what countries did belgium colonize in africa

In just a few months' time (from early 1959 to the beginning of 1960), the political prospects for the colony evolved from a long-term loosening of the ties between Belgium and the Congo, to the immediate independence of the African country. In 1876 Belgium's King Leopold II convened the Brussels Geographical Conference, which led to the formation of the African International Association. The former colonial power cannot be solely blamed for all the atrocities and political instability that has characterized life in its now defunct empire, but a significant degree of responsibility is attributable. colony, any nonself-governing territory subject to the jurisdiction of a usually distant country. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". There was social mobility (both upward and downward) in this stratified Rwandese society. He proclaimed himself king-sovereign of Congo Free State at a time when France, Britain, Portugal, and Germany also had colonies in the area. The Belgian Congo was one of the three colonies Belgium occupied. Arguably, in comparison with other colonial powers in Africa, Belgium did less to prepare its overseas subjects for political independence, investing little in education and training, and extracted the riches of its colonies at enormous human cost. In the first years of the twentieth century, the Congo question became an important international issue, since the British government took this matter to heart, especially after an official enquiry commission, appointed by king Leopold, had confirmed the existence of excesses (1904). A classic image depicts the Belgian Congo as being run by the "Trinity" of administration, capital, and the (Catholic) Church. THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION Of Belgium's other colonies, the most significant was Ruanda-Urundi, a portion of German East Africa, which was given to Belgium as a League of Nations Mandate, when Germany lost all of its colonies at the end of World War I. This conflict has been labeled Africas war. Although fighting stopped in 1999, rebel groups continued their attacks on defenseless civilians and the Congolese central government. Finally in 1908, Leopold was forced to hand over the Congo Free State, his personal fiefdom, to the Belgian state. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. As part of the Treaty of Versailles, the major part of German East Africa was handed over to British control but Ruanda-Urundi, twice the size of Belgium but only about 2 percent of the size of the Congo, was confirmed as a Belgian colony by a League of Nations Mandate in 1924, later renewed as a United Nations Trust Territory. (Colonizing other peoples, regardless of the justification . GENEALOGY OF THE TERM DECOLONIZATION "Africa: Belgian Colonies As a result, Leopold pursued his colonial ambitions without the support of the Belgian government. Britain established control over many parts of Africa, including Sudan and much of the south. In 1971, in a continuation of his Africanization policy, the Congo River was renamed the Zaire River and consequently, Congo was renamed the Republic of Zaire. Belgium's African ColoniesWhen Belgium became a nation in 1830, it had almost no tradition of long-distance trade or colonial activity. 1992. Belgium itself had gained independence in 1831 when it broke away from the Netherlands and became a new nation. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. In Rwanda, independence brought increased ethnic tensions because of the policies of the Belgian colonial administration. This was the situation until King Leopold II of Belgium made the Congo his personal possession, and it became the only colony owned and run by a single individual. Finally, the constant interventions of the Belgians in the affairs of their former colonies of Congo and Rwanda have made ethnic and political rivalries worse. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. He described his view of the colonial enterprise in these words: Our only program, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral and material regeneration, and we must do this among a population whose degeneration in its inherited conditions it is difficult to measure. During both world wars, the Belgian Congo played a great role as purveyor of raw materials for the Allies, while the Congolese troops also engaged in warfare against the German and Italian forces. The Consul of Belgium and the president of the Brera Academy established a charitable foundation with the goal of building a village for artists and a hotel.[23]. All the major decisions concerning the Congo were made in Brussels, and the Congolese were not allowed to participate in the running of their own country. In precolonial Congo, established monarchies and kingdoms maintained order. A third economic sector consisted of large-scale plantations (e.g., palm oil production by the enterprise founded by the British businessman William Lever [18511925]), also oriented toward export. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. His rule was brutal and millions of Congolese died as a result. In 1962, it got its independence from Belgium. This uprising led to the disintegration of the Belgian colonial administration and helped in winning independence for the Congo in 1960. In 1885 Leopold II secured U.S. recognition of his personal sovereignty over the Congo Free State. These three protagonists had an enormous influence in the colony, and assisted each other in their respective ventures, even if their interests did not always coincide and, indeed, sometimes openly conflicted. This well-planned genocide started when the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were shot down, allegedly by Tutsi rebel soldiers. Relations among the Congolese peoples during the precolonial period were largely harmonious. . Very little money was invested in educationwhich was left to missionaries, mainly Roman Catholic, and consisted of basic literacy and numeracy. Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Belgium created two colonies in Africa: the entities now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly the Republic of Zaire) and the Republic of Rwanda , previously Ruanda-Urundi, a former German African colony that was given to Belgium to administer after the defeat of Germany in World War I . Fourth, European and American governments and the multinational business and interests have fueled ethnic conflicts in Africas former Belgian colonies for their own purposes. Germany's African ColoniesThe unification of Germany in 1871 constituted a watershed in Germany's imperial agenda of acquiring colonies in Africa. On the Congo Free State's own domains, as well as on the vast tracks of land that had been conceded to private companies, brutal and repressive practices took the lives of large numbers of Africansthough exact figures are impossible to establish. This empire was unlike those of the major European imperial powers, since 98 percent of it was just one colony (about 76 times larger than Belgium)the Belgian Congoand that had originated as the private property of the country's king, King Leopold II, rather than being gained through the political action of the Belgian state. Because the United Kingdom, France, and Portugal had conflicting interests in this region, Leopold's skillful personal diplomacy succeeded in playing the contradictory ambitions of these countries against each other. It replaced the failed British Eastern Coast of Central America Commercial and Agricultural Company. His regime in the Congo operated as a forced labor colony, with murder and mutilation as punishment for villagers who did not collect and supply the rubber quota they were given. Roughly 98% of Belgium's overseas territory was just one colony (about 76 times larger than Belgium itself) known as the Belgian Congo. Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics. When Congo became a sovereign nation on June 30, 1960, this new state was utterly unprepared to handle the enormous problems that it had to face, and it slid into years of chaos, internal disruption (e.g., regional secessions, such as Katanga's), and civil waronly to emerge in 1965 under the Mobutu Sese Seko (19301997) dictatorship, which was to last more than thirty years and thoroughly pillaged the country's enormous riches. In reality, Belgium's political parties and public opinion showed little interest in Congolese matters. "[1] In 1876, he told delegates at an international conference on geography which he sponsored in Brussels that: To open to civilization the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress. The main contenders in this region, particularly France and the United Kingdom, hoped to reap the benefits of Leopold's "whim," which, in their opinion, would not last long. What has been described as an Apartheid-like system also existed in that the mobility of Africans, but not of Europeans, was restricted and curfews applied to the former. The rural masses were primarily engaged in a neglected and stagnating indigenous agriculture, aimed at self-subsistence but facing growing difficulties feeding the increasing population, particularly from the 1950s. Such conditions led to opposition from other European powers, and the Congo Free State ceased to exist in 1908 when it was annexed by Belgium. 2006. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. As the result of a widespread and increasingly radical pro-independence movement, the Congo achieved independence, as the Republic of Congo-Lopoldville in 1960. The Scramble for Africa: The Scramble for Africa was a period of rampant colonialism of African territories by European powers, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. The king took several personal initiatives, without the formal backing of his country's government and even without the support of Belgium's leading economic players. There are also Nilotic-speaking peoples near Sudan and some pygmies in northeastern Congo. Before the coming of the Europeans, the Kingdom of Kongo had well-organized political and administrative structures that rivaled those of the Europeans. Biafra Revisited. Yet, Leopold personally subscribed to what was sometimes called the "progressive" view of imperialism: That it had a moral justification as a civilizing mission. . Millions of Congolese died during this time. The Belgian administration of the Congo was run by a relatively modest corps of civil servants (in 1947 only about 44,000 whites, 3,200 of whom were public employees, were present in this vast country, inhabited by some 11 million Africans). Any four countries? EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, LEOPOLD II (18351909; ruled 18651909), king of Belgium and personal sovereign of the Congo Free State. These mandatory identity cards removed the fluidity from the Rwandan stratification (caste) system, thereby confining people permanently as Hutus, Tutsis, and pygmies. The Belgians empowered the Tutsis so much that their exploitation of the Hutu majority reached new heights. The economic system of the kingdom was organized into guilds based on agriculture and handicraft industries. Belgium created two colonies in Africa: the entities now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly the Republic of Zaire) and the Republic of Rwanda, previously Ruanda-Urundi, a former German African colony that was given to Belgium to administer after the defeat of Germany in World War I. Belgian Congo, French Congo Belge, former colony (coextensive with the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) in Africa, ruled by Belgium from 1908 until 1960. Britain, France, Germany and Belgium had territories on the African continent. "Africa: Belgian Colonies Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. 2023 . Map of Africa in 1910. [1] Greeks colonised Cyrenaica around the . Belgian authorities were caught practically unprepared by the sudden wave of black political activism, and subsequently engaged in a process of "precipitous decolonization." Since the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has successfully conducted both local and national elections. The so-called Colonial Charter of 1908 set out the main lines of the Belgian colonial system: a rigorous separation between the budgets of the colony and the mother country; a strict parliamentary control of executive power (in order to avoid the excesses of the former Leopoldian despotism); the appointment of a governor-general in Congo, whose powers were strictly limited by the metropolitan authorities; and a tight centralism in the colony itself, where provincial authorities were granted little autonomy. In 1876 he commissioned Sir Henry Morton Stanleys expedition to explore the Congo region. After the June 1960 elections, Lumumba became prime minister and Kasavubu the ceremonial president. ." 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. This ended with the seizure of power by Joseph-Dsir Mobutu. It was established by the Belgian parliament to replace the previous, privately owned Congo Free State, after international outrage over abuses there brought pressure for supervision and accountability. These kingdoms, especially the Kingdom of Kongo, were comparably wealthy, and when the standard of living is high, people tend to get along well. In spite of this legacy of the colonial period, political developments in the Congo and Rwanda (peace agreements, new constitutions, and new elections) show that there is a new hope for the former African colonies of Belgium. The pre-colonial social and political authorities, consisting of a Tutsi king (mwami) and a tiny aristocracy (predominantly of Tutsi origin), ruling over a vast majority of mainly Hutu agriculturalists, were kept in placeeven if the Belgians reshaped the traditional structures by constantly intervening in them. Histoire gnrale du Congo: De l'hritage ancien la Rpublique Dmocratique, 2nd ed. It is estimated that millions of Congolese died during this time. It does not store any personal data. Belgium itself had only been independent since 1830, prior to that it was part of the Netherlands (and had a role in that country's colonies) or of France, or was governed by Spain or Austria. A further blow came in 1933, when the Belgians issued identity cards to all Rwandans. During the 1840s and 50s, King Leopold I tentatively supported several proposals to acquire territories overseas. Idi Amin became the president of Uganda in January 1971 after a military coup removed the elected leader, Milton Obote, and he, Colonialism, Internal This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Even in the first decades of its existence, it showed little inclination toward overseas expansion. Yielding to international pressure, the parliament of Belgium annexed the Congo Free State and took over its administration on November 15, 1908, as the colony of the Belgian Congo. The scramble for colonies was the brainchild of Leopold II, king of Belgium. In 1877, the European country Belgium and King Leopold colonized the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Congolese petty bourgeoisie remained embryonic: local entrepreneurs or proprietors were almost nonexistent. The Belgians even took the few leadership positions that the Hutus had and gave them to the Tutsis. Autocratic rule did not need to find ways of negotiating how different factions could cooperate within a sustainable, participatory system of governance or access a fair share of resources. By 1900, the French had colonies in present-day Senegal , Mauritania , Mali , Niger , Burkina Faso , Guinea , Ivory Coast , and Benin, just to name a few. In 1966 he renamed the Congolese cities of Lopoldville (Kinshasa), Stanley-ville (Kisangani), and Elisabethville (Lubumbashi). "Belgium's African Colonies The Belgians were always somewhat indifferent towards their colonies, which were not regarded as a vital aspect of their national identity or place in the world, despite the value that Leopold had attached to them. The Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [ko bl]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa between 1908 and 1960 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). What countries did Spain colonize in Africa? Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Belgium created two colonies in Africa: the entities now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly the Republic of Zaire) and the Republic of Rwanda, previously Ruanda-Urundi, a former German African colony that was given to Belgium to administer after the defeat of Germany in World War I.. Did Portugal colonize Africa?
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