Did a “forgotten holocaust” happen during the Independent Free State of Congo (IFS) period?

Would one, 10, 12 or 13 million Congolese have perished during Leopold II’s rule over Congo Free State? Again, the scattering of the figures strips them of all credibility. But let us take a closer look at the alleged or possible causes.

It should be pointed out here that to finance the huge costs of its rapid development, the IFS had chosen to rely on compulsory contributions from the population in addition to the financial contributions from King Leopold II. Since the latter did not yet have any financial resources, this contribution was made in the form of services of all kinds in kind, which were determined by region and strictly regulated in terms of content, duration, quantities, etc.
The “red rubber” is under the fiercest attack in this regard. The gruesome stories that spread about how it was harvested give the impression that millions of indigenous people were victims of it. But exports barely exceeded 6,000 tonnes/year (1901), equivalent to a production of 20,000 kg per day. With one kg or one pound as in Brazil, or even less per man/day, only several tens of thousands of workers were needed. Once it was realised that the methods and production requirements for this were too burdensome, the conditions applied for carrying out the harvest were adjusted to take better account of the distances that had to be covered in the forest to reach the rubber-bearing vines and to limit the compulsory work more efficiently to the legal maximum of forty hours per month.

Railway construction? The most deadly, the Chemin de fer du Congo (Matadi-Leopoldville), counted 1,932 dead over its 400 km, many of whom, several hundred, were not Congolese or died of natural causes in the company’s medical facilities. Before 1908, 1,000 km were built across the entire territory of Congo Free State. The total death rate can therefore be estimated at several thousand (note that the death rate of whites was proportionately much higher than that of blacks). Despite this high human cost, the death toll from these works in the Belgian Congo was quite low compared to the huge losses recorded – over 17,000 people – in the construction of the Brazzaville-Ocean railway. By comparison, it can also be pointed out that the construction of the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal and, more recently, the Three Ravine Canal in China caused comparatively high and sometimes much higher death rates, despite the improvement of the safety measures applied.

The construction of caravan tracks? Usually these followed the route of pre-existing paths, which were rectified, cleared, widened and stabilised by laterite or woodwork, usually without earthworks. This work was carried out by locals, without long-distance travel, and basically as part of legally limited mandatory services. So it could hardly have been deadly.

Human transport? Figures on this are available on the main transport axis, between Matadi and Kinshasa, via the “Route des Caravanes”. Before the construction of the railway, 25,000 loads of 25 to 35 kg were transported annually in about 20 stages of 20 to 25 km per day. Again, an elementary calculation shows that 3,000 permanently rotating carriers would have been sufficient. In fact, there were no permanent porters: as soon as their work was done, they went home. More could not be expected: the work was too hard, but could hardly be lethal under these conditions. In fact, about thirty thousand men took turns for a period of about 20 days a year.

Military operations caused many more deaths, especially during the anti-slavery campaigns from 1890 to 1894, when the Arabs and their allies gathered large numbers of troops. On the other hand, the expeditions to the Nile against the Mahdists and the suppression of the Batetela and Budja rebels involved only a few thousand men. Moreover, according to the ranks of the officers who commanded them, the IFS troops taking part in these expeditions generally must not have been very numerous.

The military history of the IFS. is mainly characterised by lists of villages abandoned by the inhabitants when the troops approached, by a reflex similar to that of our Belgian population during the wars, and unfortunately also by reprisals and fires committed by unruly or poorly commanded soldiers who were furious because they had found nothing to loot. The account of their dubious performance, together with the “red rubber”, provided the main content of the libel campaigns against Leopold II. The storylines seem numerous, but on closer inspection they are spread over many years and, as far as the Europeans are concerned, committed by a limited number of brutal mercenaries who, then as now, were attracted by acts of violence and adventures, especially in very remote areas where the control of the IFS’s administrative authorities did not extend.

But it is especially worth mentioning the auxiliaries who were under the command of indigenous rulers who wreaked havoc on part of Kasai and Katanga. The casualties, mostly fleeing, were few, however: the Congolese, accustomed to tribal wars, readily abandoned their villages to settle elsewhere at the slightest threat, taking their meagre goods and food supplies with them. So the depopulation of certain regions was only an appearance, as were the food shortages. In reality, no famine of the kind currently caused by the war in South Sudan is reported, after many others resulting from too rapid decolonisation, and certainly far more deadly than the meagre Leopoldian military columns.

The loss of life due to the causes just mentioned was probably offset in whole or in part by the elimination of slavery – the Arab manhunt for men that devastated much of Congo’s territory – the cessation of tribal wars, periodic massacres by bloodthirsty potentates and murderous or inhuman customs, and by the benevolent action of missionaries and doctors.

However, the main mortality factors were epidemics, such as smallpox, and the spread of previously localised endemics, such as sleeping sickness. Vaccination soon countered the former, but against the latter people did not know remedies for a long time: in 1901 alone, 500,000 Congolese died from it, far more than the victims of all other causes combined. Lung diseases and parasitic infections were also imported or more widely spread due to population movements.

Without Leopold II, the main causes of death would have been just as much at work, once the “terra incognita” opened up to the outside world. We would have needed just as much rubber in the world, where it was harvested in the same way everywhere, we would have had to drive out the slavers, build tracks and railways, endure the actions of the few adventurers willing to penetrate equatorial hell, and mourn the sight of the same epidemics.

But with him, Congo went down in history: the first mass vaccinations carried out under his rule foreshadowed the health action that would bring the natural population growth from the 3-4% it was before the IFS to the 22% of the 1950s. Thanks to him, many more children will certainly have been born and many more sick people cured than died under his rule. The unjust fate that has plagued the people of Congo since the beginning of time has also been lifted: Congo is moving into the world, and directly into modernity, sparing itself the long, tragic and murderous history that our countries have had to go through to achieve this. Congo is also beginning to become a nation and will discover a historical destiny: to become the political and economic centre of gravity of Central Africa.