This week’s Facts of the Week focus on the great Kingdom of Kongo, which ruled over a vast area in central Africa that includes present-day DRC, Angola and the Republic of Congo. According to some accounts, it also stretched to Zambia, Namibia and even Gabon.
Kongo has a rich history of culture, fashion, religion and commerce. By the time Portuguese explorers arrived in Kongo in the 15th century, they found its people trading in gold, copperware, ferrous metal goods, raffia cloth, pottery and ivory. Contrary to the colonial version of history, according to which Africans in Kongo lived in tribes independent of each other, the kingdom had robust political and economic structures.
The decline of Kongo began when Belgian king Leopold II annexed the vast mineral-rich central African kingdom as his personal property, establishing the Congo Free State in 1885. Congolese people were forced to work for valuable resources, including rubber and ivory, to enrich Leopold personally. Estimates vary, but about half of the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. Many suffered from disease and torture – with hand and foot amputations a common punishment. In 1908, international pressure over his brutal reign forced Leopold to turn the Congo Free State over to Belgium, which colonised Congo until 1960.
Soon after independence, Congo’s visionary Pan-Africanist leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by Belgian authorities with the backing of the US in 1961, plunging the mineral-rich country into decades of exploitation and misrule by Western puppet president Mobutu Sese Seko. A 30-year resource war involving powerful Western interests has engulfed Congo with untold suffering to date.
Sources:
https://www.worldhistory.org/Kingdom_of_Kongo/
https://www.africarebirth.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-ancient-kongo-kingdom/
https://www.thecollector.com/kingdom-of-kongo-great-catholic-state/
https://thinkafrica.net/kingdom-of-the-kongo/
https://www.persee.fr/doc/cea_0008-0055_1982_num_22_87_3380