WI no Belgian monarch colonizes the Congo ?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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What happens to the territory instead of Heart of Darkness. What are the knock-on effects across the African continent?
 
First one that comes to my mind is no Rwandan genocide.
Other than that, Germany might get a headstart in the Scramble.
Perhaps the Scramble for Africa is avoided?
 
Actually, I think it was France who wanted interested in the whole Congo, so that might be a thing.

Well you had a treaty passed with Leopold I that stipulated that if the EIC had to be failure, France would have an option on Congo. It doesn't mean that France would succeed the EIC but that it would have been asked first to buy it.

Giving the multinational interest, a fragmentation of the territory is more plausible : southern side of Congo river to France, Katanga to Britain. Portugal would have huge claims but it's implausible to see them all fulfilled.

That said France and Britain would probably give Portugal some territories that neither of them want to see being held by the other; but it's probably as well that these territories would be economically neutralised trough free-passage and market, limitating hugely Portuguese dominance and monopole over these territories).
 
First one that comes to my mind is no Rwandan genocide.
Other than that, Germany might get a headstart in the Scramble.
Perhaps the Scramble for Africa is avoided?

You do realise that Rwanda-Urundi was originally a German colony before being given to Belgium after WWI, and that the Tutsi dominance over the Hutu actually predates European colonialism, though not to quite such an extent.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
...just as a point of background, the French had some territory in Gabon and the Portuguese on the Angolan coast, but the British still were not established in East Africa or Rhodesia at the time the Congo Association began staking claims. By the 1880s, the Berlin Conference and the formal recognition of the Congo Free State, the British and Germans had both made some claims on the east African coast.
 
Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost ,
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host .
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell ,
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell .
 
The population of the Congo would be much higher. Congo is very unlikely to remain free so it's a matter of hoping for a relatively good colonizer. If the British or French colonize them and go about trying to create a Western educated middle and upper class drawn from the native elites, that might help the Congo region down the line.

Alternately, Leopold isn't able to convince the European community to give him personal control over the Congo and the Belgian government has control of the region from the start. Maybe earlier Belgian migration to the Congo?
 
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