belgian-congo

"Anyone, whether in public places or gatherings, by utterances, cries or threats, or by any writing, printed matter, pictures or symbols, which are seized, distributed or sold, for sale or displayed before the eyes of the public, is guilty of insulting the person of the King, shall be punished by imprisonment of six months to three years and a fine of 300 to 3,000 francs."

"Europe is the light of the world, and the ark of knowledge: upon the welfare of Europe, hangs the destiny of the most remote and savage people."

"Every historical event is the result of a convergence of many contributing conditions. A different convergence might result in a different event which, influenced by all the remaining factors, would in turn lead to consequences different from those that in fact occurred and, thus, there would begin on an entire chain of events and phenomena -a different variant of development. The history of European imperialism can therefore be written only in a polycentric fashion. Whether we deal with white expansion in Africa, or with any other great instance of cultural diffusion on a continental scale, no unitary theory will ever untangle for us the richness and variety of the historical skein."

"Our operations will be aimed at principal orders and consignments, we shall give all our care there. The creation of new networks of important plants on both continents."

"The need was developing for oil for industrial machinery, but there was a very heavy trade imbalance in favor of the Rio Nunez."

"The area was a strip of land along both sides of Rio Nunez from the coast and included the two small towns of Victoria and Rapass, also spelled Ropass."

"The land was worth nothing, it was sand. The land here is badly bought. Much of it was difficult to cultivate and there was disappointment. For example, my father left the fazenda to work in a factory in Itapetininga."

"This Belgian company made the first pasteurized milk packed in plastic bags in all of Brazil. They also made cheese and butter here before the dairy became a brewery. In the 1980s, the company Cervejaria BELCO produced massive beer while it was still brewed by Belgians. Today the brand has been bought out, but it still exists and BELCO beers are still sold in stores in the state of Sao Paulo."

"When I was in university, there were young people who said to me: 'You come to eat the bread of the Brazilians'”, I had to explain that we got credits from Belgium, that the school was paid for by Belgium, and that one day we have to pay this back, neither the Brazilian government nor the municipality here has intervened financially."

"I adapted very quickly. I immediately started learning Portuguese in the wooden school in Monte Alegre, built by the Belgians. The Brazilian teacher had come directly from the city of Botucatu for this. It was more difficult for our parents to learn Portuguese. Often we, the children, were the interpreters for our parents when they had to communicate with the Brazilians. In Congo we arrived in our country, it was Belgium. here not at all. And the customs were very different also. We had to integrate. We got to know the local customs and the Brazilians wanted to know ours too."

"Belgium should become the capital of the Belgian Empire, which, with the help of God, will consist of Borneo, islands in the Pacific, some places in Africa and America, and also areas of China and Japan. I am the only one pursuing this for now, but by over-exposing the national fever, I will find support and create apostles."

"A few years ago, these two authors produced a stimulating essay on the state of the art and the future perspectives of colonial historiography in Belgium, introducing a special issue of the Belgian review of contemporary history, consisting of several articles on Belgian colonial history. This is certainly the symptom of the fact that something is indeed changing in the Belgian historical world. But in comparison to other former imperial countries, Belgian colonial historiography is lagging behind. The heavy institutional and political weight attached to the Leopoldian heritage had something to do with this. Much remains to be done, but luckily, new perspectives and approaches (anthropology, cultural studies) undoubtedly will fertilize historical work on colonial Congo. The new generation of Belgian historians has never known colonialism. They do not want to “prove” anything and do not have any special feelings of guilt, nostalgia or justification towards what happened in the Congo under Belgian rule. In their eyes, there is only one thing left in eulogy and in national pride: these old fetters, which have influenced so deeply the beginnings of colonial historiography, have themselves become objects of scientific enquiry. Understanding and explaining colonialism, a complex phenomenon of societal contact: this is the huge task that lays ahead. If their new approach and the resulting new insights percolate through to public opinion, politicians and school children, these historians will not have wasted their time. If Vanthemsche is right, than perhaps we will be better able to know how long and fateful the shadow of Leopold I influenced Leopold II and Belgian colonialism."

"As early as 1855, the thought of the Duke of Brabant (Leopold II) seemed to be fixed on the subject of the initial form that any expansionist or Belgian colonial attempt must take: that of an international commercial company."

"His Majesty has long been imbued with the immense utility which would result for Belgium from the possession of some commercial establishment outside her territory, outside the European continent. This thought constantly preoccupied the King."

"The best way to create opportunities is to send, from time to time, expeditions to countries with which there is a chance to establish commercial relations."

"Any family of settlers, he wrote, on arriving in Santo-Tomas, must find their home and their plantations. Men who leave their homeland to go and work in a foreign land always create more or less illusions for themselves; some precautions that we take to protect them against this tendency, some warnings that we give them, we cannot prevent them from imagining an Eldorado, at least one country where without great difficulty we find the comfort we enjoy in Europe."

"The economic crisis which weighs on Europe since the industry took such a big development, carries the nations towards the colonial companies. Belgium could not remain a stranger to this movement without seriously compromising its material interests; our King (Leopold II) understood this, and this is what determined him to substitute his individual initiative for the persistent inaction of the government and the nation."

"One of the most industrialized countries in the world throughout the nineteenth century, Belgium needed the global market to export the products of its industry. Unlike most Western nations, and despite the ambitions of King Leopold II who, in a personal capacity, rushed into the colonization of Congo Free State, Belgium did not carve out a colonial empire for itself through military expeditions and “politics of the gunboat.” Based on capital, knowledge and engineering, Belgian imperialism was peaceful, such as the various universal and international expositions organized in Brussels, Antwerp, Liège and Ghent."

"Belgium had no prior history in the slave trade, nor of African slaves. Léopold could fight against slavery without any hint of hypocrisy, even of the ahistorical type advanced by Hochschild. And it was slavery, not rubber operations, that contemporary observers viewed as the biggest threat to the people of the Congo."

"The result of all these considerations is that the Government of Belgium has no interest in favoring the emigration of Belgian families to Texas, whether it be to produce more ample resources to them or to obey the instincts of the few rare ones who crave for adventurous undertakings."

"Mexico entered the controversy by pointing out that she was about to liberalize her trade relations with Belgium, but would not do so if Belgium persisted in her dealings with Texas."

"Belgium, in the Texas affair, does not have all the liberty of action she desires. Considerations such as the pending negotiations with the Mexican and American Governments dictate the avoidance of potential evils… abandoning any measures with Texas completely."

"Although Pirson’s mission to Texas was not apparently known in Guatemala, the lesson of the Texas Rebellion was fresh on the minds of the opponents of the Belgian grant. “What was Texas when it began,” they asked. “and what is it today? Was it not a colony formed under the same illusions, with the same hopes, and with the same desire of accelerating time that has moved us in the approval of the contract with the Belgian company? And is it not today the cancer, the opprobrium, and the crowning evil that afflicts Mexico? Who assures us that our colony will not be for Guatemala what Texas has been for Mexico?”"

"It is interesting to note however, that Leopold’s penchant for secrecy was also evident in the Texas project. Pirson was under strict orders not to reveal anything about his mission other than that he was sent to Texas to study the potential commercial and economic advantages of trade between the two countries. There was to be no mention of the colonial or loan aspects of his mission. “…(your ) mission must maintain a confidential character as much as possible…"

"Constitutional government, especially in a small country, takes a great deal of time, and causes sight to be lost of the questions, which lone can secure to the country a political future. I have many a time that I saw you feeling more and more interest therein, and I am very anxious that it should be so, for it is time to be seriously occupied with those questions; otherwise Belgium will find herself at the tail of all other countries. I have heard that an association of German princes is actively occupied in an attempt at colonization in Texas…"

"Because of the general fear that foreign colonists would ultimately wish to establish their independence on the pattern of Texas, the government insisted that all immigrant settlers in the future abjure the protection of their home governments and become Guatemalan citizens."

"Santo Tomas was based on emigration and was therefore bound to fail, Belgians do not emigrate."

"There is some disagreement as to the actual number of colonists that settled in Santo Tomas. This is partly due to the ships’ manifest listing families as opposed to individuals. The population of the settlements is often given without differentiating between Belgians and Guatemalans."

"For the present time, I see only certain ruin for the settler; for the European who is not used and cannot get used to living like the natives, animal life is very expensive. 'He also insisted on the scarcity of cash and the resulting difficulty for traders who did not failed to get paid. The Belgians could sell Linen, sheets and cottons in Central America provided that they were manufactured in such a way as to withstand the English competition as much by their lightness and their smoothness as by their good."

"He concluded that the Verapaz, despite its fertility, did not present a good or secure future for colonization. The District of Santo Tomas, on the other hand, offered the same agricultural advantages as the interior province as well as additional advantages for commerce. He opined that a Belgian colony at Santo Tomas could avoid the mismanagement and disaster which had befallen the English at Abbottsville."

"The temperature is hot, but the country is healthy. Europeans can easily acclimatize there, live well there, and maintain their activity."

"Should it not, this essentially producing country, search all parts of the globe and seek to fight with other nations, by exploring in advance the countries likely to favor industries, by studying local needs and resources, by indicating the nature and time of the shipments to be made, etc.?"

"Disappointed expectations, naturally follow-up of nostalgia, the rigor of the old direction, the excessive and forced work, the military exercises right in the sun during the intended hours to rest and factions during the humid nights without the least shelter against rains, the bad food regime, the discouragement, the moral constraint, the deprivation during a certain emergency time of the religion, the total absence of distractions, the bad choice of a big number of colonists under the report of health and the constitution (imagine that one sends into a newly established colony, where the question of the healthiness is not entirely resolute, of families, of people reaches of the caries, idiots, the rickety, the lame, blinds, asthmatics and dunces?), the clutter and the humidity of homes, the big heats to which the most was not accustomed, the long and extraordinary rains, the stagnant puddles due to the defect of out-flow, different natural poisonous fumes that result from it, the poor state of roofing, the dirtiness, as much inside as outside, poverty and finally, in excesses of drink and food."

"Behr's (special diplomatic agent to Guatemala Baron de Behr) general impression of the colony was devastating. He wrote Brouckére (Belgian Foreign Minister) that the Belgian government had been ignobly deceived and misled by all reports. The colony was only a miserable village whose inhabitants lived for the most part from fishing. The actions of the Company agents had generated disgust everywhere and had disgraced the name of Belgium. All of the public works—roads, wharves, canals, municipal buildings were a mere fiction. The Company had squandered 3,200,000 francs without a trace. Any money put up by the Belgian government would disappear in the same fashion. The stocks backed by land lots in portfolio which the Company offered as guarantee against monies borrowed, were, in Behr's opinion, worthless. He thought that the Company courted Belgian government intervention in a speculator's venture which had miscarried."

"At the time when the government intervened in the Guatemalan affair, the European colonies were closed to Belgian trade by prohibitive laws or high differential duties ... We therefore had to think about creating our own bases of operations for trade. national. From this point of view, we can only applaud the idea of ​​forming a Belgian colony on the vast American continent. Since this initiative, which our lack of initiative and perseverance alone failed, the situation has changed completely. Under the impetus of the great economic reform, led by the illustrious Robert Peel, ideas about free trade have gained ground in Europe, and the time may not be far off when all the powers will remove the barriers with which they have surrounded their transatlantic possessions. Therefore, the need to create agricultural colonies to promote the development of trade and national industry will no longer exist to the same degree."

"First plan, the mineral and commercial exploitation and, only in the second plan, the establishment of an agricultural colony alongside the Itajaí Grande."

"The grant from the Brazilian government specified a 6,000,000 francs capitalization which the company never was able to raise."

"Santa Catarina is established under the patronage of his majesty king of the Belgians and the strong protection of his majesty the emperor of Brazil."

"If some colonies are still available, someone will populate them. I am sure that these colonists, although isolated, will thank your majesty. They will find some Belgians among them who work hard and persevere to advance the country despite the fact that distance to the market place reduces of their harvest the value by half."

"If life in Europe was difficult because of the various conflicts and poverty faced by European families, life in the Brazilian interior was anything but easy in the early decades of colonization, given the climatic conditions, the wildlife and the many snakes."

"Philippe Fontaine burned all the colonial correspondence and all documents in 1847. Subsequently, the area was hit by floods several times, including in 1911. The church, built in 1845 by Van Lede, was spared. But she did not survive the next flood of 1925 and was completely destroyed. There are few visible traces. In this part of Brazil, the Belgians belong to the past but have not been forgotten. The adventures of Charles Van Lede and the Belgian-Brazilian Society for Colonization are still well known. The opening sentence of the advertising brochure of the town of Ilhota refers to the Belgian roots. Some street names have Belgian names and it was even the intention to establish a Belgian museum. Here too, the descendants of the Belgian settlers are the most important remains! They proudly use their typical Belgian surnames, such as Maes, De Gand or Castellain. In this way it remains a hard-to-erasable legacy of the Belgian-Brazilian adventure of the XIXth century, which is automatically passed on from generation to generation."

"The Belgian Ludgero José Nelis has committed himself to founding a small colony of his compatriots in the province of Rio de Janeiro, the main purpose of which is the cultivation of flax, cannabis and oil plants, as well as livestock; to then set up industrial production for the raw materials produced here. For the establishment of the colony, the entrepreneur received the necessary land from the President of the Province, and the Imperial Government provided his company with assistance by the constant manner of conditions approved by Decree of June 6 of last year​."

"In November 1887, the government bought land in the municipality of Porto Feliz with an area of 1,601 hectares, to allocate it to this settlement, at a cost of 23,000$000. According to the contract of November 18, 1887 by the government with Father João Baptista Vanesse, this land is intended for the housing of Belgian immigrants, whom the priest will recruit. The government commits itself to demarcate the land in lots of 25 to 30 hectares, as well as to carry out other works such as the construction of a building for divine worship, a school, temporary housing for the settlers, restoration of the existing residence for the residence of the director and Vanesse priest, and the construction of the necessary roads and paths."

"The Ministry of Agriculture has ordered the Treasury to make the following payments, effective May 1. to the priest João Baptista Vanesse, a monthly bonus of two hundred thousand journeys."

"The twenty-five original families were chosen in their homeland by the priest Jean Baptiste Vanesse, who signed a contract with the Ministry of Agriculture of Brazil. This priest has been criticized from the very beginning, leaving him largely to blame for the colony's failure. He is accused of being authoritarian, despotic and drinking way too much. It is a fact that most of the settlers had a background in their homeland in the service sector, trade or industry, and had little affinity with agricultural activities. They were unfamiliar with the Brazilian weather, the jungle that surrounded the colony, and the hard work of felling reeds. Most returned to Belgium. A few families remained active in the region in mixed farming, animal husbandry and the production of brandies."

"We left Congo with my family after independence, in 1960”. We returned to Belgium for a few months before choosing to come here to Brazil in 1962. We came to work in agriculture, as in Congo. We were used to doing this. That was no longer possible in Belgium."

"The country was bought by Belgium to settle the Belgians returning from Congo at the time of independence"

"I was born in Charleroi. I had lived with my parents in Congo for 8 years. At independence we lost everything and returned to Belgium. It was then that the Belgian government proposed to come to Brazil to start our lives over. Because we had lost everything in Congo, Belgium wanted to buy itself out."

"We called the first avenue of wooden houses where the first Belgians who arrived here lived 'Avenue Louise'. After that, the cooperative made other houses in other streets for those who came after. There was also a shop, bakery, post office and a single telephone with a single number"

"Little by little the village of Monte Alegre grew. In the 60s and 70s we built a gas station, a well, an infirmary, two schools and a meeting room where we celebrated Saint Nicholas or the National Day of Belgium on July 21. We also set up a dairy farm called: BELCO for "Belgium-Congo"."