor, published a “30-Year
Plan” for granting the Congo increased self-government.
The plan was accepted enthusiastically by most Belgians, who
assumed that Belgian rule in the Congo would continue for a long
period. Events proved otherwise.
Congolese nationalists, notably Joseph Kasavubu (who headed
ABAKO, a party based among the Kongo people) and Patrice
Lumumba (who led the leftist Mouvement National Congolais),
became increasingly strident.
They were impressed greatly by the visit in late 1958 of French
president Charles de Gaulle to neighboring French Congo where he
offered Africans the opportunity to vote in a referendum for continued
association with France or for full independence.
In Jan., 1959, there were serious nationalist riots in Kinshasa, and
thereafter the Belgians steadily lost control of events in the Congo.
At a roundtable conference (which included Congolese nationalists)
at Brussels in Jan.–Feb., 1960, it was decided that the Belgian Congo
would become fully independent on June 30, 1960.
Independence and Conflict
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Following elections in June, Lumumba became prime minister and
Kasavubu head of state.
The Republic of the Congo (as the nation was then called) soon began to
be pulled apart by ethnic and personal rivalries, often encouraged by
Belgian interests.
Into this time of upheaval an political foment, the Price family comes to the
Congo.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER
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Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955. She grew up "in the
middle of an alfalfa field," in the part of eastern Kentucky that lies
between the opulent horse farms and the impoverished coal fields.
Kingsolver has always been a storyteller: "I used to beg my mother
to let me tell her a bedtime story." As a child, she wrote stories and
essays and, beginning at the age of eight, kept a journal religiously.
Still, it never occurred to Kingsolver that she could become a
professional writer. Growing up in a rural place, where work
centered mainly on survival, writing didn't seem to be a practical
career choice. Besides, the writers she read, she once explained,
"were mostly old, dead men from England. It was inconceivable that
I might grow up to be one of those myself . . . "
Later Developments
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July 4 the Congolese army mutinied, and on July 11 Moïse Tshombe
declared Katanga, of which he was provisional president, to be
independent. There were attacks on Belgian nationals living in the Congo,
and Belgium sent troops to the country to protect its citizens and also its
mining interests. Most Belgian civil servants left the country, thus crippling
the government.
July 14, the UN Security Council voted to send a force to the Congo to help
establish order; the force was not allowed to intervene in internal affairs,
however, and could not act against the Katangan secession.
Lumumba turned to the USSR for help against Katanga, but on Sept. 5 he
was dismissed as prime minister by Kasavubu.
On Sept. 14, Col. Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko), the head of
the army, seized power and dismissed Kasavubu. On Dec. 1, Lumumba,
who probably had the largest national following of any Congo politician,
was arrested by the army.
He was murdered while allegedly trying to escape imprisonment in
Katanga in mid-Feb., 1961.