Belgian Congo or Congo Free State The Belgian Congo, later the Congo Free State, Zaire

(1965-1997), today The Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Congo Free State was held as the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium from 1876 to 1908.

1876: Leopold organizes a meeting in Brussels to discuss a plan “to open to civilization the only part of our globe where Christianity has not yet penetrated and to pierce the darkness which envelops the whole population.”

Congo Free State

1884: Bismarck calls European powers to Berlin for a conference that leads for the Scramble for Africa.

Leopold is given complete control over the Congo Free State; in return he guarantees free trade rights: no monopolies; no taxes and tariffs, no restriction on trade.

1908: Leopold bequeathed the CFS to Belgium for 150m francs.

Belgian Congo

Leopold’s rule resulted in the torture and murder of an estimated six million Congolese between 1888 and 1908.

The population of the Congo was reduced by half.

Ivory became a Belgian monopoly.

Belgian Congo

The rubber harvest was entirely worked through slave labor. Reports of amputation and torture.

Congo Reform Association established in 1903 by Roger Casement (friend of Conrad’s).

Casement got Conrad to write a letter about conditions in the Congo: “It is an extraordinary thing that the conscience of Europe which seventy years ago …put down the slave trade on humanitarian grounds tolerates the Congo state today.”

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Born Josef Korzeniowski in a Poland that was divided between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Joins French Merchant Navy at 17 yrs. Twenty years as a sailor: four as French and 16

in English trading ships. Adopts British citizenship at 29.

1894: settles in England as writer. 1890: spends six months in the Congo as

captain of small steamship.

Heart of Darkness: (1899)

Chinua Achebe’s lecture in 1975 accuses Conrad of racism.

Ideological analysis and the text. Language and Rhetoric: the Impressionist novel—a

combination of Modernism and Romance convention, the Gothic horror genre.

Man’s innate nature. The lure of the instinctive versus the rational. The translation of the material into the metaphysical:

rivers, trees, the earth, human faces, even labor.

Heart of Darkness: (1899)

Conrad’s criticism of Colonialism: Colonists vs. conquerors (p. 2023). Civilizing mission vs. Profit (2027) The devastation of the country: chain gangs

(2029), the dead and the dying (2030-1),colonizers as devils, the dead man (2033).

Ivory idolatry, “Imbecile rapacity” (2035) Sordid buccaneers (2040). The hungry crew paid in brass wire (2048)

Heart of Darkness

The battle between Instinctive Savagery and Reason or Culture (2023)

White women protected from the struggle against innate savagery: the aunt (2027); lie to the Intended (2053).

Suspicion that Africans may be human (2044). The improved specimen (2045).

Cannibals have no notion of time (2047). Civilization as existing between the butcher and the

policeman (2053) Kurtz’s unspeakable rites (2054). His pamphlet: altruism

and genocidal impulses (2055).

Heart of Darkness

The Kurtz cult: the charismatic leader who reconciles oppositions.

Kurtz’s freedom (2066): the madness of his soul.

Kurtz’s last words: a summing up (2069). Race difference as material manifestation

and literary analogy for the inner battle between instinct and reason.