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ABSTRACT
When historians have examined labour relations in the Belgian Congo, the paradigmatic image is that of rapacious, avaricious metropolitan investors oppressing helpless African communities by dint of a skeletal but violent cohort of intermediaries. Leopold II was exemplary of this trend. Having never set foot in the Congo, he drew vast profits from the territory by means of initiating a series of appalling atrocities as his employees coerced Africans into harvesting rubber in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such emphasis on exploitation fits with a long-standing scholarly emphasis on African dependency that has also highlighted how capital has leaked out of the Congo and into Europe and North America. Yet this article argues, first, that capital sometimes leaked from Europe to the Congo. Secondly, this essay suggests that not every investor in the Congo was as mendacious and cynical as Leopold II. Some, namely the Lever brothers, came to the Congo in the sincere hopes of establishing Christian, middle class African communities in the bush. But Lever's plans were compromised by the firm's paternalism and their overriding need to turn a profit.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 218.
2 Trapido, “Africa's Leaky Giant,” 12.
3 Fieldhouse, Unilever Overseas.
4 Darwin, “Decolonization and the End of Empire.”
5 Sindani, “La transformation des structures socio-économiques Pindi dans le secteur HCB de Kwenge, de la fin du 19e siècle, à 1956.”
6 Recueil à l’Usage des Fonctionnaires et des Agents du Service Territorial au Congo Belge, Brussels, S.A.M. Weissenbruch, 1925, p. 5.
7 Unilever Archives (UA), LBC/229, W.H. Lever to Max Horn, 3 September 1915.
8 Lewis, Op. Cit., 22–3.
9 Lewis, “So Clean”, 110–1.
10 Meredith, “Government and the Decline of the Nigerian Oil-Palm Industry,” 311.
11 Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost.
12 Vanthemsche, Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980, 271.
13 Clement, “The Land Tenure System in the Congo, 1885-1960,” 101.
14 Lewis, So Clean, 167.
15 “Projet de décret approuvant une convention conclue le 21 février 1911 entre le Gouvernement du Congo belge et la Société ‘Lever Brothers Limited’” et ayant pour objet la concession de terres à une société à constituer sous le nom de: “Société Anonyme des Huileries du Congo Belge”, in Annales Parlementaires 1911, Document parlementaire n°126.
16 Emile Vandervelde (1886–1938), Member of Parliament, minister of justice (1918–1921), foreign affairs (1925–1927), and health (1936–1937), was the president of the Belgian Workers Party from 1933 to 1938, and the president of the Socialist International from 1923 to 1938.
17 Fieldhouse, Unilever Overseas, 505.
18 We are grateful to one of the anonymous referees for this point.
19 Fieldhouse, Unilever Overseas, 177.
20 Ibidem, 168–9.
21 Lewis, Op. Cit., 177.
22 Fieldhouse, Op. Cit., 509.
23 Polasky, Emile Vandervelde. Le Patron. Renton, Seddon, and Zeilig, The Congo, 49.
24 Renton, Seddon, and Zeilig, The Congo, 49.
25 Willame, Patrimonialism and Political Change in the Congo, 15.
26 Sanderson, “Le Congo Belge Entre Mythe et Réalité. Une Analyse du Discours Démographique Colonial,” 331–55; Vansina, Being Colonized; Harms, “The End of Red Rubber: A Reassessment,” 73–88; Harms, “The World Abir Made,” 125–39.
27 Stengers, Congo: Mythes et Réalités.
28 Northrup, Beyond the Bend in the River.
29 Henriet, “‘Elusive Natives’: Escaping Colonial Control,”3.
30 Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila, 22.
31 Lewis, So Clean, 166–7.
32 A famous literary depiction of this kind of infrastructure is to be found in Conrad, Heart of Darkness .
33 Roes, “Towards a History of Mass Violence,” 634–70.
34 Vansina, Being Colonized, 145.
35 Cooper, Africa Since 1940, 156–7.
36 Lauro, “Les politiques du mariage et de la sexualité au Congo belge (1908-1945). Genre, race, sexualité et pouvoir colonial,” 61–4.
37 Ibidem, 59, 61.
38 Travaux du groupe d’études coloniales de l’institut de sociologie Solvay, Recrutement et formation des fonctionnaires territoriaux, Brussels, Hayez, 1909, p. 4.
39 Hydén, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania.
40 Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
41 Likaka, Rural Society and Cotton in Colonial Zaire.
42 Boyle, “School Wars: Church, State and the Death of Congo,”451.
43 UA, LBC/215: Leverhulme to Horn, 17 March 1916.
44 Lever's European staff numbered 408 in 1928, see: H. Seidelin, ‘Huileries du Congo Belge (HCB) Service Médical en 1928,’ available at: http://abergo1.e-monsite.com/medias/files/hcb-medical.pdf (accessed 3 May 2018).
45 For another example of the key position occupied by clerks in the harvest of natural resources in interwar Equatorial Africa, see: Rich, “Troubles at the Office,” 64.
46 Rose Hunt, A Nervous State.
47 Rose Hunt, “Rewriting the Soul in a Flemish Congo,”185–215.
48 Likaka, Naming Colonialism, 116; Rose Hunt, “An Acoustic Register, Tenacious Images, and Congolese Scenes,” 220–53.
49 Rose Hunt, “Rewriting the Soul in a Flemish Congo.”
50 A well-documented case of such abuses: the sojourn of HCB recruiter Van Hombeek and territorial agent Burnotte in the village of Kilamba (Kwango district), between 13 and 15 May 1931. As adult men fled the village to escape being recruited, Van Hombeek and Burnotte and ordered to the Congolese “messengers” accompanying them to seize the remaining women and confiscate the villager's cattle. For four days, they remained in Kilamba, living on the inhabitants’ resources. They were joined every night by the manager of a nearby post of the Compagnie du Kasaï, Collignon. At the end of heavy drinking sessions, the men indulged themselves in the company of local women. Collignon raped two villagers, Kizela and Kafutshi. These events are considered as a turning point in the triggering of the so-called “Kwango revolt”, one of the most important anti-colonial outburst in the history of Belgian Congo. See: Sikitele, “Histoire de la révolte des Pende de 1931”; Vanderstraeten, La répression de la révolte des Pende du Kwango en 1931; Thomas, Violence and Colonial Order, 301–25. Strother, “Art with Fight in It,”.
51 Seibert, “More Continuity Than Change?” 380.
52 Henriet, “The Concession Experience,” 254–60.
53 Harms, “The End of Red Rubber: A Reassessment.”
54 Henriet, Op. Cit., 251–4.
55 Wilson, “The Economic Role and Mainsprings of Imperialism,”82.
56 Nicolaï, Le Kwilu. Etude géographique d’une region congolaise, 283.
57 Henriet, Op. Cit., 261–4.
58 Henriet, “‘Elusive Natives’: Escaping Colonial Control,” 339–61.
59 AAB, AIMO 1680, Letttre du directeur de Leverville au commissaire de district du Kwango, 12 août 1914.
60 AAB, AI 4739, Lettre de l’administrateur délégué des HCB au Gouverneur de la Province du Congo-Kasaï, 12 décembre 1923.
61 D. K. Fieldhouse, Op. Cit., 499.
62 Ibidem., 508–9.
63 Ibidem., 512.
64 Throughout the colonial era, the COF's exchange rate was fixed for 1 COF to worth 1 Belgian franc (BEF).Buelens, Marysse, Op. Cit., 143.
65 ‘Projet de décret approuvant une convention conclue le 21 février 1911 entre le Gouvernement du Congo belge et la Société “Lever Brothers Limited”’.
66 AAB, MOI 3602, Lettre de l’administrateur territorial de Bulungu au commissaire de district du Kwango, 20 septembre 1916.
67 AAB, AIMO 1855, Lettre du gouverneur de la province du Congo-Kasaï au commissaire de district du Kwango, 22 janvier 1931.
68 AAB, AIMO 1855, Lettre du commissaire général Wauters au gouverneur de la province du Congo-Kasaï, 18 février 1932.
69 Buelens, Marysse, Op. Cit., 143.
70 Jewsiewicki, Op. Cit. (1977), 158.
71 Fieldhouse, Op. Cit., 514.
72 AAB, Main d’Ouevre Indigène (MOI), 3602, Lettre du commissaire de district du Kwango au gouverneur de la province du Congo-Kasaï, 7 septembre 1923.
73 Lewis, Op. Cit., 155.
74 Chikwangues are sticks of boiled cassava pulp sold in banana leaves. It is a popular and widespread foodstuff in the Central Africa. AAB, MOI 3602, Lettre de l’administrateur-délégué des HCB au directeur du cercle de Lusanga, 7 septembre 1923.
75 AAB, MOI 3602, lettre de l’administrateur territorial de Bulungu au commissaire de district du Kwango, 20 septembre 1916.
76 K. Yenda, interviewed by Kiangu Sindani, 25 October 1982. Sindani, “La transformation des structures socio-économiques Pindi dans le secteur HCB de Kwenge, de la fin du 19e siècle, à 1956,” 29.
77 Kaluvanda Kitembe (b.c. 1930), Kangu, 11 August 2015.
78 Schler, “Bridewealth, Guns and Other Status Symbols,”216.
79 Jewsiewicki, “Raison d’Etat ou raison du capital,” 170; Seibert, Op. Cit., 372.
80 Among the many speeches, pamphlets and articles written on the matter, here is a passage of the inaugural lesson of the course ‘Colonisation et Politique Coloniale’ at Brussels University, 24 October 1932. ‘ Les agents des gouvernements coloniaux ont pour devoir primordial d’inciter les indigènes au travail, source d’amélioration des conditions matérielles d’existence, source aussi de bienfaits pour l’ensemble de la société’. Heusch, “L’Esclavage et le travail forcé dans les Colonies,” 160.
81 See Seibert, Op. Cit., 382, Higginson, Op. Cit., 103–8. Northrup, Op. Cit., 97–100., Likaka, Op. Cit., 18–20.
82 AAB, AIMO 1644, “Une protestation des chefs des missions catholiques au sujet du recrutement de la main d’oeuvre indigène”, L’Essor du Congo, 24 janvier 1929.
83 Houben and Seibert, “(Un)Freedom,” 186.
84 Likaka, Rural Society and Cotton in Colonial Zaire, 131.
85 AAB, AIMO 1654, Lettre de l’administrateur du territoire d’Idiofa au commissaire de district du Kwango, 22 novembre 1923.
86 AAB, Affaires Etrangères (AE), 3268, Rapport d’enquête sur la révolte du Kwango, 29 novembre 1931.
87 Likaka, Op. Cit., 52–3. Mathys, “People on the Move,” 205–6. Thomas, “Forced Labour in British West Africa,” 85, 87. Tiquet, Op. Cit., 294–5.
88 Tignor, Op. Cit., 346–7.Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Op. Cit. (1972), 105.
89 AAB, AIMO 1644, Questionnaire sur l’esclavage dans le territoire du Moyen-Kwenge, 23 mai 1925.
90 AAB, MOI 3602, Lettre de l’administrateur territorial Piret au Commissaire de District du Kwango, 7 juillet 1923.
91 Likaka, Rural Society and Cotton in Colonial Zaire.
92 Vanthemsche, La Belgique et le Congo. L’Impat de la Colonie sur la Metropole, 166–74.
93 Buelens, Congo 1885-1960, 286–91.
94 AAB, AIMO 1855, Lettre du commissaire de district du Kwango à l’administrateur territorial des Bapende, 30 juin 1945.
95 AAB, AIMO 1855, District du Kwango à Province de Léopoldville, 9 mars 1944.
96 AAB, AIMO 1855, District du Kwango à Province de Léopoldville, 30 mai 1942.
97 Fieldhouse, Unilever Overseas, 376.
98 Ibid., 511.
99 UAC/2/36/6/1/1, Plantations Lever au Congo, 1.
100 UAC/2/36/6/1/1, Brochures, Huilever S. A: Extrait des ‘Archives Economiques du Congo Belge’ (1956), 11.
101 Ibid., 12.
102 Vellut, “Hégémonies En Construction,” 330.
103 Low and Lonsdale, “Introduction: Towards the New Order, 1945-1963,” 1–63.
104 UNI: RM: OC/2/3/26/11, Savonneries Congolaises S. A., Review of Operations, 1949, 1.
105 Corley and Tinker, The Oil Palm, 58; UAC/2/36/6/1/1, Plantations Lever au Congo, p. 8; Extract from a Letter to Mr. Faure from Yaligimba Congo – Belge. D. T. 3.2.49, 1.
106 UAC/2/36/6/1/1, Plantations Lever au Congo, 8.
107 Ibid.
108 UAC/2/36/6/1/1, Brochures, Huilever S. A: Extrait des ‘Archives Economiques du Congo Belge’, 14.
109 Ibid., 19.
110 UAC/1/2/3/7/13, Correspondence Files, ‘Minutes of a Meeting at Unilever House, 20 September 1946, 1.
111 Fieldhouse, Op. Cit., 544.
112 UNI: RM: OC/2/2/26/17, ‘Notes on a Visit to the Belgian Congo of Mr. Sidney J. Van Den Bergh’ (25 February – 26 March 1953), 2.
113 UAC/1/2/3/7/13, Correspondence Files, Enclosure No. 4 to Report Dated 1948 on Visit to Belgian Congo 1947.
114 Ibid.
115 UAC/2/36/6/1/1, Brochures, Huilever S. A: Extrait des ‘Archives Economiques du Congo Belge’, 14.
116 Ibid., 16.
117 Gérard Fonteneau avec la Collaboration de Noël Madounga et d’André Linard, Histoire du Syndicalisme en Afrique, 49.
118 Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.