Belgian Congo

The Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960, and is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Colonial rule began when Leopold II, failing to interest the Belgian government, made the Congo his personal colony, winning international recognition for the Congo Free State in 1885; the violence of its officials against the Congolese and its ruthless exploitation brought such diplomatic pressure that Belgium took the country over in 1908. Belgian rule rested on the colonial trinity of state, mission and private company: Belgian capital flowed in, regions were specialised, the state helped companies break strikes, and the colony was run by a uniform native policy that put African chiefs under direct state control, unlike British indirect rule. The towns grew fast in the 1940s and 1950s, the administration tried to build a model colony, and an African middle class of évolués appeared, while the paid labour force became the largest of any colony in Africa. After the Second World War the tide of independence reached the Congo: on 30 June 1960 the Congo Republic was proclaimed under Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu, but Belgian meddling and the cold-war intervention of the great powers brought five years of crisis, the Congo Crisis, until Mobutu took power in November 1965.