|
The Abir Congo Company (founded as the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company and later known as the Compagnie du Congo Belge) was a company that exploited natural rubber in the Congo Free State, the private property of King Leopold II of Belgium. The company was founded with British and Belgian capital and was based in Belgium. By 1898 there were no longer any British shareholders and the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company changed its name to the Abir Congo Company and changed its residence for tax purposes to the Free State. The company was granted a large concession in the north of the country and the rights to tax the inhabitants. This tax was taken in the form of rubber obtained from a relatively rare rubber vine. The collection system revolved around a series of trade posts along the two main rivers in the concession. Each post was commanded by a European agent and manned with armed sentries to enforce taxation and punish any rebels. Abir enjoyed a boom through the late 1890s, by selling a kilogram of rubber in Europe for up to 10 fr which had cost them just 1.35 fr. However, this came at a cost to the human rights of those who couldn't pay the tax with imprisonment, flogging and other corporal punishment recorded. Abir's failure to suppress destructive harvesting methods and to maintain rubber plantations meant that the vines became increasingly scarce and by 1904 profits began to fall. During the early 1900s famine and disease spread across the concession, a natural disaster judged by some to have been exacerbated by Abir's operations, further hindering rubber collection. The 1900s also saw widespread rebellions against Abir's rule in the concession and attempts at mass migration to the French Congo or southwards. These events typically resulted in Abir dispatching an armed force to restore order. A series of reports into the operation of the Free State were issued starting with the British Consul, Roger Casement's Casement Report and followed by reports commissioned by the Free State and Leopold II. These detailed unlawful killings and other abuses made by Abir and Leopold II was embarrassed into instituting reforms. These began with the appointment of American Richard Mohun by Leopold II as director of Abir. However, rubber exports continued to fall and rebellions increased, resulting in the Free State assuming control of the concession in 1906. Abir continued to receive a portion of profits from rubber exports and in 1911 was refounded as a rubber plantation harvesting company. The later history of the company is unknown but it was still active in 1926. == Origins == The Congo Free State was a corporate state in Central Africa privately owned by King Leopold II of Belgium founded and recognised by the Berlin Conference of 1885.〔.〕 What would later become Abir Company territory was the land between the Lopori and Maringa river basins, tributaries of the Congo River, in the north of the state. The local populace here were yam and cassava farmers who engaged in trade with river fishermen and pygmy hunters.〔.〕 In 1885 a force of the Manyema people, followers of Tippu Tip, the Swahili-Zanzibari slave trader, arrived at the head of the Lopori River from Stanley Falls. They took hostages from nearby villages to ransom in return for ivory. By 1892 they had enrolled local people into their army and controlled the entire eastern half of the basin.〔.〕 The Free State was concerned by this development and in 1889 had enacted the Monopoly Act which declared that all products in the area were to be under their jurisdiction alone. The Free State also began a campaign to drive the slavers, traders and the Manyema from the region, the first stage of which was the establishment of a supply post at Basankusu in May 1890.〔 The campaign would be long but eventually successful and the entire basin was under Free State control by 1898.〔 The Free State began using its new-found control of the region to levy taxes from the local population, gathered using similar hostage tactics to the Manyema.〔.〕 The taxes were initially collected in the form of ivory but when ivory supplies began to run low the Free State switched to natural rubber.〔 The rubber was collected from ''Landolphia owariensis gentilii'' rubber vines which were relatively scarce in the area with an average frequency of around one plant in each acre.〔.〕 The rubber was gathered by tapping a rubber vine and placing a pot beneath to collect the latex which could be used in the production of rubber for the European market. If the vines were a long distance from the ground the gatherer would have had to climb a tree, tap the plant and hold the collecting pot beneath the vine, possibly for an entire day.〔.〕 Hence rubber collection was a labour-intensive process which made it unpopular with the villagers. Indeed they preferred the Manyema to the Free State authorities as the Manyema only took low bulk, high value items such as ivory or slaves because of the long distances from their homeland whereas the state, with its steamboat transports, could afford to make the people harvest the low value high bulk rubber.〔 By September 1892 the Free State was using its military forces to attack and occupy villages in the Lulonga and Maringa river valleys to expand its tax base.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Abir Congo Company」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|