Employing European Maps to Analyze Congo’s Exploitation*

* Designed for a 10th grade World History course at Collins Academy in Chicago, IL

Collins Academy High SchoolNorth Lawndale CommunityChicago, IL

Congo Project: Essential Question Why is the world’s most resource-rich country one of its poorest and most violent?

Natural Resources in DR Congo

Source: United States Geological Survey, 2006 Minerals Yearbook: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/country/2006/myb3-2006-cg.pdf

80% of the world’s coltan reservesUsed in cell phones and other electronics

49% of the world’s cobalt reserves28% of the world’s industrial diamonds

Natural Resources in DR CongoUp to 25% of the world’s tropical forestsAdditional major natural resources: copper,

niobium, petroleum, gem diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, uranium, coal, hydropower, timber, coffee, sugar, palm oil, rubber, tea, quinine, cassava (tapioca), palm oil, bananas, root crops, corn, fruits wood products

Source: Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, 2009: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/CG.html

Poverty in DR Congo

Source: United Nations Development Programme, December 2008; Mail & Guardian article: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-12-17-un-report-points-to-alarming-levels-of-poverty-in-drc

75% live below poverty line ($1/day)57% have no access to drinking water54% lack access to basic healthcare47% chance of death before age 40

War-Related Deaths in DR Congo

Source: International Rescue Committee, January 2008: http://www.theirc.org/media/www/congo-crisis-fast-facts.html

5.4 million war-related deaths, 1998-2007

45,000 deaths per month

“Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there.’”

- Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

“Africa, according to Mr. D'Anville with several additions and improvements” in Kitchen, A General Atlas Describing the Whole Universe (1773)

Document Literacy: Kingdom of CongoAUSL Document Literacy Standards

Analysis: Main IdeaIdentify the central question(s) the document

addresses (2C)Analysis: Bucketing

Differentiate between historical facts and historical interpretations (2D)

In class, students will read the text of and examine the map that accompanies A report of the Kingdome of Congo individually and in pairsWe will discuss the native place names of the 1625

map and use of “blank spaces” as imperial invitations

“But there was one yet – the biggest, the blankest so to speak – that I had a hankering over.”

- Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Google Earth: Historical Map of CongoCollege Readiness Standards

Reading: Supporting DetailsLocate important details in uncomplicated passages

(20A)Illinois Learning Standards

GeographyUse maps and other geographic instruments and

technologies to analyze spatial patterns and distributions on earth (17A4b)

Students will read E.D. Morel’s Great Britain and the Congo: The Pillage of the Congo Basin and use Google Earth to map three historical events from the text

Google Earth: Historical Map of Congo

Based on events from E.D. Morel’s Great Britain and the Congo: The Pillage of the Congo Basin (1909)

“True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery — a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.”

- Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Bartholomew, J.G., The Globe Hand Atlas (1891)

“Hondius his map of Congo” in Purchas, Samuel, His Pilgrimes (1625)

Do Now: Belgian Congo Illinois Learning

StandardsGeography

Analyze trends in world demographics as they relate to physical systems (17B4b)

Students will analyze the map by writing five observations of map details, two conclusions about the meanings of those details, the audience, and the purpose of the map*

* Henceforth, “analyze the map” will refer to this process

Congo and King Leopold IIAUSL Document Literacy Standards

Evaluation: InferenceAnalyze cause-and-effect relationships and

multiple causation, including the importance of the individual, the influence of ideas (3C)

After analyzing and discussing the “1884 Belgian Congo” map, students will read Congo and King Leopold II and create a cause-and-effect flow chart based on the textStudents will then, in a paragraph, use

evidence from the text to explain how the demand for bicycles in Europe led to exploitation of Congo.

RubberExploitation Illinois Learning

StandardsGeography

Explain how processes of spatial change have affected human history (e.g., resource development and use, natural disasters) (17D4)

Students will analyze the map and use it to take the perspective of an educated Congolese and write a letter to E.D. Morel’s Congo Reform Association explaining how European economic maps are used for rubber exploitationWe will discuss the

location of various resources listed on this map and corresponding European interests

Commercial Cultivation Map in Bartholomew, Atlas of Economic Geography (1914)

Scramble for AfricaStudents will conduct the

Teachers’ Curriculum Institute’s Scramble for Africa activity

Afterwards, students will compare the classroom map they created to this map and take notes on an interactive lecture about the Berlin Conference (1884-1885), Congo Free State, Leopold II, and Belgian Congo

Political Map of Africa in Bartholomew, Atlas of Economic Geography (1914)

Congo Document-Based Question AUSL Document Literacy Standards

Analysis: Bucketing Draw comparisons across eras and regions in order

to define enduring issues (3D) Evaluation Frame of Reference

Consider multiple perspectives (3B) College Readiness Standards

Writing: Make & Articulate Judgments Take a position on an issue

Writing: Sustain Focus Focus clearly on a specific issue and use supporting

details to support writer’s stance Illinois Learning Standards

Geography Analyze the historical development of a current

issue involving the interaction of people and geographic factors (e.g., mass transportation, changes in agricultural sub sidies, flood control) (17D5)

Congo Document-Based QuestionUse the accompanying documents as

evidence to construct a five-paragraph essay that agrees or disagrees with the following statement:The exploitation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1996 is no different than Leopold II’s exploitation of the Congo from 1885 to 1908.

Consider the perspectives and attitudes of each time period in your answer.

New York American, December 10, 1904

Coquéry-Vidrovitch’s, Elisabéth, Le Congo au temps des Grands Compagnies Concessionaires (1974)

The graphs show the correlation between number of bullets used (top) and the amount of rubber produced (bottom) at the Salanga post from 1904-1907

Sambourne, Linley, “In The Rubber Coils. Scene – The Congo ‘Free’ State” (1906)

The problem of White settlement and White labour in the tropics has been revolutionized by the recent advance in our knowledge of the microscopic fauna and flora of disease…most deadly tropical diseases…can be fought with certain success – and even exterminated – by the destruction of the parasite in its intermediary host (Man), by segregation, and by the abolition of appropriate breeding-places for the particular parasite.

This will revolutionize the problem of Coloured Labour. The average ‘native’ seems to be more liable to such diseases than the average White man, and the White man more so than the Yellow man, though the death-rate from malaria in Formosa shows that even the Yellow Man – the only human type that is climatically naturalized in all climates from arctic to equatorial – has no racial immunity. But the Black man, who is more suited than any other to tropical labour, has been the curse of the world from the hygienic standpoint, for from him all the most deadly and disgusting diseases (e.g. smallpox, cholera, typhus) seem to have spread over the world. Indeed, the difficult problem is his ‘incurable laziness’ is now being solved by the knowledge that it is the direct consequence of lifelong martyrdom to hookworm. Freedom from parasitic disease is going, then, to decrease enormously the mortality amongst Negroes and to increase their capacity for work.

This has a double importance ; for it ought to remove both any need for White labour in the Tropics where at present it actually pays to employ it, e.g. in the Queensland sugar plantations. But there is the other side of the question – that European nations are seeking homes for surplus population (amongst whom they hope to find also new markets), and these homes can only be found in the relatively unoccupied areas of the tropics – unoccupied hitherto because too unhealthy.

Bartholomew, Atlas of Economic Geography (1914)

Bendib, “Congo’s Holocaust” (2008)

Map of Africa in Kitchen, A General Atlas Describing the Whole Universe (1773)

August 1, 1890

Chief came with a youth about 13 suffering from gun-shot wound in the head. Bullet entered about an inch above the right eyebrow, and came out a little inside the roots of the hair, fairly in the middle of the brow in a line with the bridge of the nose. Bone not damaged apparently. Gave him a little glycerine to put on the wound made by the bullet coming out.

*Footnote: “The African native can survive wounds which would kill a European; on the other hand, he easily succumbs to epidemics like influenza.”

Conrad, Joseph Conrad’s Diary of his journey up the Congo in 1890 (1926)

2008 marked the 100-year anniversary of the removal of the Congo from King Leopold II of Belgium as his own personal property. Global outrage at the King’s brutal rule resulted in his losing the Congo treasure trove on Nov. 15, 1908.

Leopold II accumulated spectacular wealth for himself and the Belgian state during his 23-year dominion (1885-1908) over the Congo. During this period, an estimated 10 million Congolese lost their lives while Leopold systematically looted the Congo of its rubber and ivory riches. Congo was then handed over to Belgium, which ruled as a colonial power from 1908 to 1960.

Congo finally got its independence on June 30, 1960, when Patrice Emery Lumumba, its first democratically elected prime minister took office. Unfortunately, the Western powers, primarily the United States and Belgium, could not allow a fiercely independent African to consolidate his power over such a geo-strategic prize as the Congo. Lumumba was removed from power in a Western-backed coup within weeks and assassinated on Jan. 17, 1961.

Belgium apologized for its role in Lumumba’s assassination in 2002, yet the U.S. still downplays its role in murdering this great young leader. The U.S. replaced Lumumba with the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and backed him until he was overthrown in 1997.

The overthrow of Mobutu unleashed an ongoing resource war that has caused deep strife and unbearable suffering for the Congolese people, particularly the women and the children. It is estimated that nearly 6 million Congolese have been killed since the 1996 invasion by Rwanda and Uganda with support from the United States and other Western nations.

A century later, Congo is at another crossroads. In spite of the advances in technology and the shrinking of the world, it is curious that there is such silence around the suffering of the Congolese people due to the exploitation of powerful corporate and foreign forces beyond its people’s immediate control. Unlike the early 1900s, remarkably, today there are few if any voices the likes of Mark Twain, who wrote “King Leopold’s Soliloquy,” Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness” (often misread as Congo or Africa being dark, but he was referring to the dark hearts of the exploiters of the Congo), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame, who wrote “Crime in the Congo.”

The Congo Reform movement that drew from the work of African Americans such as William Sheppard and George Washington Williams and led by European figures such as Robert Casement and E.D. Morel gave birth to the modern international human rights movement.

One hundred years later we are again calling on the global community to be at the side of the Congolese. This time, there is one fundamental difference: The Congolese are agents in this narrative and the call this time is not for a handover to a colonial power or neo-colonial institutions but rather to the people of the Congo.

The clarion call is for combating the forces - local elites and rebels, foreign governments, foreign corporations and multi-lateral institutions - that have the Congolese people in a death trap. The charity prism of the humanitarian industry is not the answer. It only perpetuates dependency and dis-empowerment.

Should Congo be truly liberated, the Darfurizaton (emptying of agency from the afflicted people) of the global movement in support of the Congo must be avoided at all costs. Congolese must be agents rather than objects in the pursuit of the control of their land and their lives.

The sovereignty of the people and control and ownership of the riches of their land is the fundamental human right for which we must advocate. It is a call not only for the Congo but the entire African continent.

Become a part of the global movement to “Break the Silence” as the Congolese pursue true sovereignty and liberty.

Maurice Carney is executive director and Kambale Musavuli is student coordinator of Friends of the Congo, 1629 K St. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 584-6512, info@friendsofthecongo.org, www.friendsofthecongo.org. Friends of the Congo is led by people of African ancestry and others of goodwill. With strong support from friends of the Congo throughout the globe, the vast human and natural resource potential of the Democratic Republic of Congo can serve as an instrument to meet the great needs of the people of Congo and Africa.

Economic Map of Africa in Bartholomew, Atlas of Economic Geography (1914)

Musavuli and Carney, San Francisco BayView, January 2, 2009

Other Document-Based QuestionsWhy is the world’s most resource-rich country

one of its poorest and most violent?Is an abundance of natural resources a

disadvantage to a country? Why or why not?Agree or disagree with the following statement:

Maps of Congo before and during the European colonial period did not just document exploitation, but also encouraged it.

Explain the irony “Congo Free State,” the country’s name under the rule of Leopold II.

How could Congolese maps of Congo have been used to subvert European’s exploitation of the country?