Leopold II’s Bloody Legacy: how the Berlin Conference birthed the Congo Free State

By the late twentieth century, the prospect of imperial domination and conquest within Africa, for European expansionist powers, were seemingly limitless. Surrounded by the atmosphere of ‘New Imperialism’,which stimulated a new, heightened imperialist period, the ‘civilised’ powers increasingly looked towards Africa for its lucrative natural resources. These same powers regarded the ‘dark continent’ as a location in dire need of aid from the ‘Enlightened’ Christian world. Justifying brutal colonial exploitation as assimilating the barbaric periphery to the European ‘standard of civilisation’.  By the end of the century, nine millionsquare miles were ultimately added to European empires, which had equated to 20% of the world's mass.

The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 emerged as a manifestation of the increasing imperial tensions within Europe. Heightened by the 1870s/80s recessions, and the 1871 unification of Germany, the equilibrium of the ‘Concert of Europe’ was destabilised. Consequently, to avoid violent confrontation over the ‘empty’ African territory, the conference was called by German Chancellor Bismarck. Great Britain, France, Germanyand Portugal attended (alongside smaller nations). Calling upon their collective ‘white man’s burden’, Bismarck articulated a desire to ‘bring the natives of Africa within the pale civilisation’. Baron Moncheur, in the 1904 North American Review, encapsulated contemporary ideology, stating that their rationale was to ‘regulate the conditions most favourable to the development of trade and civilisation’. Yet these conditions would ensure sustained abuse of natural resources, including coffee, palm oil, rubber and cotton.

However, a danger arises when one accepts the conference at face value. In the words of Joanne Yao, international competition didn’t subside but was aggravated by ‘diplomats agreements on principles of effective occupation’. In reality, indigenous land would become a battle ground for rival powers to establish their state’s power. Instead of ensuring officials had thorough first-hand knowledge, delegates prioritisedsetting artificial boundaries that worked in their favour, where cutting through these cultural areas diminished possible opposition to ‘effective occupation'. A deliberate ‘divide and conquer’ was used to transplant European governance and selective, superficial infrastructure onto the continent. Post-WW2 historians analysed that 30% of Africa’s boundaries were straight lines, with 177 cultural areas being divided in the process.

Woven within the conference’s agenda, the Congo became central to debates revolving around the scantly mapped territory. Various articles in the General Act centered around the vast region: freedom of trade on the Congo, her neutrality and freedom of navigation. This was not a new development; King Leopold II of Belgium had called his 1876 Brussels Conference to establish his International African Association. In turn, this stimulated a study of the upper Congo in 1878, whilst the 1883 Anglo-Portuguese treaty tried to grant Portugal the mouth of the Congo River. Through this, we can identify late nineteenth century Congo as being at the epicentre of European imperial tension.

Despite indigenous authority existing since the mid-fourteenth century, explorer Henry Stanley (who travelled the length of the Congo River) painted central Africa as an uncivilized void. Similarly, the map of the Congo used (produced by Regnault de Lannoy de Bissey) depicted largely blank space. This allowed state leaders to further project their own imperial ambitions onto the region; rationalising that it was waiting for the ‘Enlightenment’ that would transpire through European rule. Four hundred treaties along the Congo River would be made in four years, facilitated by Leopold II’s bankroll. These treaties demanded that total sovereignty be handed over.

By February 1885, it was accepted that the actuality of the Berlin Conference’s General Act relied on the recognition of Leopold’s International Association of Congo. A clean partitioning of Africa depended on the idea that powers would be ‘notified’ when land was being occupied, with sufficient overall authority over the region proven. Consequently, the neutral Congo Free State was created; allowing Leopold to walk away with 900,000 square miles of land.  Between 1885-1908, land eight times the size of Belgium (which equated to half the size of the continent) would be in the hands of one man. Whether sole blame should be placed at Leopold’s feet, the fact remains that ten million Congolese died between 1880-1920.

In 1914, E.D Morel would establish his Congo Reform Campaign. By this point, there had been nineteen years of corrosive administration. Leopold had barred Africans from trading natural resources with private companies and bestowed private companies with concessions. Due to the fourteen year-long rubber concessions in Northern Congo, the regime itself would gain the name ‘red rubber’. Mutilation, torture and destruction of villages dominated the landscape. If a local chief opposed the socio-economic exploitation, in the name of maximising rubber production, they were simply replaced with someone compliant. This was worsened by the nature of rubber production; it was linked to river systems (as roads were not required) and it did not need the collection of capital investment. By 1905, the upper Congo was almost drained of rubber, an issue exacerbated by populations being prevented from maintaining their own subsidence crops for nearly two decades.

The horror of the Congo Free State did not end with the forcible extraction of rubber. It was instead celebrated through international expositions, where ‘human zoos’ of indigenous Africans arose throughout Europe. At the 1885 Universal Exposition in Antwerp, the ‘Negro Village’ of thirteen Congolese received an estimated 15,000 visitors per day.  One visitor at a later exhibition in 1897 offered a rare display of humanity; stating that they were ‘parked as animals are in zoos’. One could say they were not even paid this respect. Whilst their homeland was being drained of raw materials, customary legal frameworks overthrown and the CFS ‘Force Publique’ (alongside other militias) ensured violent oppression, Congolese people were characterised as exotic ‘beings’ to be marvelled at by the white gaze.

By 1908, the Congo Free State was ‘freed’ of Leopold and became a formal colony of Belgium. Yet, their suffering did not end here. The Democratic Republic of the Congo would not become independent until 1960.

Since the onset of post-colonial history, much has been done to decolonise global historical narratives, highlighting the remains of ‘New Imperialism’ in our modern-day global landscape. 2007-2014 data collection highlights that areas of former concessions are 26% less wealthy than those that weren’t. Our acceptance of the ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ paradigms underscores the persistence of the colonisingpower’s worldview. Organisers of the conference opted to regard Africans as unworthy of consideration; a destabilising geography was drawn, cemented and engendered within geographical, ethnic stereotypes. Drawing upon Adam Hoschild’s controversial 1998 ‘king Leopold’s Ghost’, when commemorating the horror of the Holocaust, one needs to remember the genocides that have escaped Western historical memory. The ‘Scramble for Africa’, 1884-85 Berlin Conference and ‘New Imperialism’ ultimately laid the groundwork for genocide in the Congo Free State.

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