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| currency = Belgian Congo franc | religion = Christianity, Baluba religion, Bantu religion | leader1 = Leopold II | year_leader1 = 1908–1909 | leader2 = Albert I | year_leader2 = 1909–1934 | leader3 = Leopold III | year_leader3 = 1934–1951 | leader4 = Baudouin I | year_leader4 = 1951–1960 | title_leader = King | representative1 = Théophile Wahis | year_representative1 = 1908–1910 | representative2 = Henri Cornelis | year_representative2 = 1958–1960 | title_representative = Governor-General | footnotes = | stat_year1 = 1960 | stat_area1 = 2344858 | stat_pop1 = 16610000 | stat_year2 = | stat_area2 = | stat_pop2 = | today = }} The Belgian Congo ((フランス語:Congo Belge), (オランダ語:Belgisch-Congo)) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa between 1908 and 1960 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of the Belgians persuaded the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's creating a colony on his own account. With support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885. By the turn of the century, however, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic extraction led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo. Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (''trinité coloniale'') of state, missionary and private company interests. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied, and the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers raised by the indigenous population. The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" (''politique indigène''). This was in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favoured the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight. The Congo had a high degree of racial segregation. The large numbers of white immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social spectrum, but were always treated as superior to blacks. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo had extensive urbanisation, and the colonial administration began various development programmes aimed at making the territory into a "model colony". One of the results was the development of a new middle class of Europeanised African "''évolués''" in the cities. By the 1950s the Congo had a wage labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony. In 1960, as the result of a widespread and increasingly radical pro-independence movement, the Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of Congo-Léopoldville under Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Poor relations between factions within the Congo, the continued involvement of Belgium in Congolese affairs, and intervention by major parties of the Cold War led to a five-year-long period of war and political instability, known as the Congo Crisis, from 1960 to 1965. This ended with the seizure of power by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. ==Background== (詳細はrainforest, swamps and accompanying malaria and other tropical diseases, such as sleeping sickness, made it a difficult environment for European exploration and exploitation. In 1876, King Leopold II of the Belgians organized the International African Association with the cooperation of the leading African explorers and the support of several European governments for the promotion of African exploration and colonization. After Henry Morton Stanley had explored the region in a journey that ended in 1878, Leopold courted the explorer and hired him to help his interests in the region.〔Hochschild 61–67.〕 Leopold II had been keen to acquire a colony for Belgium even before he ascended to the throne in 1865. The Belgian civil government showed little interest in its monarch's dreams of empire-building. Ambitious and stubborn, Leopold decided to pursue the matter on his own account. European rivalry in Central Africa led to diplomatic tensions, in particular with regard to the largely unclaimed Congo River basin. In November 1884 Otto von Bismarck convened a 14-nation conference (the Berlin Conference) to find a peaceful resolution to the Congo crisis. Though the Berlin Conference did not formally approve the territorial claims of the European powers in Central Africa, it did agree on a set of rules to ensure a conflict-free partitioning of the region. The rules recognised (''inter alia'') the Congo basin as a free-trade zone. But Leopold II emerged triumphant from the Berlin Conference〔Hochschild 84–87.〕 and his single-shareholder "philanthropic" organization received a large share of territory () to be organized as the Congo Free State. The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the ''Association Internationale Africaine''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/59/ ) 〕 The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium annexed the area. Under Leopold II’s administration, the Congo Free State became a humanitarian disaster. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths. Many of the deaths are attributed to lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists.〔(John D. Fage, ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From the earliest times to c. 500 BC'', ) Cambridge University Press, 1982, p. 748. ISBN 0-521-22803-4〕 William Rubinstein wrote: "More basically, it appears almost certain that the population figures given by Hochschild are inaccurate. There is, of course, no way of ascertaining the population of the Congo before the twentieth century, and estimates like 20 million are purely guesses. Most of the interior of the Congo was literally unexplored if not inaccessible."〔Rubinstein, W. D. (2004). ''(Genocide: a history )''. Pearson Education. pp. 98–99. ISBN 0-582-50601-8〕 Leopold's ''Force Publique,'' a private army that terrorized natives to work as forced labour for resource extraction, disrupted their societies and killed and abused natives indiscriminately. Following the ''Casement Report'', the British, European and American press exposed the conditions in the Congo Free State to the public in the early 1900s. In 1904, Leopold II was forced to allow an international parliamentary commission of inquiry entry to the Congo Free State. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo. 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「 | currency = Belgian Congo franc | religion = Christianity, Baluba religion, Bantu religion | leader1 = Leopold II | year_leader1 = 1908–1909 | leader2 = Albert I | year_leader2 = 1909–1934 | leader3 = Leopold III | year_leader3 = 1934–1951 | leader4 = Baudouin I | year_leader4 = 1951–1960 | title_leader = King | representative1 = Théophile Wahis | year_representative1 = 1908–1910 | representative2 = Henri Cornelis | year_representative2 = 1958–1960 | title_representative = Governor-General | footnotes = | stat_year1 = 1960 | stat_area1 = 2344858 | stat_pop1 = 16610000 | stat_year2 = | stat_area2 = | stat_pop2 = | today = }}The Belgian Congo ((フランス語:Congo Belge), (オランダ語:Belgisch-Congo)) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa between 1908 and 1960 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of the Belgians persuaded the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's creating a colony on his own account. With support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885. By the turn of the century, however, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic extraction led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo.Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (''trinité coloniale'') of state, missionary and private company interests. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied, and the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers raised by the indigenous population. The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" (''politique indigène''). This was in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favoured the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight. The Congo had a high degree of racial segregation. The large numbers of white immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social spectrum, but were always treated as superior to blacks.During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo had extensive urbanisation, and the colonial administration began various development programmes aimed at making the territory into a "model colony". One of the results was the development of a new middle class of Europeanised African "''évolués''" in the cities. By the 1950s the Congo had a wage labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony.In 1960, as the result of a widespread and increasingly radical pro-independence movement, the Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of Congo-Léopoldville under Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Poor relations between factions within the Congo, the continued involvement of Belgium in Congolese affairs, and intervention by major parties of the Cold War led to a five-year-long period of war and political instability, known as the Congo Crisis, from 1960 to 1965. This ended with the seizure of power by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.==Background==(詳細はCongo Free Stateを参照)Until the later part of the 19th century, few Europeans had ventured into the Congo basin. The rainforest, swamps and accompanying malaria and other tropical diseases, such as sleeping sickness, made it a difficult environment for European exploration and exploitation. In 1876, King Leopold II of the Belgians organized the International African Association with the cooperation of the leading African explorers and the support of several European governments for the promotion of African exploration and colonization. After Henry Morton Stanley had explored the region in a journey that ended in 1878, Leopold courted the explorer and hired him to help his interests in the region.Hochschild 61–67.Leopold II had been keen to acquire a colony for Belgium even before he ascended to the throne in 1865. The Belgian civil government showed little interest in its monarch's dreams of empire-building. Ambitious and stubborn, Leopold decided to pursue the matter on his own account.European rivalry in Central Africa led to diplomatic tensions, in particular with regard to the largely unclaimed Congo River basin. In November 1884 Otto von Bismarck convened a 14-nation conference (the Berlin Conference) to find a peaceful resolution to the Congo crisis. Though the Berlin Conference did not formally approve the territorial claims of the European powers in Central Africa, it did agree on a set of rules to ensure a conflict-free partitioning of the region. The rules recognised (''inter alia'') the Congo basin as a free-trade zone. But Leopold II emerged triumphant from the Berlin ConferenceHochschild 84–87. and his single-shareholder "philanthropic" organization received a large share of territory () to be organized as the Congo Free State.The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the ''Association Internationale Africaine''.(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/59/ ) The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium annexed the area. Under Leopold II’s administration, the Congo Free State became a humanitarian disaster. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths. Many of the deaths are attributed to lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists.(John D. Fage, ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From the earliest times to c. 500 BC'', ) Cambridge University Press, 1982, p. 748. ISBN 0-521-22803-4 William Rubinstein wrote: "More basically, it appears almost certain that the population figures given by Hochschild are inaccurate. There is, of course, no way of ascertaining the population of the Congo before the twentieth century, and estimates like 20 million are purely guesses. Most of the interior of the Congo was literally unexplored if not inaccessible."Rubinstein, W. D. (2004). ''(Genocide: a history )''. Pearson Education. pp. 98–99. ISBN 0-582-50601-8 Leopold's ''Force Publique,'' a private army that terrorized natives to work as forced labour for resource extraction, disrupted their societies and killed and abused natives indiscriminately.Following the ''Casement Report'', the British, European and American press exposed the conditions in the Congo Free State to the public in the early 1900s. In 1904, Leopold II was forced to allow an international parliamentary commission of inquiry entry to the Congo Free State. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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