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Before Imperialism
Before Imperialism, the Congo was experiancing a lot of slavery. Many people were being captured and being shipped to the Americas. The Congo had a large supply of rubber trees. The reason why it has not been conciqured earlier was because the Europeans were afraid of getting dieseases such as Malaria. -
Stanley explores the Congo
Henry Stanley was a reporter hired by an American newspaper and sent to Africa to find a man named David Livingstone who disapperead. He found him but was interested in exploring more of Africa. He explored lands along the Congo RIver. King Leopold II of Belgium hired him to claim lands for Belgium. -
Belgium takes over the Congo
Stanely got many chiefs to sign treaties giving King Leopold II their land. Since many of them could not read they did not know what they were signing. During the Berlin Conference the Congo was offically given to Belgium. The king said he would try to stop slavery and spread Christianity. King Leopold called it The Congo Free State. Belgium wanted the land because it had many raw materials including a large abundance of rubber trees. All of this took place from 1879-1885 -
Cruel treatment
King Leopold II claimed he was doing what was best for the congo even though he clearly was not. He used direct rule and made men work very long hours collecting sap from rubber plants. Also if they did not collect enough sap he would have their familes killed and/or cut off their hands. Around 10 million Congolese people died either from being worked to death or disease. Some people tried to fight back but were crushed by the kings army. -
Kings Rule Ends
Many people heard about what was going on in the congo and wanted to end it. In 1908 the Belgian government took away the Free State Congo from the king and renamed it the Belgian Congo. There was still slavery but it was not as bad as when the king was ruleing. Now the congo was ruled under the Belgian government. -
Gaining Independence
As rioting began to cause problems, the Belgian government strted to lose control of the Congo. Eventually they lost all control and on June 30th, 1960 the Belgian Congo became independent from Belgium. Their prime minister was Prime Minister Lumumba and their presedent was Presedent Joseph Kasavubu. It was then renamed to the Republic of Congo(later became the Democratic Republic of Congo). -
Post-Independence Trouble
Although many people thought independence would be good, it actually caused many problems. Wars and uprisings against different ethnic groups broke out which caused a lot of instability in the Congo. On January 17, 1961 the prime minister was killed by what many people thought were Belgians. They killed him because he was a threat. -
Motubu Sese Seko
Joseph Montubu (Motubu Sese Seko) was the military leader in the Belgian Congo. He made the Congo a pro-capitlist dictatprship. He was corrupt and used violence and military to enforce everything. He gained a lot of wealth off of the countries natural reasorces but used it all for himself and not for the country. A rebel leader Laurent Kabila finally over threw him and Motubu died from cancer in 1997.
