Congo Imperialism Essay

1120 Words5 Pages
The Belgians first imperialized the Congo Free State, situated in the middle of Africa, in 1877. Prior to the colonization there was the Luba, Lunda and the Kongo Empire who were all ruled by a king. The Luba Empire was the largest of the kingdoms. Before the colonization by the Belgians, the territory’s land was largely untouched and was rich in natural resources [1] [2] [3]. The Luba army was very small due to the lack of threats from other empires; the kingdoms additionally developed in size through quiet bargains and advantages to small villages. However, in 1884 there was the Berlin conference [4] where the major european powers of france, germany, the UK, spain and belgium split up africa and were all given a share of the continent.…show more content…
The promotion of slavery in the territory would later carry on to the present day. He forced almost all able-bodied men turned into slaves to produce rubber. The slaves were subject to harsh conditions while working where they had to layer the rubber all over their bodies to transport the material. He also held the wives and mothers captive and rapes them if the men would not meet their quotas. In the present day there is still a lot of slavery the Congo, dozens of women in the Congo are raped a day and people are literally work themselves to death. If you look at the present day you still see that there is a lot of the same problems. Armed militias round up villagers at gunpoint and work them to death. Individuals are subjugated to pay off family unit or business obligations. Cash, sustenance, or instruments are progressed to workers, however imposter bookkeeping and oppressive loan fees keep them from reimbursing the obligation and the miners are forced to continue digging. [7] Also sexual violence today is often committed in front of families and villagers to terrorize and control the local population. Ladies and young toddlers was the range of the ages of the people who have been assaulted (from a 23-month old infant to a 84-year old elder)[8]. The impacts that happened was negative and were completely unjustified.

More about Congo Imperialism Essay

Open Document