The so-called Congo Free State was a Belgian colony in Africa whose name provided the merest figleaf to the truth: that it was an extractive colonial state like any other European-run part of Africa. In 1908, the Belgian Parliament voted to annex the area, resulting in the state being renamed Belgian Congo. It was largely a corporate state, ultimately owned by King Leopold II of Belgium, and its primary export was rubber. Rubber was grown on plantations that are, even today, legendary for their cruelty. In particular, African workers – and non-workers – having their hands cut off was common – and was a continuation of the policies of the Congo Free State. It’s not for nothing that Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness was set in the colonial Congo.
Belgium would retain ownership of this colony for decades, inflicting great cruelty and death on the Congolese people. During World War One, as rubber from Malaya became more popular, it shifted into copper mining, and later uranium mining – the uranium used by the Manhattan Project, including that used in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was mined in the Congo. The Congo would eventually become independent from Belgium in 1960, leading to a civil war lasting until 1964.
