Citation

Gordon DM. Past Present 2017; 236(1): 133-168.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Past and Present Society, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/pastj/gtx018

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article complicates historical understandings of the extreme violence of late nineteenth-century European colonialism by examining African agency in the build up to the most notorious case of such violence, the "red rubber" regime of King Leopold's Congo Free State. Through a close study of the influential warlord, Ngongo Luteta, his followers, and their relationships with Congo Free State officials, the article demonstrates how extremely violent practices emerged prior to and during colonial conquest. These violent practices informed the first decade of colonial rule and early forms of economic exploitation, in particular that of wild rubber. A detailed analysis of the perpetrator-focused sources contributes to a better understanding of the historical contexts in which violent European and African agents proliferated. In doing so, the article not only complicates a grand narrative of European imperialism and Africa resistance, but also revises an understanding of violence in King Leopold's Congo that is conventionally attributed to economic greed and European racism. Instead, African agency in the midst of fragile and collapsing warlord dependencies is illustrated.

Language: en