CONGO, INDEPENDENT STATE OF THE. 



,-..i-ot American propt-1 1 y. French. Ge.r- 

 Mriti-h \\ar--hip-* were in those ports. 

 COLORADO. (See under r.MTED STATES.) 

 CCXGO. INDEPENDENT STATE OF THE, 

 , MI. iiionaivhieal. neutral, and independ- 

 i'i i Mai.-7 created -mi .f the ('.>ng<> International 

 \.Miciation. \\liii-h was founded by King Leopold, 

 1,1 IVl-iuiu. ii, ls>:$. and exercised sovereign po\v- 

 ,!.. re/o'ni/.ed bv 'I"' leading powers. The general 

 a,-t of ficrlin. -L",Ml ..n Feb. '2(\. 1SS5. recognized 

 tin- Independent Stale, with Leopold 11, King of 

 tin* 1'M-lgians. a- its >overcign. On July 3. 1890, 

 a convention \\a* >igned between Belgium and the 

 rotigo Stair, ratified by the two Belgian Cham- 

 IMTS mi .Inly 25. IS'.M). providing for annexation to 

 iVlgium nf the territories of the Independent State 

 after a jn-riod of ten years. The seat of the Central 

 Government is at Brussels, where the Secretary of 

 State. Karon Kdmond van Eetvelde, directs the 

 administration with the assistance of secretaries 

 in tin 1 \arioiis departments. Bowa is the head- 

 quarter- of the local Government, which is gen- 

 rrallv in charge of a Vice-Governor-General 

 Major K. Wangermee in 1901. King Leopold, by 

 a will dated Aug. 2, 1889, bequeathed his sov- 

 ereign rights in the Congo territories after his 

 death to the Belgian state. In the convention of 

 IS'.M) the Belgian Government agreed to advance 

 to the Congo Free State a sum of 25,000,000 francs, 

 :,.OINMMMI francs to be paid immediately and 

 2.INNMNN.) francs annually for a period of ten 

 vears. During these ten years the loan should 

 War no interest, and six months after the term ex- 

 pired the Belgian Government should have the op- 

 tion of annexing the Congo Free State with all 

 the appurtenances, rights, and advantages attach- 

 ing to the sovereignty of that State, in which case 

 a law would be made to determine the special 

 regime under which the territories should then be 

 placi-d. From the date of the convention the 

 llclgian Government was entitled to receive such 

 information as it desired to have regarding the 

 finances, customs tariff, and economical and com- 

 mercial situation of the Free State in order to 

 have a clear idea of the financial situation, the 

 only connection of the Free State with Belgium 

 being the personal union of the two crowns. If 

 at the expiration of the ten years the Belgian Gov- 

 ernment should decide against annexation, the 

 Minis advanced would be redeemable after a fur- 

 ther iM>riod of ten years, during which interest 

 would !* charged at the rate of 3i per cent., and 

 sums accruing from concessions of State lands 

 or mines should be set aside for the repayment 

 of the loan. The preamble of the convention al- 

 luded to the principle that the right of option 

 might be extended in exchange for a temporary 

 abandonment of any claim for interest. As there 

 Man Home popular 'opposition to colonial enter- 

 prise in Belgium, and as the King was not will- 

 injr to hand over the control of the administra- 

 tion, at any rate without a clear understanding of 

 the conditions on which it would be carried on in 

 the future, he decided, in consultation with his 

 ministers, to postpone annexation until the law 

 defining the social rrgimr could be elaborated to 

 the satisfaction of all parties. The Belgian Gov- 

 ernment therefore passed a law in 1901 reserving 

 the option to 1*> acted upon later in consideration 

 of the remission of all claim for interest for a 

 nrw period of ten years (see BELGIUM). The 

 convention, which expired in February, 1901, pre- 

 cluded the Free State from contracting other loans 

 outside. Nevertheless the Free State did obtain 

 from an Antwerp bank a loan of 5.000.000 francs 

 at 6 per cent., secured by a mortgage on a large 

 tract of territory in the upper Congo region. The 



money was needed to defray the expenses of sup- 

 pressing the Arab revolt and to pay the cost of 

 expeditions into the Nile valley. In spite of the 

 increasing revenue from ivory and other sources 

 the budget continued to show a deficit, and it be- 

 came necessary to apply to the Belgian Govern- 

 ment. Jules de Burlet, who was Premier, pro- 

 posed to annex the Congo State at that time, and 

 presented a bill to that effect, but owing to po- 

 litical reasons this was withdrawn and the Bel- 

 gian Chambers voted to advance, under the same 

 conditions as the former loans, a sum sufficient to 

 pay off the loan contracted with the bank and to 

 meet the deficit. This increased the indebtedness 

 of the Free State to Belgium to about 32,000,000 

 francs. Since 1895 the financial condition of the 

 Free State has been increasingly prosperous. By 

 virtue of a treaty made with Great Britain and 

 Egypt in 1894 the Free State occupied under lease 

 the enclave of Lado on the upper Nile, in the Bahr 

 el Ghazal province. The lease embraced this en- 

 tire province, but the sovereign of the Free State 

 made a promise to the French Government with- 

 out any consent on the part of Great Britain that 

 the Free State would not profit by the treaty be- 

 yond a certain limit. The Lado district was in 

 continuous occupation of the Free State forces 

 until and after the reconquest of the Soudan by 

 the Anglo-Egyptian army, and in 1901, when the 

 whole course of the river Nile was occupied by 

 the British, there were six times as many Congo 

 troops at Lado as there w r ere English. The lease 

 of the whole Bahr el Ghazal was not repudiated 

 by Great Britain when the Congo State in defer- 

 ence to French objections waived its right to 

 claim possession and withdrew its forces to the 

 Lado enclave. On the contrary, it was declared to 

 be in full force by Lord Salisbury, who, by reas- 

 serting its validity, intended to affirm the claims 

 of England to this region against the designs of 

 the French Government, which was preparing ex- 

 peditions to take possession of it and hold it 

 subject only to the right of the Khedive of Egypt 

 and his suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, to reclaim 

 the province. France having relinquished all pre- 

 tensions in this quarter, the Congo Free State pro- 

 posed to Great Britain in the spring of 1901 to 

 exercise its rights under the lease to take posses- 

 sion of and administer the entire Bahr el Ghazal. 

 The negotiations ended in an agreement whereby 

 a part of the Bahr el Ghazal apart from the Lado 

 district was given over to the Congo State during 

 the lifetime of King Leopold, at whose demise att 

 the leased territories will become Anglo-Egyptian 

 possessions. A strip of territory at the eastern 

 extremity of the Congo State which King Leo- 

 pold leased to Great Britain in 1894 w T as not oc- 

 cupied, and the rights under the lease were aban- 

 doned in deference to the protest of the French 

 and German governments that no part of the 

 Congo territory under the treaties constituting 

 the Free State could be alienated without an in- 

 ternational agreement. In September, 1900, a 

 German force seized Belgian stations on this east- 

 ern border and compelled the Free State troops to 

 withdraw under threat of hostile action, claiming 

 that the land was within the limits of German 

 East Africa. 



Area and Population. The north bank of the 

 lower Congo belongs to the Independent State 

 from Banana to Manyanga, and from that point 

 the southern bank. In the interiors the territory 

 embraces the entire basin of the Congo, except that 

 the Kwango and Kassai rivers divide it from Por- 

 tuguese territory on the southwest, and the Congo, 

 from Manyanga to the mouth of the Ubangi, and 

 the latter river throughout its entire course, from 



