CONGO BELGA

BELGIAN CONGO. — Formerly, under the name of Congo, were included the present French Equatorial Africa, the Portuguese possessions of Angola and Congo, and those of the Belgian Crown. At present, the name Belgian Congo (Congo Belga) is given to the vast (2.3 million sq. km., 80 times the territory of the mother country) colonial domain of Belgium in Africa, which extends, astride the Equator, from Lakes Albert and Tanganyika to the Atlantic, embracing four-fifths of the total area of the great river basin that gives it its name.

I. GEOGRAPHY

The basin corresponds to a depressed plateau in the central part, shaped like a basin, and bordered on the margins by reliefs or highlands, usually in the form of stepped bastions. The region has an equatorial climate with constant rainfall in the lowlands, and a tropical climate with periodic rains in the highlands; this results in the predominance of forest in the former and savanna in the latter. The gigantic river (4,600 km in length; 3.7 million sq. km in basin area), although it forms, with its numerous tributaries, an extensive river network suitable for large-scale navigation, does not have the importance of the Amazon, because it is interrupted in its course by rapids and cataracts that are bypassed by railway lines. The Belgian Congo is one of the richest countries in the world, but its development is hindered above all by the obstacles that climate and environment pose to European colonization. Indigenous agriculture, while allowing some surplus over domestic needs (maize, peanuts, sesame, castor bean), remains backward; livestock farming is also of little importance (especially goats), from which the widespread scourge of the tsetse fly excludes vast areas. More than the forest, which covers half the territorial surface and provides precious woods and palm oil and supports an active oil industry, more than the plantations (cotton and coffee, which are developing rapidly), the economy of the Belgian Congo today is dominated by its immense mineral resources, which have made its south-eastern sector, Katanga, the most active industrial center on the entire continent (copper, iron, cobalt, and tin; elsewhere, and especially in Kasai, diamonds, gold, silver, uranium, coal, etc.). Communications have seen considerable progress in the last twenty years (4,662 km of railways; 94,476 km of roads; airlines with 167 aerodromes; increased equipment of the ports of Matadi, Banana, Boma, and Léopoldville), making penetration into the immense country now relatively easy, although development is still limited to relatively narrow sectors.

Of the 10.7 million inhabitants of the colony, the vast majority are Bantu Negroes, with Sudanese to the north and Pygmies in the forests. There are 36,000 whites, of whom 24,000 are Belgians, 2,900 Portuguese, and 1,500 Italians, mostly officials and missionaries. Inhabited centers have an urban character only in a few cases. Léopoldville (Léo-Kin), the capital, now has about 120,000 inhabitants (of whom 7,244 are white); Elisabethville has 69,000; there are then five other settlements with more than 10,000 inhabitants each.

The natives tend to adhere to fetishistic cults, and to the north there is a significant Muslim presence. Catholics number 2,179,303 (as of December 31, 1946), Protestants 446,805, and Muslims about 70,000.

The Belgian Congo, which had arisen as the "Independent State of the Congo" in 1882, through the initiative of King Leopold II of Belgium, was converted in 1908 into a Belgian colony, administered by a governor-general appointed by the crown. Adjacent to the Belgian Congo is the mandated territory comprising the two native kingdoms of Ruanda and Urundi (q.v.).

Administrative subdivision of the colony:

| Provinces | Area (sq. km) | Population (1939) | Capital (population in thousands) |
|--------------------|---------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------|
| Léopoldville | 354 | 2,066 | Léopoldville (117) |
| Conquiahvitelle | 409 | 1,566 | Conquiahvitelle (9) |
| Stanleyville | 510 | 2,380 | Stanleyville (14) |
| Costermansville | 226 | 1,310 | Costermansville (3) |
| Elisabethville | 484 | 1,043 | Elisabethville (6) |
| Lusambo | 353 | 1,961 | Lusambo (7) |
| **TOTAL** | **2,336** | **10,326** | |

II. HISTORY OF THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE REGION FORMERLY INCLUDED UNDER THE NAME OF CONGO

I. Ancient Mission

After the discovery of the Congo River (Zaire) in 1482 (Padrao at Cape St. Augustine) by Diogo Cão, the evangelization of the Congo kingdom south of the river soon began. It is not yet entirely clear who the first missionaries were: Franciscans, Franciscan Tertiaries, Dominicans, Canons Regular of St. John the Evangelist, known as Lojos.

It is more than likely that the first missionary expedition of 1490 was composed of friars from different Orders and "outros clérigos," thus secular clergy. More precise information is available on the activity of the Lojos: in their convent in Lisbon, Negroes brought back by Cão after his second expedition of 1485-86 were educated and baptized. Three Lojos expeditions in 1490, 1500, and 1521 are documented. Already in 1491 the king of the Congo was baptized.

comprising the two native kingdoms of Ruanda and Urundi (q.v.).

They apostatized after a short time. Only under his successor Afonso, a convinced and zealous Christian, could Christianity take root. In 1513 he sent an embassy to Leo X, and also sent his son Henrique and several sons of chiefs to Portugal, where, after suitable training, they were ordained priests; Henrique was even consecrated titular bishop of Utica. Their activity in the Congo is little known. Damião de Góis, in his *Chronica do felicissimo Rey Don Emmanuel* (Lisbon 1619), speaks of their zeal for the propagation of the faith.

In the second half of the 16th century, Jesuits and Carmelites worked to spread Christianity in the Congo. After several unsuccessful attempts to establish a diocese in the country, the diocese of São Salvador do Congo was erected in 1596. Meanwhile, however, the center of Portuguese colonization had shifted to Angola, where the Jesuits had been working since 1560 and had baptized the king in 1584. In 1626 the episcopal see was de facto, if not de iure, transferred to São Paulo de Loanda, where the Jesuits maintained a college in the 17th century. From 1645 onward, the principal missionaries were Italian Capuchins, sent by the Propaganda, to whom was entrusted the prefecture established in 1640, and for about two centuries the mission in the Congo and Angola remained in their hands. In 1653 Father Giorgio van Gheel was martyred there. The Capuchins succeeded in extending their activity to the kingdoms of Matamba, whose queen Nzinga converted in 1656, and to the kingdom of Loango, where for a brief period (1766–76) some French secular priests attempted a mission.

In the 18th century, however, the Capuchin mission steadily declined, eventually reduced to a few stations. In the 19th century it collapsed entirely and was abandoned by them. Only the episcopal see of Loanda remained, with a few coastal towns where Portuguese secular clergy exercised parochial ministry. Moreover, the see of Loanda remained vacant from 1826 to 1852.

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2. The modern mission

The modern mission was begun by missionaries of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, or rather of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary founded by Father Libermann, which in 1848 merged with that of the Holy Spirit. In 1844 Father Giovanni Renato Bessieux (1803–76) founded the first station of Sainte-Marie-du-Gabon; in 1849 he was named Apostolic Vicar of the Two Guineas. In Gabon, activity at first was limited to the environs of the city of Libreville, founded in 1849 by the French. There they established a large agricultural enterprise with attached schools and a hospital, with the aim of civilizing the natives and founding Christian families. Gabon later became the point of departure for the Congregation of the Holy Spirit’s missions in Nigeria and the Congo.

In 1865 the Propaganda entrusted the old Congo prefecture to this Congregation. Opposition from the Portuguese government initially hindered any fruitful activity; only in 1873 were the missionaries able to establish themselves at Landana, a territory independent to the north of the Congo River, from which they ventured boldly into the mission field.

The explorations of Henry Stanley (1841–1904) and Pietro Savorgnan di Brazza (1852–1905) resulted in the division of the Congolese territory. In 1884–85 the Independent State of the Congo was founded and its borders were established by treaties with France and Portugal (1885). Consequently, in 1886 it became necessary to reorganize missionary activity. The territory of Landana, assigned to Portugal, became the prefecture of Lower Congo, together with the northern part of the Portuguese possession south of the river. In the French sector, alongside the vicariate of the Two Guineas, the vicariate of French Congo was erected. The Independent State of the Congo became a separate mission, raised to a vicariate in 1888 under the name of Independent Congo or B.

a) Portuguese Congo (v. ANGOLA).

**CONGO BELGE — Port of Matadi.**

b) French Congo. — In French Congo, renamed in 1910 French Equatorial Africa (v. s.V. AFRICA: I, cols. 379–80), the missionaries were likewise the fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. In the vicariate of the Two Guineas, reduced in 1890 to Gabon under the name of Gabon, the missionaries from 1880 penetrated inland, evangelizing black tribes along the Ogoué and Ngounié rivers. In central Congo the station of Linzolo was established in 1883, serving as a center and point of departure for further advances. In 1886 the Apostolic Vicariate of French Congo was erected; in 1890 this was divided into two: Lower French Congo (from 1907, Loango and now Pointe-Noire) and Upper French Congo (from 1922, Brazzaville). The first Apostolic Vicar of Ubangui, Filippo Prospero Augouard (1852–1921), pushed activity farther north as far as the Ubangui River. The Gospel struggled to take root among those tribes, some of which were still engaged in cannibalism. The northern part of the vicariate was detached in 1909 as the prefecture of Ubanghi-Chari (renamed in 1940 Bangui). Here the Capuchins came to the aid of the fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, and for them the Apostolic Prefecture of Berberati was erected in 1940.

c) The Belgian Congo (C. B.) — In 1880, by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide to Cardinal Lavigerie, two mission centres of the White Fathers were authorised, one for the southern C. superior and the other for the northern C. superior, which included the entire Congo region east of Stanley Pool and the adjacent regions to the north and south. It was not until 1885 that the first three missionaries of Cardinal Lavigerie founded the first mission station, penetrating inland from the west. However, as early as 1879 the White Fathers had begun their activity in the region of Lake Tanganyika. After the foundation of the independent State of the Congo, King Leopold II obtained from the Holy See that these missions be reserved for religious institutes of Belgium. Thus, in 1886 the mission of the Belgian Congo (C. B.) was established, which in 1888 became an apostolic vicariate, consisting of the territory of that name, excluding only the eastern tract assigned to the apostolic vicariate of the Upper Congo for the White Fathers. The new mission of the Belgian Congo was entrusted to the Fathers of Scheut, who established the centre of their activity at Léopoldville. Later, other congregations arrived from Belgium: the Jesuits in 1891, the Trappists in 1894, the Priests of the Sacred Heart in 1897, the Premonstratensians in 1898, the Redemptorists in 1899, the Mill Hill Society in 1905, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in 1907, the Benedictines and Capuchins in 1910, the Dominicans and Salesians in 1911, and other institutes after the war of 1914–18. Thus, through successive divisions, the ecclesiastical circumscriptions of the Belgian Congo and the Upper Congo became increasingly numerous and today are entrusted to 19 missionary institutes. Similarly, numerous female congregations established houses there. In 1891 the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary of Ghent arrived in the Belgian Congo; many others followed, and by 1935 there were already 52 congregations. In 1888 religious, scientific, and charitable associations were granted legal personality, and by the convention of 26 May 1906 between the independent State and the Holy See, an intimate collaboration developed between the Catholic mission and the colonial government, which did not prevent a veritable campaign of attacks and slanders against the missionaries in Belgium itself in the following years. The principal defender of the missions was the noted Jesuit moralist Arthur Vermeersch. In return, the mission of the Belgian Congo took ever deeper root in the hearts of Catholics in the mother country. The result was, with the cooperation of the Belgian government and people, great progress for the missions, both in the religious sphere—where the number of Catholics rose to 3,247,597 (1948) and that of catechumens to 848,270 (1948)—and in the social, economic, and hygienic spheres, and especially in the educational field. Significant also are the