African Entrepreneurship Record

June 2, 1898.

Capital of Belgian Congo, Black Horn City.

Nales and his team from the East Belgian Trading Company completed their trade activities with the Belgians. As an employee from East Africa engaged in trade activities in the Belgian Congo since 1886, Nales discovered a startling fact during this trip.

Upon returning to Luanda, he reported his observations in the Belgian Congo in detail to the company, which subsequently caught the attention of the East African Government.

In order to verify the accuracy of this information, East Africa organized another team to conduct a secret investigation in the Belgian Congo in July.

Thus, in 1898, the East African Government came to a surprising conclusion, discovering that the Chinese population in the Belgian Congo had become the overwhelming majority. Although there wasn’t any data to support it, no one could deny this fact when East Africans delved into the Belgian Congo.

That is, the indigenous people there might have been completely wiped out. From 1897 to 1898, East African staff in the Belgian colony did not find a single indigenous person.

This indicates that the local Black population had been entirely exterminated by the Belgian colonists. Of course, the Black people transported to the Belgian Congo by East Africa were exceptions, but they also belonged to outsiders and were not considered indigenous.

In other words, the indigenous people of the Belgian Congo might have become extinct, and the current population in the Belgian Congo is from other regions, including Belgians, Chinese, and Black slaves from Angola.

After the East African Government occupied Angola, they once sent over a hundred thousand staunch loyalists to the Belgian Congo from the South African war, who were loyal to Portugal, and these loyalists became the main Black population in the Belgian Congo today. However, in just a few years, they dwindled from over a hundred thousand to two or three tens of thousands.

With the onset of various projects in East Africa, there was a significant need for labor. In such cases, East Africa paused the export of Black slave populations. Nowadays, East African Blacks are not enough, let alone driving out the limited stock. Therefore, by 1892, East Africa officially stopped the slave trade business, which had lasted for over twenty years.

The reports from Nales and some East African personnel caught the attention of Ernst, especially Nales’ diary.

”February 7, 1898. Today is my twenty-third day in the Belgian Congo. I have infiltrated a local colonial stronghold called Karaibi, located in the eastern part of the Belgian Congo. According to the local Belgians, less than sixty kilometers to the east is our East Africa. This colonial stronghold mainly focuses on the mining industry, with the primary mineral being tin, which is also one of the main purposes of my trip.”

”I had visited here before, in April 1892 and May 1895, but today I found that there were no Black workers in the mines. Knowing that during my last visit, at least sixty percent of the personnel were Black slaves.”

”Out of curiosity, I questioned the local Belgians, but most of them hemmed and hawed, giving ambiguous answers, unwilling to address the issue.”

”However, this could not deter me. With a pack of cigarettes, I got the answer I sought, which was that in the past three years, the local indigenous folks had been utterly consumed.”

”In retrospect, throughout this journey, except for Black Horn, I didn’t really see many Black people, which sparked my interest. Of course, the specific result, I can pay a bit more attention to during the ensuing journey.”

From here, Nales’ subsequent diary entries detail the Belgian population survey results, which Ernst reviewed page by page.

”February 8, 1898. Spent a day in Karaibi, I discovered that not only were the Black people completely gone, but the local Chinese laborers were also living arduously, although their situation was slightly better than the Blacks. Although many people in East Africa originate from the Far East, I know nothing about the Chinese language. However, under Belgian rule, the local Chinese laborers picked up some French. The Belgians could speak both German and French, so they cunningly placed German and French-speaking individuals near the borders of East Africa and France respectively. Karaibi is closer to East Africa, so most Belgians here speak French. But this didn’t hinder me because when dealing with Belgians, French is a required subject.”

”Through simple French communication with the local Chinese, I got an insight into their living conditions, which can only be described as unbearable. They must perform heavy physical labor daily, with insufficient rest, and their meals contain all sorts of strange things.”

”However, their circumstances were somewhat better than the former Blacks here, as the Belgians didn’t regard Black people as human beings. Of course, their private attitudes towards Chinese were similar, only leaving some leeway due to East Africa’s presence.”

”Moreover, due to the severe population shortage in the Belgian Congo, the Belgian governance strategy had significantly changed. Previously, they would arbitrarily cut off hands or other body parts or directly execute Black slaves. Now, they had restrained themselves quite a bit because the local population was too sparse, and the Belgians obviously couldn’t personally complete these heavy physical tasks.”

The authenticity of Nales’ diary records has few discrepancies. East Africa had stabilized its nation-state, so the Chinese in East Africa wielded considerable influence, especially in the military and education sectors.

Of course, this influence would eventually dissipate with the passing away of the first generation of Chinese immigrants. As for the second generation, they were primarily of mixed race.

”February 13, 1898. During my journey, I particularly focused on conducting an in-depth investigation of the Belgian colony’s situation. Through local observations, and the narratives of Belgians and Chinese, it could reasonably be determined that most of the Black indigenous people in the Belgian Congo had disappeared. Of course, this only represents what I saw and heard along my route. I’m unaware of whether other regions were different…”

”June 2, 1898. Finally returned to Black Horn. Here, I saw a large number of Black people once again. However, these Black people seemed to have been supplied to Belgium by East Africa. Currently, Black Horn is the most important port in the Belgian colony, so most of these Black people labor here. It was said that there were tens of thousands initially, now reduced to less than twenty thousand, which also deepened my understanding of Belgian cruelty.”

”The Black population provided to Belgium by East Africa alone constituted half of the original local indigenous population because most of the Belgian Congo, like Cabinda, has a tropical rainforest climate. Therefore, the indigenous population was already inadequate. Based on our estimates, before Belgian colonization, the local population might only have been around two to three hundred thousand, unlikely exceeding four hundred thousand. Under Belgium’s ruthless exploitation, even this indigenous population was not enough for them.”

Facts were as Nales described. The Belgian Congo was approximately the combination of parts of French Congo and Gabon in the past life, covering around 300,000 square kilometers. Due to the lack of specific data on the Belgium and France Gabon colonial borders, the precise territory of the Belgian colony was hard to calculate but was similar to the Old Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) in the past life.

At the time of its initial independence from France, the Old Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) had a population of just over two million, which was in the 1960s. Therefore, analyzing the local population before Belgian colonization, the scale of two to three hundred thousand, as Nales mentioned, seemed reliable.

In the past life, Leopold’s havoc in the Congo (Gold) resulted in the massacre of at least five million people. So, in the now Belgian Congo, where the population was only a fraction compared to the Congo (Gold), these indigenous populations weren’t nearly enough to endure Belgian exploitation.