162 



CONGO FREE STATE. 



United States coin; and of foreign gold there 

 were $3,870,859, of which $13,800 were bullion 

 and the rest was coin. The total imports of 

 silver were $21,032,984, of which $7,085,684 rep- 

 resented bullion, $206,773 minted pieces of the 

 United States, and $13,740,527 foreign coin. 

 The exports of domestic silver were $22,378,557 

 in amount, consisting of $22,291,911 of bars and 

 bullion, and $86,646 of American coin. Of for- 

 eign silver coin and bullion $12,495,372 were ex- 

 ported, $12,400,835 consisting of coin. 



CONGO FREE STATE, an independent 

 state in Central Africa, constituted by the gen- 

 eral act of the Congo, signed at Berlin on Feb. 

 26, 1885, which defines the limits of the territory 

 and guarantees its neutrality. The navigation 

 of the Congo, which was declared free to all na- 

 tions, was placed under the control of an Inter- 

 national Commission. The sovereign of the Free 

 State is Leopold II, King of the Belgians, who 

 assumed the dignity by authorization of the Bel- 

 gian Parliament in 1885. The seat of the Su- 

 preme Government, which is composed of the 

 King and the heads of the Departments of For- 

 eign Affairs and Justice, Finance, and Internal 

 Affairs, is at Brussels. A Superior Council was 

 organized as a Court of Cassation and of Appeals 

 in August, 1889. The head of the local adminis- 

 tration is the Governor-General, at present C. 

 Janssen. The country is divided into the ad- 

 ministrative districts of Banana, Boma, Matadi, 

 the district of the Cataracts, Stanley Pool, Kas- 

 sai, the district of the Equator, Ubanji, Aru- 

 wimi and Welle, Stanley Falls, and Lualaba. 

 The State includes a strip on the north bank 

 of the Congo from its mouth to French terri- 

 tory at Manyanga. From Likona the Congo ter- 

 ritory begins again on the north bank, and ex- 

 tends northward to 4 of north latitude, then 

 eastward to 30 of east longitude, where the line 

 turns southward, reaching to Lake Bangweolo in 

 12 of south latitude, whence it runs westward 

 to 24 of east longitude, northward to 6 of south 

 latitude, and then westward to Matadi. (See map 

 in " Annual Cyclopaedia " for 1888, page 123.) 



The Geographical Conference of 1876 resulted 

 in the formation of the International African 

 Association. After the return of Henry M. 

 Stanley in 1878 from his great voyage of discov- 

 ery down the Congo an Upper Congo Committee 

 was created, and between 1879 and 1884 the In- 

 ternational Congo Association carried out hy- 

 drographical explorations and founded stations 

 on the Congo. The Berlin African Conference 

 in 1885 sanctioned the erection of the Independ- 

 ent State of the Congo under the sovereignty of 

 the King of the Belgians, and the provisions of 

 the general act were approved by the Belgian 

 Legislature. . In the same year the first Congo 

 loan was issued, and in 1886 the preliminary 

 survey of the Congo Railway route was made. 

 In 1889 the Belgian state subscribed 10,000,000 

 francs of ordinary Congo Railway shares. The 

 counter-claims of France to the territory on both 

 shores of the middle Congo were adjusted by a 

 delimitation cohceding to her the north shore 

 and an agreement contained in a letter of Presi- 

 dent Strauch, of the International Association of 

 the Congo, to Jules Ferry, bearing date April 23, 

 1884, to the effect that if unforeseen circum- 

 stances ever compelled the association to dis- 



pose of its possessions France should have a 

 preferential right. The chief of the Foreign Af- 

 fairs Department of the Congo State, M. Van 

 Estvelde, on April 22, 1887, in a letter explana- 

 tory of this declaration, said that the Inter- 

 national Congo Association did not admit that 

 the preferential right of France to acquire its 

 territories in the event of their transfer could be 

 maintained against Belgium, of which King Leo- 

 pold was ruler, although it was admitted that 

 the Congo State could not cede its possessions 

 to Belgium without binding that Government 

 to recognize the preferential right of France. 



Area and Population. The area is about 

 2,091,000 square kilometres. The estimates of 

 population vary from 12,000,000 to 40,000,000. 

 There is an armed force of 8 companies, com- 

 manded by Europeans, garrisoned at several sta- 

 tions, numbering about 2,000 men, and also a 

 corps of 1,000 native militia. At need the entire 

 corps of employes and laborers may be called to 

 arms to form an auxiliary corps. The naval 

 force consists of five steamboats on the lower 

 and eight on the upper Congo. The number of 

 whites residing in the State at the end of 1889 

 was 430, of whom 160 were Belgians. 



Commerce. While there are no import duties, 

 a tariff varying from 2 to 5-per cent, has been 

 imposed on certain articles of export. The to- 

 tal volume of trade is about 15,000,000 francs, the 

 exports in 1888 amounting to 7,392,348 francs. 

 The principal exports were ivory, of the value of 

 2,034,920 francs; caoutchouc, 2,078,132 francs; 

 coffee, 863,436 francs; palm kernels, 1,194,008 

 francs ; palm oil, 799,808 francs ; wax, 77,588 

 francs; and gum copal, 142,374 francs. Exports 

 of less importance are ground-nuts, orchilla wood, 

 cam-wood, fibers, skins, sesame, and fish oil. 

 There is a regular steamer service connecting 

 the ports of Boma and Banana with Europe. In 

 1888 the ports were visited by 958 vessels. The 

 maritime movement at Boma in 1889 was 416.506 

 tons. The A r alue of the imports for 1890 is esti- 

 mated at 13,000,000 francs. The exports in 1889 

 amounted to 8,572,519 francs. 



The Dutch have the largest factories at Bana- 

 na, as at other places on the west coast of Af- 

 rica, and a large part of the trade of the lower 

 Congo region passes through their hands. In 

 1886 some Belgian capitalists formed a com- 

 pany with a capital of 500,000 francs to es- 

 tablish factories on the Congo. The capital 

 was increased to 800,000 francs, and the results 

 were so satisfactory that the Societe Anonyme, 

 for the commerce of the upper Congo, was 

 founded, with a capital of 1,200,000 francs, on 

 Dec. 10, 1888, which was authorized to carry on 

 commercial, industrial, mining, and other busi- 

 nesses in the territories of the Congo State and 

 elsewhere. At the end of the first year the 

 stockholders divided 30 per cent, profits. On 

 Jan. 30, 1890, it was decided to increase the cap- 

 ital to 3,900,000 francs. The old stockholders 

 took 1,200 shares of preferred stock at 000 

 francs, 20 per cent, above the face value, and 

 the same number of common shares offered to 

 the public at the same premium were subscribed 

 for seven times over. The management of the 

 company's operations has been intrusted to Major 

 Parminton, who was for six years financial sec- 

 retary of the Congo State, and afterward the 



