The Story of the Congo Free State: Racial, Political, and Economic Aspects of the Belgian System of Government in Central Africa
9781465677648
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The decline and fall of great empires has ever been a fascinating subject of study, congenial alike to students of widely diverse opinions and pursuits; yet it must be clear to all that in human interest the breaking up of an empire is as nothing when compared with its founding. The reason is, probably, that so little is known of the origin of great national communities. The United States is almost alone among nations in respect that its growth, from its inception to its mature ultimate triumph, has been watched by keenly observant eyes, and every particular of its perilous progress carefully recorded. But when the future historian, with comprehensive appreciation impossible in a contemporary, reviews the events of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, one fact will stand well out before him, a unique and very potent fact, fraught with vast possibilities for the future—none other than the founding, by the wisdom of a kingly philanthropist, of a humanitarian, civilising, free political state in the very heart of savage and cannibalistic Africa. Consider for a moment how the great Congo Free State has been evolved out of a group of warring tribes (in part cannibal), and inquire what manner of man is Leopold II., King of the Belgians, alone responsible for this wondrous transformation; and who even now, when weight of years and record of achievement might well entitle him to repose, works on bravely, through good and through ill report, for the prosperity and happiness of the twenty-odd million Africans who acknowledge him for their Sovereign. Thirty-six years ago, when the present Sovereign of the Congo Free State succeeded his father as King of the Belgians, and became known to the world as Leopold II., Africa was generally referred to as the “Dark Continent.” At that period, and for long after, even the most optimistic of statesmen failed to perceive in those vast regions any promising outlet for the congested populations of the Old World, or possible markets for their manufactures. Diamonds, small in quantity and of indifferent quality, had, it is true, been discovered in the southernmost part of that continent, in a region already appropriated by the British. Gold, also, was thought to exist there, but not in paying quantities; while the deadliness of the African climate to Europeans, in all save a few favoured sections, was an universally accepted article of faith. Foremost among the small band of thinkers who totally dissented from this view was Leopold II., King of the Belgians. A young man of extraordinarily fine physique, an accomplished linguist, widely read and travelled, and holding advanced liberal views in all matters pertaining to statecraft and social science, King Leopold had early the prescience to perceive in Africa the means to uplift some twenty or more millions of the Negro race from debased savagery to peaceful civilisation, and at the same time and by the same means—the latter a necessarily accompanying incident of the former—found a colony for the surplus population of the small State of which he is King; Belgium being then, as now, the most densely populated of European countries, its people almost entirely dependent on the sale abroad of the products of their industry.
