African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 946 Nares Diary

1898 6 Month 2 Day.

Pointe-Noire, the capital of Belgian Congo.

Nales, an employee of the East Belgian Trading Company, and his team completed the trading activities with the Belgians. As an East African employee who had been engaged in trading activities in Belgian Congo since 1886, Nales discovered a very surprising fact during this trip.

After returning to Luanda, he reported his experiences in the Belgian Congo to the company in detail, which subsequently attracted the attention of the East African government.

In order to confirm the accuracy of this news, East Africa once again organized personnel to enter the Belgian Congo for a secret investigation in July.

So in 1898, the East African government came to a surprising conclusion. It discovered that the Chinese population in Belgian Congo had already accounted for an absolute majority. Although there was no data to support this, when East Africans went deep into Belgian Congo, no one would deny this fact.

That is, the local indigenous people were likely to have been completely extinct. From 1897 to 1898, the staff in the Belgian colony in East Africa did not find a single indigenous person.

This shows that the local blacks have been completely wiped out by the Belgian colonists. Of course, the blacks sent from East Africa to the Belgian Congo are an exception, but they are also outsiders and are not considered indigenous.

That is to say, the indigenous people of Belgian Congo may have become extinct, and the current population of Belgian Congo comes from other regions, including Belgians, Chinese and Angolan slaves.

After the East African government occupied Angola, it sent hundreds of thousands of diehards who were loyal to Portugal during the South African War to the Belgian Congo. These diehards have become the main black population in the Belgian Congo today. However, in just a few years, their population has dropped from hundreds of thousands at the beginning to 20,000 to 30,000.

However, with the launch of various projects in East Africa, East Africa was in urgent need of a large number of laborers. Under this circumstance, East Africa suspended the export of black slaves. Now there are not enough blacks in East Africa, let alone driving the only remaining stock out. Therefore, before 1892, East Africa officially stopped the slave trade business that had lasted for more than years.

The reports of Nales and some East African personnel attracted Ernst's attention, especially Nales' diary.

"February 1898, 2. Today is the 7rd day since I entered the Belgian Congo. I have already entered a local colonial outpost called Karabi. This is in the eastern part of the Belgian Congo. I heard from the local Belgians that East Africa is less than kilometers to the east. This colonial outpost is mainly engaged in mining, and the main mineral is tin, which is also one of the main purposes of my trip."

"I have been here before, in April 1892 and May 1895, but today I found that there is not a single black worker in the mine. You know, when I last came here, at least % of the local workers were slaves."

"Out of curiosity, I asked local Belgians about this, but most of them were hesitant and their answers were mostly ambiguous, and they were reluctant to answer the question."

"But this doesn't bother me. With a pack of cigarettes, I got the answer I wanted, which is that the local indigenous people have been exhausted in the past three years." "Thinking carefully, I really didn't see many black people along the way except for the black corner. This aroused my interest. Of course, I can pay a little attention to the specific results on the road later."

From here on, the rest of the diary was a detailed account of Nalles's census results for the Belgian population, which Ernst read page by page.

"On February 1898, 2, I spent a day in Karabi. I found that not only were the blacks there completely destitute, I think most of them had been physically exhausted, and the local Chinese laborers were also living a very difficult life, only their situation was only slightly better than that of the blacks. Although many people in East Africa also came from the Far East, I knew nothing about Chinese. However, the local Chinese laborers also learned some French under the rule of the Belgians. The Belgians could speak German and French, so the Belgians were very cunning. They deliberately placed the German and French people on the border between East Africa and France. Karabi was closer to East Africa, so most of the Belgians here spoke French. But this did not bother me. After all, doing business with the Belgians meant that French was also a required subject."

"By communicating with the local Chinese in simple French, I have learned about their living conditions, which can only be described as horrible. They have to do a lot of physical labor every day, do not get enough rest, and their meals are mixed with all kinds of strange things."

"However, compared to the blacks here, the blacks are still better. Belgians don't treat blacks as human beings at all. Of course, their attitude towards Chinese people in private is similar, but because of the existence of East Africa, they leave some room for Chinese people."

"Besides, because the Belgian Congo is now seriously short of population, the Belgians' ruling strategy has changed a lot. In the past, the Belgians would chop off the arms or other parts of the slaves or kill them directly. Now they have restrained themselves a lot because the local population is too small, and it is obviously impossible for the Belgians to complete these heavy physical work themselves."

The authenticity of the records in Nales' diary is almost certain. East Africa has already stabilized its national system, so the Chinese are also very influential in East Africa, the most typical of which are the military and education sectors.

Of course, this influence will eventually dissipate with the death of the first generation of Chinese immigrants, and the second generation will basically be mainly mixed-race.

"On February 1898, 2, I made a special effort to investigate the situation in the Belgian colonies during my trip. Through local observations and the accounts of Belgians and Chinese, I can basically confirm that most of the black natives in Belgian Congo have disappeared. Of course, this only represents what I saw and heard along the route I traveled. I don't know whether it is different in other areas..."

"On June 1898, 6, I finally returned to Cape Noire, where I finally saw a large number of black people again. However, it seems that these black people were all provided by East Africa to Belgium. Cape Noire is now the most important port in the Belgian colony, so most of these black people work here. I heard that there were more than 2 of them at the beginning, but now there are less than left. This also gave me a deeper understanding of the cruelty of the Belgians."

"The black population provided to Belgium by East Africa alone is half of the original indigenous population of Belgium. Because most of the Belgian Congo, like Cabinda, has a tropical rainforest climate, the number of local indigenous people was originally insufficient. According to our estimates, before the Belgian colonization, the local population was probably only 200,000 to 300,000, and it could not have exceeded 400,000. With the Belgians exhausting their resources, this number of indigenous people was simply not enough for Belgium to consume."

The fact is just as Nales said, the Belgian Congo is probably the French Congo and part of Gabon in the previous life, with an area of ​​about 300,000 square kilometers. Because there is no specific data on the border between Belgium and French Gabon colonies, the specific land area of ​​the Belgian colony is difficult to calculate, but it is roughly the same as the Congo (Brazzaville) in the previous life.

When Congo (Brazzaville) gained independence from France in the past, its population was only over two million, which was in the 1960s. Therefore, using this data to analyze the local population before Belgian colonization, the 200,000 to 300,000 mentioned by Nalles is more reliable.

In his previous life, Leopold massacred at least five million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, so the population of Belgian Congo, which is now not even a fraction of that of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is not enough for Belgium to harm.

(End of this chapter)