1. The Congo and the Rubber Industry

2. The Congo and the Rubber Industry
In the late 1800s, the demand of rubber increased in Europe because of the invention of the inflatable bicycle tire and the automobile.
Belgium realized that the Congo had an abundance of rubber trees
This led to a brutal colonization project in which Congo natives were forced by Belgians to harvest rubber.

3. “Imports of rubber into the United States will by far exceed any earlier year, and will amount to over $40 million. This rapid increase is due to the increasing use of this material for tires of cars and bicycles, and in other lines of manufacturing. These supplies of rubber, which come from the European countries, are the product of their colonies: Germany from her colonies in Africa, the United Kingdom from Africa and India, and Belgium from the Congo, which it controls. Belgium supplied nearly 30 million pounds of rubber to the world in 1893.”

4. “It used to take ten days to get the twenty baskets of rubber – we were always in the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved. Leopards killed some of us while we were working away in the forest and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation. We begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said: ‘Go. You are only beasts yourselves, you are only nyama (meat).’ We tried, always going further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes round their necks and taken away.”
Testimony of a Congolese native who experienced colonization

5. When natives did not collect enough rubber, their hands were cut off.

6. Congolese natives carrying Belgians in the Congo
Congolese natives carrying Belgians in the Congo. Often, Europeans would be carried by the natives as a symbol of their status (to show others that they had the most power).

7. Recent Timeline of The Democratic Republic (D.R.) of Congo
1996: Conflict in neighboring Rwanda and Uganda spill into D.R. Congo 1996: Civil War begins in D.R. Congo 2009: A peace treaty is signed which is supposed to end the conflict in D.R. Congo 2012: Fighting continues