Belgian Congo was a colony of Belgium from 1908 until 1960. Prior to that, the region had been the Congo Free State (created in 1885), which was effectively a private enterprise of King Leopold II. Often referred to as Belgian Congo even before 1908, Leopold never visited his colony but allowed unspeakable horrors to be carried out there to squeeze the maximum profit from plantations and mines. The 20th century saw some of the more inhumane practices abolished, but the region remained one of the most divided and exploited in Africa. In 1960, the colony gained independence and was renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo (but known as Zaire between 1965 and 1997).

The basin of the Congo River is located in Central Africa. The region is composed of humid tropical forests with amongst the highest levels of rainfall in Africa. Thunderstorms can occur on over 80 days in a calendar year. The southern part of Congo is largely 'derived' savanna where grass and low trees grow. The soil is not particularly advantageous to cultivation and requires careful management. The population of the region at the time of European colonialisation was made up of over 200 tribes with 300 different languages being spoken. These peoples lived either in small-scale political units or larger, more centralised states, like the Luba and Lunda kingdoms. The eastern part of Congo is noted for the presence of mountain gorillas, today an endangered species.

The Berlin Conference 1884 to 5 was a gathering of European leaders to decide on colonial matters in Africa. One dispute to thrash out was the rival claim of Portugal and Belgium to control the Congo River basin. No African leaders were invited to this conference, despite, as was the case in Congo, many regions having long developed sophisticated kingdoms of rule. Portugal's claim was based on rather vague historical trade contacts in the region going back to the late 15th century. Slaves from Congo were sent to Portuguese and Spanish colonies in South America in large numbers.

Leopold II, King of the Belgians (reign 1865 to 1909), unlike the Portuguese, could already demonstrate treaties signed with local tribal leaders, and he promised to pursue scientific and humanitarian objectives in Congo. Leopold won the dispute. Accordingly, the woefully misnamed Congo Free State (État indépendant du Congo) was created in 1885. Containing most of the Congo basin, the state was little more than a huge private park for the Belgian king to indulge his colonial whims and line his pockets. The only thing that was free about Congo now was that, as agreed in Berlin, other European states were to be given unrestricted access for trade and shipping.

Leopold's private empire was a curious case of a constitutional monarch acting entirely independently of his own government, which wanted no part in any African empire. Leopold, though, was determined to grab for himself a slice of what he described as "this magnificent African cake" (Oliver, 164). In short, Belgium and the Congo Free State had no connection whatsoever except that they shared the same monarch. The Belgian government might have shied away from imperialism, but Belgian financiers certainly did not. Assembling a consortium of investors, Leopold promised vast returns from such cash crops as rubber and palm oil and luxury materials like ivory. The people of Congo were about to discover the horror of capitalism unhindered by any government oversight or moral decency.

Leopold chose as his administrator in Congo no less a figure than Henry Stanley (1841 to 1904), a journalist most famous as the man who had 'found' fellow explorer and missionary David Livingston (1813 to 1873), who had been considered lost in the heart of Africa. Stanley had explored the Congo basin through the 1870s. Stanley, in the employ of Leopold since 1878, had already been setting up trading posts along the Congo River and had established trade links and treaties with local leaders through to the mid-1880s. It was Stanley's work that had been presented at the Berlin Conference.

From 1885, with the seal of approval from other European powers, Leopold sought more concrete military control of the region by forming an African army led by European officers, the Force Publique. This was another tragically inappropriate name since this army had no interest whatsoever in the Congo public's welfare. The sole purpose of the Force Publique was to strike terror into the population and ensure labourers worked up to and beyond their physical limits. This policy did not reap rewards initially, and the Congo Free State was still not making Leopold and his investors any profit five years later. Indeed, the enterprise was running at such a large loss that the Belgian government was obliged to give Leopold a loan in 1890 and a second one in 1895. This was the first tangible connection made between the two states. A second link was the loaning of officers of the Belgian Army, still with their salaries paid for by the Belgian government, to serve in the Force Publique.

The Congo Free State did start to make a profit thanks to John Dunlop, who invented the pneumatic rubber tyre in 1888. The world could not get enough rubber, and Congo was one of the major producers from 1895. Leopold ensured that rubber became a state monopoly in all but name, and by 1901, Congo was producing 10% of the world's rubber. Another boost came after the copper mines of the Katanga region were taken over in 1891. In 1894, a long and violent battle with Swahili-Arab traders came to an end, and Leopold's dream of controlling the Congo basin was finally achieved. The Congo Free State was 80 times bigger than Belgium. As nearly all the colonial administrators and Force Publique officers were Belgians, it is no surprise that the Congo Free State was commonly referred to as Belgian Congo, even though there remained no political ties at all between the two states besides Leopold himself.

Run entirely as a private enterprise for profit, Congolese workers on plantations and in mines endured a living hell. Commercial stations (known as 'factories') were established everywhere to gather in commodities like ivory and rubber that could then be shipped out and sold elsewhere. Forced labour, beatings, lashings, mutilations, and the taking of hostages to increase production quotas were all regular features of Leopold's Congo. White managers of the plantations could beat and kill their workers with total impunity. The regime was so brutal that eventually it could not find enough workers as people fled urban areas to the more remote parts of the country. Any resistance to colonial rule was brutally quashed. Entire villages were massacred, and so many crops were destroyed that famines were not infrequent. Diseases like smallpox and sleeping sickness hit the undernourished population in waves of deadly epidemics.

The Congolese people received little or no material benefit from the trade that went on in the Congo Free State, a trade that had destroyed their traditional commercial networks. Belgium did benefit, though, first by Leopold using Congo profits to build new castles, museums, parks, and such structures as the Arcade du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and then through a specially created foundation where the Belgian state received the profits from one-tenth of the Congo Free State's territories.

The king, although he never set foot in Congo, certainly knew of the methods used in his private state since he "never delegated power, he exercised it personally. All the great decisions were his. When his advisers did not agree with him, they had to quit. In the daily work, in his office in Brussels, he concerned himself even with details" (Fage, 317). It is debated by historians just how sincere Leopold's claims were that he tried to prevent the worst atrocities being carried out in Congo. The king's private correspondence, which irrefutably proves he did know what was going on, does contain examples of remorse and a determination not to ruin his own and Belgium's reputation in the international community.

A stronger view of Leopold's complicity in atrocities is expressed by the historian L. James, who notes that the king was "a slave to avarice, utterly without conscience and callously indifferent to the human suffering created by his ventures in the Congo" (James, 72). This view would have been endorsed by another international villain, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who once described Leopold as "Satan and Mammon in one person" (ibid). A more forgiving position is that Leopold allowed himself to be persuaded that the reports of abuses were exaggerated. Ultimately, the ends justified the means for both the king and the Belgian government. The Belgian people, meanwhile, were largely unaware of the horrors the Congolese were being subjected to.

Eventually, the secret got out regarding just what was going on in Congo, although hints and rumours had been circulating in public spaces for quite some time. One such indicator of colonial brutality was Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, whose main character works for the Belgian authorities. This man, Kurtz, goes insane as a result of frontier life, whispering on his deathbed, "The horror! The horror!" Other, more concrete revelations came from respected foreign travellers and missionaries who had spent time in Congo and seen for themselves the atrocities. The abuses were also confirmed and documented in a 1905 special commission composed of a Belgian, a Swiss, and an Italian investigator. By 1908, the international outrage was so great at the atrocities being carried out in what Europeans called deepest darkest Africa that the Belgian government was obliged to take over the Congo Free State. It is estimated that at least one million Africans died in Congo as a result of Leopold's nightmare regime; some historians would put the figure at 10 million.

The Congo Free State was renamed Belgian Congo and became a colony administered by the Belgian government. The capital continued to be Leopoldville (future Kinshasa). Investment increased from Belgian banks now that the state was officially backed by the government, particularly in areas with mining potential like Katanga, Kasai, and Ituri. However, the Belgian authorities now had to manage a country that was split in all directions between rival tribes, Whites and non-Whites, traders and workers, the educated minority and those denied such opportunities, and, in between, those who collaborated and those of mixed parentage. To keep rebellions against colonial rule to a minimum, there was a strict ban on any kind of political association. Non-Whites had no political rights at all.

Uranium was discovered in 1915, and Katanga added to its copper yields by exporting cobalt and diamonds. During the First World War (1914 to 18), 15,000 Congolese troops of the Force Publique fought for the Allies, and 250,000 Congolese were pressed into service as porters during the East African Campaign against German East Africa. After Germany's defeat in WWI, Belgian Congo received a slice of Germany's ex-colony: Ruanda-Urundi.

After the war, investors from Europe and the United States saw the potential for profit from Congo's impressive list of natural mineral resources. Coffee, cotton, and cacao plantations were expanded to supplement the trade in rubber and palm oil. By the 1920s, Belgian Congo was the world's leading producer of cobalt, radium, and industrial diamonds. There were now 60,000 African labourers working in Congo's mines.

There was a price to pay for Congo's export boom, and it was, as usual, Africans who had to foot the bill in the form of compulsory labour on projects like road-building and railways, poor food supplies, disease epidemics, the prohibition of industrial trade unions, and social upheaval. Local people literally saw no future for themselves, and the rapid decline in birth rates was noted with alarm by missionaries, colonial administrators, and industrialists concerned that their workforce would vanish in the future.

A partial response was limited reforms, which tried to offer Africans something in return for the European occupation. Investment was made in worker accommodation villages to make them more family-friendly. Institutions of elementary education were subsidised, although these schools, run by Roman Catholic missions, were far from neutral. The colonial authorities flattered themselves that they were bringing what they described as 'total civilization' to Congo. In contrast to the support for Christian institutions, "only a few mosques were allowed to be built and there was a total ban on Muslim schools in the colony" (Boahen, 220). In general, Christian missionaries "had a negative attitude towards African religion and culture and were determined right from the start to stamp them out" (ibid).

Any form of political organisation that questioned colonial rule continued to be repressed by the Force Publique, which was now a menacing mix of occupying army and local police force. One notable Congolese leader was Simon Kimbangu, who claimed he had been touched by God and whose followers, the Kimbanguists, persistently called for acts of civil disobedience and the removal of Europeans from Congo. Kimbangu was arrested in 1921, and he spent the next 30 years in prison. There were many other groups opposed to colonial rule, which were based on religious or political ties, but there were also groups that simply wanted better working conditions for those who laboured on the plantations and in the mines. The forced labour of Leopold's day had largely come to an end (although it was not entirely eradicated as labour became a form of taxation for many communities). Wages remained low and were rarely adjusted to match inflation. Working conditions, especially in the mines, railway, and road-building industries, continued to be abysmal.

While many rebelled or fled the regime when they could, it is also true that some African chiefs did collaborate with the Belgian authorities in the hope of promoting their own position at the expense of long-standing rivals. "Without African allies and mercenaries, it would not have been possible for the Europeans to impose their rule at such a minimal cost in manpower" (Boahen, 88). Another successful strategy by the rulers was to steadily reduce the number of tribal leaders and break up their power base by creating new areas of administration and moving people to new locations. The result was that the number of small kingdoms and chiefdoms in Belgian Congo "was reduced from 6095 in 1917 to 1212 in 1938" (Boahen, 147).

By the outbreak of the Second World War (1939 to 45), Belgian Congo had a population of 10.4 million, of which only 25,000 were White people. When Belgium was occupied by Germany at the beginning of the war, the Belgian government in exile in London continued to administer Belgian Congo. As the war required enormous quantities of raw materials, the British government bought all of the colony's copper production throughout the conflict, around 800,000 tons. The United States' Manhattan Project to produce the world's first atomic bomb used uranium from Belgian Congo. Tungsten and tin were other valuable exports in this period. The Force Publique, meanwhile, contributed 40,000 men to the Allied war effort, serving in East Africa, Nigeria, and the Middle East.

The post-war world saw many African nations begin to call more determinedly and more violently for freedom from European rule. In Congo, strikes and riots had already occurred while WWII raged, fuelled by a steep rise in prices. The growing number of educated white-collar Congolese (known as évolués) had no means of participating in political life since "a distinguishing feature of Belgian rule in the post-war Congo was the absence of any firm political will to associate the aspiring African bourgeoisie with government" (Oliver, 206).

After major episodes of civil unrest through the next decade and culminating in the riots of 1959, Belgian Congo finally gained independence on 30 June 1960 and was renamed the Republic of Congo, and then the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Initially, it also called itself Congo-Leopoldville to highlight the difference from the former French Congo to the west, which called itself Congo-Brazzaville. The state, like many ex-colonies in Africa, endured its fair share of troubles, not least because the colony "was abandoned by the Belgians without any administrative preparation" (McEvedy, 127). Just 200 Congolese had university degrees in 1960, a stark statistic that shows the utter neglect and prejudice of Belgian rule. The Belgian government also neglected to involve colonial administrators and settlers in its hastily drawn-up handover plan.

In an odd episode of retrospective colonialism, a mutiny by the Congo Army and arrest of the elected prime minister Patrice Lumumba necessitated Belgian military intervention to restore order in July 1960, an intervention principally conducted to protect Belgian citizens. The UN became involved, as did the Cold War adversaries of the United States and USSR, and so, too, mercenaries from other parts of Africa. In the midst of the political jostling, the regions of Katanga and South Kassai declared themselves independent, and another round of fighting began. Lumumba was executed in 1961.

Congo was reunited, more or less, in 1962, but more trouble was ahead. The people of Belgium, long told by their government and monarchy that Congo was an idyllic colony run with remarkable efficiency and kindness to the local population, finally saw, as events unfolded in the full view of the international press, what a chaotic shambles it had all really been.

Once again, names became important, and the Democratic Republic of Congo was called Zaire between 1965 and 1997 while Mobutu Sese Seko was president and democracy was abandoned. The DRC name returned post-1997, but this troubled state was beset with wars with neighbouring Rwanda, Rwandan militants, and their various allies until peace was finally re-established in 2025.