congo-free-state

"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."

"The Royal Donation is financially completely independent: it is responsible for its own income and expenditure, and manages its own goods and personnel."

"The bulk of the maintenance costs of the Domain of Laeken relate to the Royal Greenhouses (which are only open to the public three weeks a year, ed.) and the priceless collection of plants whose maintenance has been accepted by the state. In addition, in addition to our own works, government contracts are regularly put out to tender for the renovation of monumental greenhouses. Such as the Congo greenhouse in Laeken, for which around 1.7 million euros has been budgeted in recent years."

"The majority of the costs goes to places used by the Royal Family, like the Royal Estate in Laeken and their country residence in the Estate of Ardenne because castles, monumental greenhouses and other parts of Royal Estates have great patrimonial and historical value, it is logical that their maintenance takes up more financial resources than is the case for other properties."

"Nobody knows how much the property is actually worth. The Royal Trust itself does not know. The last estimate dates from twenty years ago and is still in Belgian francs. In 1999, the assets were estimated by the public finance department at 221 million euros."

"Since castles, monumental conservatories and other parts of royal domains have great patrimonial and historical value, it is logical that their maintenance requires more financial resources than is the case for other properties."

"This is undeniably the case: the Royal Endowment has its own legal personality and full financial autonomy. It is completely outside the scope of the federal spending budget."

"The Court of Audit, for example, analyzes us every year. In the last three years we have received confirmation that the entire administration and the way we work is in accordance with all standards that can be found. But no one ever asked for more information"

"We manage to balance our budget and keep our patrimony in good condition – despite the heavy burdens resulting from the Donation made by King Leopold II – by respecting all the rules that apply to a public institution of the state, under supervision of the Minister of Finance and the Court of Audit."

"On the occasion of my 65th birthday, I wish to hand over to the State my properties that contribute to the attractiveness and beauty of the places where they are located."

"The Royal Trust should be able to operate financially autonomously. Now the personal interests of the royal family are too much taken into account. We need to conduct a thorough investigation, after which all options are open, including the cancellation of the Royal Trust and the return of certain domains to the royal family so that they can bear the costs themselves"

"In ten years or so, when rubber starts to decline, it will be agriculture that will have to ensure our public income and our trade."

"You would remember that when I decided that the state would exploit its domain and that any vacant land would be claimed by it as its own, you found me absolutely absolute. You have nevertheless very vigorously and very skillfully supported me. For the Nile, I also ask you to follow my instructions faithfully. I will not lead you to the shipwreck, I promise you. For the time being, I want to be as powerful as possible on the Nile."

"By blowing up the isolated facts, the British sought to cover up their territorial greed under the guise of philanthropy."

"Nothing that impressed Africa was foreign to him. Without needing to go and look there, he knew the dark continent, as if he had been its explorer, and he followed step by step the discoveries, which he noted in his prodigious memory and on the maps displayed on it. Table."

"Personally, I have no other ambition than to devote to the service of the King all the goodwill and effort of which I will still be capable. I know it's a small thing."

"The King was very ignorant… he lacked education. ... He was ignorant of geography, the teachings of history and the science of international law"

"I want to show those who are going to peddle that I am the man of all jobs, that at least I am not, just to keep my place. And I hold it all the more so as I can put up with the current boycott, a few months, but that I could not bend my life to it forever."

"The prevailing opinion at court was that the founding of a colony was beyond the strength of the Sovereign of a small state and that he would swallow up his private fortune, unable to create anything lasting. The King sought for the execution of his designs collaborators possessed of the faith which he himself had and which lifts mountains."

"But it would not be reckless to say that from the start the King dreamed of founding a Belgian colony. Many times I have heard him say, when the Independent State emerged from its swaddling clothes like a newborn baby trying to walk: "I work there for Belgium"."

"Maximilien Strauch was the most active and intimate collaborator of the King. (Leopold II)"

"It is the King who supports the State from his pocket, to challenge the State for the products of his estates is to force the King from his pocket to cover deficits, a good part of which will come from the free abandonment of the land. 'exploitation of State estates to commercial houses to fatten them on a voluntary basis, houses which not only do nothing for the progress of civilization but which have delayed it with all their might and would like to delay it further in order to be States, tyrants in the State."

"Never have I had the impression of such a moral and civic downfall. In no country, not even the last of the last, what is happening here would be possible."

"A man of struggle and controversy, discussed and often vilified by the small press, I have always been an embarrassment to those who have employed me. My character and my faults are not an obstacle to my useful service in the active army, but they will make me ill-suited to fulfill the duties of the King's aide-de-camp which require extreme reserve and prudence."

"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."

"He wanted to transform his little Belgians into an imperial nation capable of dominating and enlightening others."

"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.?"

"He desires a strong Belgium so that his wealth ceases to arouse envy among his neighbors; he also desires her to be strong, so that she can increase her heritage, float her flag on the seas, settle on distant beaches."

"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."

"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."

"The Duke of Brabant (Leopold II) takes me for a statistical office."

"We paddle away from the shore. Reflected in the water, the moon gazes up at us, then twists and blurs in the current. Until the pirogue slips under the tangle of branches overhanging the river and the moon disappears behind the trees."

"A hut is a green cocoon, a shell of leaves that is round and compact. Warm and welcoming, protective: as you enter you immediately feel the desire to lie down on the floor in foetal position. You are inside, but it's as if you are not there at all: the hut makes you invisible. In the sense that it is all formed from the forest, of leaves and branches, living things. Animals passing by mistake it for a bush."

"The short stature of Pygmy groups around the world has long intrigued anthropologists. It is generally accepted that their small body size is a result of genetic adaptation; however, which genes were selected, and the nature of the underlying selective force(s), remain unknown. The various hypotheses proposed include adaptations to food limitation, thermoregulation, mobility in the forest, and/or short lifespan. A recent study of the HGDP-CEPH populations identified a signal of selection in the insulin growth factor signalling pathway in Biaka Pygmies, which might be associated with short stature, but this signal was not shared with Mbuti Pygmies. By contrast, we found strong signals for selection in both African Pygmy groups at two genes involved in the iodide-dependent thyroid hormone pathway: TRIP4 in Mbuti Pygmies; and IYD in Biaka Pygmies (Fig. 7). Intriguingly, a previous study found a significantly lower frequency of goiter in Efe Pygmies (9.4%) than in Lese Bantu farmers (42.9%). The Efe and Lese live in close proximity to one another in the iodine-deficient Ituri Forest and share similar diets. Moreover, the frequency of goiter in Efe women living in Bantu villages was similar to that of Efe women living in the forest, and the frequency of goiter in offspring with an Efe mother and a Lese father was intermediate between that of Efe and Lese. These observations suggest that the Efe have adapted genetically to an iodine-deficient diet; we suggest that the signals of recent positive selection that we observe at TRIP4 in Mbuti Pygmies and IYD in Biaka Pygmies may reflect such genetic adaptations to an iodine-deficient diet. Furthermore, alterations in the thyroid hormone pathway can cause short stature. We therefore suggest that short stature in these Pygmy groups may have arisen as a consequence of genetic alterations in the thyroid hormone pathway. If this scenario is true, then there are two important implications. First, this would suggest that short stature was not selected for directly in the ancestors of Pygmy groups, but rather arose as an indirect consequence of selection in response to an iodine-deficient diet. Second, since different genes in the thyroid hormone pathway show signals of selection in Mbuti vs. Biaka Pygmies, this would suggest that short stature arose independently in the ancestors of Mbuti and Biaka Pygmies, and not in a common ancestral population. Moreover, most Pygmy-like groups around the world dwell in tropical forests, and hence are likely to have iodine-deficient diets. The possibility that independent adaptations to an iodine-deficient diet might therefore have contributed to the convergent evolution of the short stature phenotype in Pygmy-like groups around the world deserves further investigation."

"We are all coming back as we like the Belgian side best."

"Though the pygmies die young they start life early, generally marrying at eight or nine. The men buy their wives with three or four spears and ten to fifteen arrows, according to the market value of the lady. These they pay by instalments, the courtship beginning by the suitor presenting the father with a spear, and if accepted he comes along again as soon as ever he can raise another, but not till the last arrow is handed over is he allowed to take his bride; thus the father always has something in hand, should the suitor change his mind, with which to sooth the sorrowing lady of possibly seven or eight years of age. A man can have as many wives as he can afford to buy."

"African Pygmies speak languages belonging to either the Nilo-Saharan or the Niger–Kordofanian family. It is assumed that Pygmies once spoke their own language(s), but that, through living in symbiosis with other Africans, in prehistorical times, they adopted languages belonging to these two families."

"If we make a village here it is good. If we make it in another place it is just as good."

"The forest fills you with its own being. It feeds you. It gives you food from its own mouth. In the eyes of the Baka every animal hunted, every fish caught or fruit picked is like an offering, a sacrifice that the forest makes of itself, a gift to be thankful for."

"Obviously, we are leaving the humanitarian and scientific plan to risk a business whose commercial aspects seem to lack sufficient bases, and which, on top of that, seems fraught with national and international difficulties."

"This African question in which I never believed the slightest future ... hangs over me in the most unpleasant way. ... My very square opinion was, and I expressed it very forcefully ... to withdraw from it."

"The International African Association, formed for purely philanthropical purposes, was the outcome of a geographical conference which met at Brussels in 1876. Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was made its president by the unanimous agreement of distinguished representatives, men from nearly all of the European countries and from the United States. The programme which was adopted had the treble end in view “of organizing the scientific exploration of the still unknown regions of Africa, of opening up paths to civilization, and of seeking the means of gradually extinguishing the traffic in slaves.""

"You are charged by the act with “introducing and extending the commerce of the United States in the Congo Valley”"

"To open to civilization the only part of the globe not yet explored, to penetrate the shadows that envelope its entire population; This is, I make bold to say a crusade worthy of this century of progress, and i am happy to note that public opinion is favorable to its undertaking."

"Six months prior to the meeting in Berlin. The United States by joint resolution of congress stated that "The flag of the international association of the Congo is equal to that of a friendly Government.""

"We must ensure that it is not too clear that the Association of Congo and the African Association are two different businesses. The public doesn't understand that. It will assume that there are two phases, the first of which is no longer relevant."

"Sir, The act making appropriations for the diplomatic and consular service, approved July 7, 1884, provides “for an agent to the States or the Congo Association, $5,000, said agent to be charged with introducing and extending the commerce of the United States in the Congo Valley, and for such purpose the further sum of $10,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary; and the President is hereby authorized to appoint, in the recess of the Senate, such agent, whose commission shall expire at the end of the next session of the Senate.""

"We must ensure that it is not too clear that the Association of Congo and the African Association are two different businesses. The public doesn't understand that. It will assume that there are two phases, the first of which is no longer relevant."

"The main difficulty has been the shifting of the population. It appears that the population, when the station was founded in 1865, was between 5,000 and 6,000 in the riverine Colonies. About two years later, the Chief, Mpuki, did not agree with his neighbours or they with him. When the tension became acute, Mpuki crossed over with his people to the opposite (French) side of the river. This exodus took away a large number of people. In 1890 or 1891, a Chief from one of the lower towns was compelled by the majority of his people to leave the State side, and several went with him. About 1893, the rest of the people at the lower towns either went across to the same place as the deposed Chief, or took up their residence inland. Towards the end of 1894, a soldier who had been sent to cut firewood for the State steamers on an island off the towns, left his work to make an evil request in one of the towns. He shot the man who refused him. The rascal of a soldier was properly dealt with by the State officer in charge ; but this outrage combined, with other smaller difficulties, to produce a panic, and nearly all the people left for the French side, or hid awayjinland. So the fine township has broken up"

"The people (slaves) are for the most part originally prisoners of war. Since the Decree of Emancipation they have simply returned to their own distant homes, knowing their owners have no power to recapture them. This is one reason why some think the population is decreasing, and another is the vast exodus up and down river. So long as the Slave Trade flourished, the Bobangi nourished, but with its abolition they are tending to disappear, for then towns were replenished by slaves."