History of Central Africa Congo Free State
1885-1908






The Establishment of the Congo Free State, 1876-1885



In 1876, a conference of Africa explorers and geographers was held in Brussels, at the invitation of King LEOPOLD II., ant the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE EXPLORATION AND CIVILISATION OF CENTRAL AFRICA was founded, with King Leopold as president. Beginning in 1877, Belgian expeditions, venturing out from the island of Zanzibar, penetrated into central Africa; in 1879, the first station was founded at KAREMA on the eastern bank of Lake Tanganyika.
Meanwhile, after several expeditions through the African interior, HENRY MORTON STANLEY applied to the British government to finance further expeditions, in 1877, and was refused. King LEOPOLD II. of Belgium, however, was interested.
In 1878, the International Association for the Exploration and Civilisation of Central Africa was renamed INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THE CONGO, still presided by King Leopold, with H.M. Stanley as chief agent. He arrived at the Congo River estuary in 1879, establishing an administrative center at VIVI in 1880, from where he explored (and claimed) the Congo River Basin. Treaties were signed with indigenous chiefs, granting sovereignty to the association.
At the BERLIN CONFERENCE of 1885 the CONGO FREE STATE (with King Leopold being head of state) received international recognition. It was of vital importance for the new state, that Portugal, which had annexed the ancient Kingdom of Kongo in 1884, ceded a narrow but vital strip of land on the southern bank of the lower Congo River to the Free State, thus giving it access to the Atlantic Ocean. The Free State was to be politically neutral and guarantee free trade.








EXTERNAL
FILES 		Library of Congress, Country Studies : Zaire
Bertrand Russell on the Congo Free State, from Bertrand Russell Ring
Colonisation, from Democratic Republic of Congo Homepage
Links to the History of Zaire/Congo, from Looksmart
FLAGS, MAPS Flag of the Congo Free State, from FOTW, of the Lado Enclave from FOTW
DOCUMENTS Treaty of Vivi, 1880, Treaty of Manyanga, 1882, Treaty of Leopoldville , 1883, Treaty with the King of Niadi, no date, List of Stations, Treaties, Districts Ceded, 1883, all posted at this site
General Act of the Berlin Conference, 1885, the so-called 'Congo Act', posted at this site
REFERENCE Henry Wellington Wack, The Story of the Congo Free State , New York & London : Putnam 1905, 634 pp., illustrations, map, appendix of documents; writes in defense of the Congo Free State against accusations of abuses against the natives
The History of Zaire as told and painted by Tshibumba Kanda Matulu in conversation with Johannes Fabian, from Archives of Popular Swahili, interview (1974) posted bilingual Swahili/English, very extensive



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on November 6th 2004

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