Colonialism and the Congo

35% 85%

1800 1914

The Rhodes ColossusStriding from Cape Town to CairoPunch, 10 December 1892

Udo J. Keppler, "From the Cape to Cairo," Puck Magazine, 10 December 1902.

Kipling Collage

1. “White Man’s burden” (the colonizers)2. Colonized People (the colonized)3. Take up! (the mission)

Congo Timeline• 1870s - Belgian King Leopold II sets about colonizing the area as his private

holding.• 1884 – At Berlin Conference, European powers grant Congo Free State to

absolute control of King Leopold.• 1908 - Congo Free State placed under Belgian rule following outrage over

treatment of Congolese.• 1960 - Independence, followed by civil war and temporary fragmentation of

country.• 1965 - Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power.• 1997 - Rebels oust Mobutu. Laurent Kabila becomes president.• 1997-2003 - Civil war, drawing in several neighbouring countries (Africa's

first world war).• 2003 - 2012 - Conflict persists in the east.• 2006 - Presidential elections.

King Leopold IIKing of Belgium (1865-1909)

“They only tell what is against me.“

"My yearly income from the Congo is millions of guineas.“

Reprinted from Mark Twain's pamphlet, "King Leopold’s Soliloquy.“ Before 1905.

In the Rubber Coils. Scene – The Congo “Free” State. (1906)

Chained Congolese slaves on a Belgian rubber plantation.

Ivory trading in the Congo

European missionary.