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The Colonial University of Belgium ( French: Université coloniale de Belgique, Dutch: Koloniale Hogeschool van België) was an institute of higher education located in Antwerp. Founded in 1920, the institute was established to prepare students for a careers as colonial functionaries in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi.
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo ( French: État indépendant du Congo ), was a large state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by King Leopold II, the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium. In legal terms, the two separate nations were in a personal ...
The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state, privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the International African Association. The state included the entire area of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, and existed from 1885 until 1908, when the government of Belgium reluctantly annexed the ...
In 1870, explorer Henry Morton Stanley arrived in and explored what is now the DR Congo. Belgian colonization of DR Congo began in 1885 when King Leopold II founded and ruled the Congo Free State. However, de facto control of such a huge area took decades to achieve. Many outposts were built to extend the power of the state over such a vast ...
Prior to the creation of the Congo Free State, the International Association of the Congo (IAC) had signed treaties with over 300 native Congolese chiefs and in effect exercised sovereignty over a large area of the Congo Basin. The IAC was headquartered in Belgium and run by a committee under the presidency of Maximilien Strauch.
Roughly 98% of Belgium's overseas territory was just one colony (about 76 times larger than Belgium itself) – known as the Belgian Congo. The colony was founded in 1908 following the transfer of sovereignty from the Congo Free State , which was the personal property of Belgium's king, Leopold II .
The Colonial Charter on the Belgian annexation of the Congo Free State ( French: Charte coloniale de 1908) was approved by the Belgian Parliament on 18 October 1908. On 15 November 1908, Belgium assumed sovereignty over the territories comprising the Congo Free State, officially making the Belgian Congo a colony of Belgium.
Casement Report. The Casement Report was a 1904 document written at the behest of the British Government by Roger Casement (1864–1916)—a British diplomat and future Irish independence fighter —detailing abuses in the Congo Free State which was under the private ownership of King Leopold II of Belgium. This report was instrumental in ...