Civilization or Colonization?: How Belgium conquered and treated the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Impact of Red Rubber on the People of Congo

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Minwoo Ki

Senior Thesis

Mr. Zontine

November 16th, 2020

What was the impact of the rubber trade on the people of Congo?

Persuasive Essay

Minwoo Ki

Natural rubber is a ubiquitous material that is found in over 40,000 products. Today, it is used for tires, medical gloves, toys, clothes, and in industries that include “transport, construction, health, mining and weapons” (“What is Rubber”). However, rubber got its boom in the late 19th century. The popularity of the bicycle led to high demand for rubber to make bicycle wheels. Soon after, the growth of the automobile industry in 1900 increased demand for rubber even further. Where did this supply of natural rubber come from? 

Rubber was imported into Europe through countries like Brazil and Malaysia. However, the high wages for labor and transportation costs of moving the rubber made the industry a costly investment (Zephyr). The rubber boom coincided with Western European countries' efforts at colonization of non-European countries. The demand for colonies became intense and competitive between the European nations since imperialism not only promised greater economic profits but also political prestige and power. The race for colonies resulted in the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) where Western European nations, such as Great Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium, colonized all of Africa to exploit the region for its resources, such as minerals, land, and labor (McKay 814). 

King Leopold II of Belgium decided to tap into the rubber industry by using the Congo basin as a place to extract rubber for his own personal profit. However, to gain approval for colonizing the region, Leopold claimed that he would civilize the Congo region. “Leopold, who was devious as well as greedy, persuaded the world that he was acting from humanitarian motives. In 1884, The Daily Telegraph, perspicacious as ever, opined: ‘Leopold II…[is] to carry to the interior of Africa new ideas of law, order, humanity and protection of the natives’” (“Forever in Chains”). Despite promoting a civilizing mission, Leopold’s deadly rubber trade, known as the red rubber trade because of all the human blood involved, led to the deadly exploitation of the Congolese for forced labor, which not only undermined the pre-colonial economy of the region but also led to a population decline by nearly half.

Before colonization, the various tribes and groups that lived in the area had focused on mostly subsistence farming and trade with surrounding kingdoms. For instance, while some native groups practiced shifting cultivation, some empires, such as the Luba Empire, traded mainly with the Lunda Empire, selling goods like pottery and wood carvings. There were also hunting and gathering groups in the Southern part of the Congo region (“Traditional Land Use in the Congo Basin”). However, after Leopold’s colonization of the Congo region, the people were forced to harvest ivory and rubber. 

By the late 1890s, there was a huge rubber demand in Europe, which made Leopold more demanding in gaining rubber from this colony. Leopold “developed an exploitation model of colonization whereby they tried to extract as much revenue as possible out of the country – primarily in the form of...rubber, and on the basis of forced labour” (Bevernage 208). As a result of the rubber trade, native peoples were unable to focus on their own economic needs. They were not given time to work on their own farms, and due to the high mortality rate in the Congo, after the arrival of the Belgians, there were not enough people to farm the land to grow food for their own selves. In fact, “the economy was shattered in the Congo and…[t]hey now lacked workers who could rebuild burned villages or tend to farms that were destroyed due to soil erosion from the constant demands of crops” (Johnson 77). The rubber trade undermined the Congo people’s economy, leaving them unable to have basic subsistence farming. The economic damage that occurred would affect the region permanently.

The rubber trade required the use of forced labor in the Congo region. Leopold used Congolese men as forced labor to collect wild rubber, which was then sold to Europe. The rubber trade was even more profitable because it did not require much training and Leopold forced the native peoples to harvest the rubber. “The collection of rubber required little capital investment, in contrast to the collection of other natural resources...and it did not require training of the labor force. The intensity of rubber extraction...was thus linked to the supply and productivity of labor” (Lowes and Montero 8). It is said that “the Congo state - at Leopold’s specific order - used forced labor” and that his desire for rubber and thus forced labor was so great, that one of his rubber stations was the name “Baka Baka, which means ‘capture, capture’” (Hochschild 141). As a result, rather than hiring European harvesters, or paying local people for harvesting the rubber, native peoples were utilized as slave labor to collect the rubber. The people of the Congo region could no longer engage in the economic activities that they had been involved in once Leopold II took over.

Furthermore, the Europeans used great violence on native peoples to enforce the rubber trade, which led to extremely brutal treatment against the Congolese. The laborers were required to meet daily quotas, which in some areas could be about four kilos of dried rubber every two weeks. There were many methods of punishment to enforce quotas. Individuals could be held for ransom until the required demand was met, or they could be whipped, burned, or killed. Sometimes, the chief of a village could be imprisoned if the laborers in his village did not meet the necessary quotas (Lowes and Montero 9-10). Harvesting wild rubber became increasingly difficult as supplies became more limited, thus violence was never-ending in the Congo region. Living accounts of the rubber trade include memories of seeing people “shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes around their necks and bodies and taken away” (Anstey 64, 68). While so many people were killed, oftentimes, they were not allowed to be given proper burials and were left out in the open to rot (Anstey 64, 68). In some areas, villages that served as rubber posts had a military force of eighty men armed with modern rifles to suppress resistance or punish villagers for not meeting quotas (Gewald 476). There are other accounts where Belgian officers were “ordered to cut off villagers’ heads and hang them on the village palisades” (“Forever in Chains”). In some places, if a village refused to collect rubber, the entire village was shot, “so that nearby village would get the message” (Johnson 77). 

However gruesome these methods were, the most infamous method was cutting off villagers' hands. To prove that the bullet was used to enforce the rubber trade and not for some other personal use, soldiers had “to provide a human hand for every bullet used” which was later “smoked for preservation and collected by the European agents” (Lowes and Montero 10).  The brutality that was used against the Congolese to extract rubber had no limits as the only rule that needed to be followed was meeting Leopold’s rubber quotas.

While violence against native people was a major cause of population decline in the

Congo region, the detrimental health impacts on the people due to colonization led to an enormous population decrease. While there is no agreement on how many Congolese died after Leopold’s conquest of the region, approximately 10 million, or half the population, may have died from 1885 to 1908 (Johnson 77). As native peoples were unable to feed themselves as they were forced to participate in the rubber trade, people became susceptible to disease, often ending in death.  “Smallpox and sleeping sickness caused the highest death toll, and it is estimated that half a million died from sleeping sickness in just 1901.” Physical exhaustion from harvesting rubber to walking incredibly long distances weakened the people, who became victims of various diseases.

Disease and physical exhaustion also heavily impacted the birthrate. In one major rubber district, “there was a complete absence of children from ages seven to fourteen” (Johnson 67).  There are also accounts of people purposefully having fewer children not only because food would not be available for children, but also women feared that they would not be able to survive war if they were pregnant, as they “cannot well run away and hide from the soldiers” (Hochschild 232). Thus, population decrease due to disease and low birth rates were significant impacts on the Congo people that undermined their basic social structure.

King Leopold’s mission to profit from the Congo region destroyed the local economic systems that the native peoples had participated in for centuries, while causing great human atrocities, and leading to a severe population decline in the region.  His supposedly humanitarian mission was simply a cover for his desire to gain, as Leopold once said, “a slice of this magnificent African cake” (Hochschild 66). Leopold’s desire for fame and power as a king of a European nation was based on territorial expansion, which had been an important way of gaining national power in the 19th century. It is truly frightening to think that “[t]he atrocities of ‘Red Rubber’ started essentially as a monstrous footnote to the race for the Upper Nile” (Viaene 753). 

Annotated Bibliography

Anstey, Roger. “The Congo Rubber Atrocities -- A Case Study.” African Historical Studies, 

vol. 4, no. 1, 1971, pp. 59–76. JSTOR, Accessed 26 Oct. 2020,  

www.jstor.org/stable/216268

This is a journal article that discusses the author’s direct experience in studying the oral history and memory of the Congolese people and comparing them to written historical documents concerning the rubber trade and its effects on the people. This was a really interesting and unusual article because it actually provided first-hand accounts of the Congo people and how they remembered the rubber trade, which is difficult to find.

Bevernage, Berber. “The Making of the Congo Question: Truth-Telling, Denial and ‘Colonial 

Science’ in King Leopold’s Commission of Inquiry on the Rubber Atrocities in the Congo Free State (1904–1905).” Rethinking History, Routledge, 12 Apr. 2018, core.ac.uk/download/pdf/157575287.pdf. 

This source is focused on the role of the Congo Commission and its role in having Belgium take over the colony from King Leopold’s control. It first discusses how, until the late 20th century, the Commission had been viewed as a heroic force in revealing the atrocities committed by King Leopold and how the Commission had found an honorable solution in putting the colony into the control of Belgium. It then discusses more recent conflicting views of the Commission as complicit in acquitting King Leopold of his crimes. It then goes on to discuss how the Commission impacted Belgium's history of colonialism in the long term.

“Forever in Chains: The Tragic History of Congo.” The Independent. 1 Apr. 2009

This is an article discussing the impact of the rubber trade on the Congolese people from the time of King Leopold’s colonization of the Congo Free State and the aftermath. Although this is a news article it provides quite a good deal of historical information on the key figures that were critical in bringing Europeans into Africa and even provides detailed info on private details concerning King Leopold. The article essentially provides a detailed summary that is usually found in history books or other journals. However, this article later discusses the Congo after World War II and independence from Belgium and how the Congo was plagued by authoritarian rule, which provides insight into how the Congo developed after independence. 

Gewald, Jan-Bart. “More than Red Rubber and Figures Alone: A Critical Appraisal of 

the Memory of the Congo Exhibition at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, 2006, pp. 471–486. JSTOR, Accessed 26 Oct. 2020, www.jstor.org/stable/40034827

This is a journal article that critiques the presentation of the Congo in the Belgium Royal Museum. It discusses how the exhibition created an impression that the only abuse that occurred in the Congo was that associated with Red Rubber and that these abuses were stopped by the Belgian King Leopold II, and that the population decreases that occurred in the Congo were due to disease and migration. However, the article provides information to prove that rampant abuse occurred due to the establishment of the Congo Free State. This article was helpful because it provided much detailed information on the abuses that occurred in the country due to King Leopold’s reign.

 Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial 

Africa.  www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial-ebook/dp/B004KZOWEG. 

This is a book that deals with King Leopold’s colonization of the Congo. It provides many details and personal accounts of what King Leopold was thinking at the time and what his true intentions were in gaining a colony. It provides numerous primary sources to support the author’s argument that Leopold brought great misery and exploitation. This book also provides many different people’s accounts about their efforts to stop the rubber trade and the human exploitation caused by Leopold. This book weaves the accounts of various people to provide a more detailed account of the personality of King Leopold, making it more interesting to read.

Johnson, Steven. "King Leopold II's Exploitation of the Congo From 1885 to 1908 and Its 

Consequences" (2014). HIM 1990-2015. 1642, Accessed 26 Oct. 2020. 

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honors theses 1990-2015/1642

This is an article that provides numerous pieces of evidence of how the colonization of the Congo led to the political, ethnic, and economic destabilization of the region. The author reveals the political and economic costs caused by the rubber trade and its social and economic consequences, which undermined the political sovereignty of the Congo people and how it impoverished them in an astonishing way. This article was really helpful in that it provided much more data, examples, and explanations concerning the impacts of the Congo rule on the people and the country as a whole. 

Lowes, Sara, and Eduardo Montero. “Concessions, Violence, and Indirect Rule: Evidence 

from the Congo Free State.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020, Accessed 25 Sept. 2020, scholar.harvard.edu/files/lowes_montero_rubber.pdf.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the role of rubber concessions in the Belgian Congo and how it was responsible for the violence against the Congo people. It also goes into depth about the social problems that resulted from having the Congo people exploited for the rubber trade. This source provides ample data and examples to understand the situation more clearly. 

McKay, J. P. A History of Western Society (Eleventh ed., Vol. 2). Boston: Bedford/St. 

Martin's, 2014.

This European history textbook provided me with basic background information concerning 19th-century imperialism. It was informative and provided many details concerning different European countries’ perspectives and political and economic goals in colonizing Africa. It also provided a concise yet detailed background on the Berlin Conference. 

“Traditional Land Use in the Congo Basin.” Global Forest Atlas. Yale School of the 

Environment. Accessed 14 Nov. 2020. 

This web article was helpful in understanding the pre-colonial economy of the Congo region. While there is much information available about the Congo after colonization, there is not a lot of written information about the area before colonization. This website provided a brief but helpful overview of the region concerning the land, farming practices, and early kingdoms.

Viaene, Vincent. “King Leopold's Imperialism and the Origins of the Belgian Colonial Party,

1860–1905.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 80, no. 4, 2008, pp. 741–790, 

Accessed 2 Sept. 2020,  JSTOR. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/591110.

The source begins by identifying the problem behind Jean Stenger’s interpretation of King Leopold’s imperialism, which was that it was a desire for economic advantage rather than political grandeur, yet he did this for patriotic reasons. The author focuses on what he calls “Leopold’s Doctrine.” However, the source focuses on the relationship between sociopolitical, economic, and other considerations in trying to understand Leopold’s imperialism. The source later focuses on understanding the early history of the Belgian colonial party. Viaene claims that this is necessary in order to understand the full context of Belgium’s imperialism.

“What is Rubber, what is it used for, what are the alternatives?” The Star. Torstar 

Corporation. August 21, 2014. Accessed 14 Nov. 2020. 

This article was not particularly useful but it just listed the basic uses of rubber and what industries utilize natural rubber. The article itself was focused on discussing the current rubber industry and how the industry is in search of new alternatives to rubber trees, which is where much of the natural rubber comes from.

Zephyr, Frank. “International Natural Rubber Market, 1870-1930.” EH.net. Economic 

History Association. Accessed 14 Nov. 2020. 

This web article was helpful in understanding the early history of the natural rubber trade. It provides a helpful introduction to what natural rubber is and how it is harvested. It then later provides detailed information on the natural rubber trade in Brazil and Malaysia.