X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Congo Free State


Cordylobia anthropophaga

Doctors Rodhain and Bequaert conclude, from their observations in the Congo Free State, that Cordylobia anthropophaga (Grunberg) lays its eggs on the ground.

Lingala

In the 19th century, before the creation of the Congo Free State, the Bangala, (literally: 'river people'), were a group of similar Bantu peoples living and trading along the bend of the Congo River that reached from Irebu at the mouth of the Ubangi River to the Mongala River.

Rejaf

The Lado Enclave was an exclave of the Congo Free State that existed from 1894 until 1910, leased by the British to King Leopold II of Belgium for the period of his lifetime.


Chiengi

Chiengi boma was established during the race between Belgian King Leopold II's Congo Free State and the British South Africa Company (BSAC) of Cecil Rhodes to seize Katanga from its king, Msiri, in 1890-91.

Gongo Lutete

In 1886, he joined forces with the Arab slave trader Tippu Tip near Stanley Pool, where Tip was organizing resistance to Leopold II's Congo Free State.

Hubert Biermans

From 1890 to 1898, in Congo, Biermans worked on the construction of the Matadi-Léopoldville Railway, linking the port of Matadi to the Stanley Pool and to Léopoldville.

John Lancelot Todd

In 1903 Todd and Dutton accepted an invitation by King Leopold II of Belgium to research the connection between trypanosoma and sleeping sickness in the Congo Free State.

Joseph Everett Dutton

He died in the Congo Free State at the age of 29 from tick fever, or African relapsing fever, while investigating the disease, which is caused by a spirillum that was later named Borrelia duttoni.

Kazembe

After Msiri’s death the Luapula valley was divided in 1894 between Britain — the eastern shores of the Luapula and Lake Mweru became part of North-Eastern Rhodesia, administered by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) — and King Leopold II of Belgium’s misnamed Congo Free State (CFS), or rather its agent, the Compagnie du Katanga, which took over the western shores.

Lubaland

Around 1500 CE Lubas united to form a kingdom which was ultimately taken over in 1885 by Leopold II, King of Belgium, who made it part of his Congo Free State.


see also

Belgian colonial empire

It also annexed Katanga, a territory held under the Congo Free State, which Leopold had gained in 1891.

King Leopold

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909), second king of the Belgians and founder and owner of the Congo Free State

Order of Leopold

Order of Leopold II, founded in Congo Free State in 1900 as "Order of Leopold" and incorporated into the Belgian honor system in 1908, by Leopold II of Belgium

William Sheppard

William Henry Sheppard, African-American Presbyterian missionary famous for revealing Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State