The Congo River is divided into three navigable parts, by seagoing ship to Matadi, where there is a wharf and larboard, a railing bypassing the mighty falls for 200 miles ; and then a center section of over 1000 miles from Kinshasa to Kisangani where the Boyoma Falls breaks the river. The upper section of the river is partially navigable to Lubumbashi, a measure of 1000 miles [ citation needed ]. The boastfully copper deposits of Katanga are conveyed from Lubumbashi. The Congo River was an open river in that it was complimentary for all nations to use as per an 1885 international agreement, which was tested by an Oscar Chinn, a british national, in the International Court in 1931. [ citation needed ]
Congo Free State [edit ]
Roi des Belges, the riverboat The, the riverboat Joseph Conrad commanded, 1889 The first base river steamers on the Congo were two built in sections and hauled overland to the middle river by Henry Morton Stanley the internet explorer in 1879. Stanley was instrumental in making the area the personal territory of Leopold II. [ 1 ] The Oxford Baptist Missionary Society and its head agent George Grenfell built the soft-shell clam Peace for evangelical work in the area in the 1884. [ 2 ] Grenfell led both in reach with the natives and charting and exploring the river system. He would belated build 2 larger steamers, one called Goodwill.
Reading: Congo river steamers – Wikipedia
Author Joseph Conrad was the captain of the ‘Roi des Belges ‘ Congo steamer which inspired him when he was writing his fiction-novel Heart of Darkness. Conrad was promised a job as a Congo River pilot through the charm of his distant cousin Marguerite Poradowska, who lived in Brussels and knew important officials of the Belgian party which exploited the Congo for its rubberize [ citation needed ]. At this time the Congo, though nominally an mugwump state, the Congo Free State was the personal property of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, who made a luck out of it. late, the shock abuses involved in the naked colonial exploitation that went on in the Congo Free State were exposed to public scene, and international criticism compelled the setting up of a committee of inquiry in 1904 [ citation needed ]. What Conrad saw in 1890 shocked him profoundly and shook his position of the moral basis of all explore and trading in newly discovered countries and indeed of refinement in general .
belgian Congo [edit ]
As a result of belgian shock at the violence brought to the Congo by Leopold II, Belgium reluctantly annexed the Congo Free State as the belgian Congo in 1908. A portage railway, the Matadi–Kinshasa Railway was built from Matadi to Leopoldville. other railways were built around Stanley Falls, and on the rough sections of the upper Congo. A Congo to Nile Railway was planned to connect Stanleyville with the Nile at Uganda. Over 100 steamers on the river by 1900. british and american missionary societies were sent to spread the religious doctrine and monitor governments [ citation needed ] .
Boat fabrication, c. 1912-1915 .
Bruges on the background, c. 1941. transportation of handle vegetable oil, Theon the background, c. 1941. Mining companies were set up in the copper swath of Katanga Province, and the Societe Maritime de Haut Congo was established. Railways radiated in a star blueprint from Katanga, with lines to Angola, Zambia, and halfway to Leopoldville at Ilebo on the Kasai River. Later, ocean maritime empires Compagnie Maritime Belge and airlines, SABENA were formed to serve the colony. Names of the riverboats included : Brugesville, Flandres, Milz, Deliverance, Henry Reed, Kigomi, Tadora, General Olsen, Brabant, and Kitambo. The soft-shell clam Bernaert was captured in a civil war of 1892. OTRACO was the function of transport or belgian government shipping representation on the Congo River after 1936. [ citation needed ] Gaston Eve commented [ citation needed ] on traveling by boat during his prison term in Brazzaville during WWII with the Free french Forces .
“ The voyage on the Fondère was very pleasant. That paddle soft-shell clam was identical well run, the food excellent served in a finely refectory. We had cabins but in general sleep on the deck. The nights were very beautiful. On the travel we were able to admire the forest lining the river and saw many types of monkey in the trees alongside it. Some were enormous and all this was raw. ”
D’Lynn Waldron, who traveled through the Congo at the get down of the crises in 1962, explained [ citation needed ] that :
“ Most of the river boats were bantam victorian relics, one-half rusted aside and painted the tinge of rust so it wouldn ’ t show. many of the larger riverboats had been towed across the Atlantic after outliving their utility on the Mississippi [ ( Sic ), One boat on the Congo was a copy of the Mississippi type ; U.S. boats would not have made the sea ocean trip nor the impassable lower falls. ] These were boastfully, antique, flat-bottomed, stern wheelers that drew entirely a few feet of urine. ”
Read more: What is the Maritime Industry?
large spank steamers were built by the OTRACO agency and worked the river until the Civil War when boats were machine gunned and charges dropped into their boilers [ citation needed ]. Bretonnet, Vivi in French Congo and Ubangi River. The north bank of the river was an entirely separate french colony with their own boats [ citation needed ]. river steamers ran until the 1980s, when the kleptocracy of Mobutu crippled the area. They were replaced by diesel pushers [ citation needed ] The early dispersion of the HIV virus was aided by river travel—an infected passenger unwittingly carried the virus downriver from the french Congo to Leopoldville in the first two decades of the twentieth hundred. [ The disease originated as SIV in monkeys in Cameroon where a hunter was infected by blood to blood contact. He then travelled overland to french Congo. Either he or another person contracted then the disease and it subsequently travelled onto the belgian Congo by steamer. From there the pandemic slowly grew. ] up to 150 people drowned when ferries collided on the river in 2010 [ citation needed ] .
Congo River Steamers [edit ]
1879 [edit ]
- Le Royal (in service at Léopoldville yard, Maiden voyage on 21 February 1881)
- Le Belgique (Boma and Banana)
- L’Espérance (Boma et Banana)
- Le En Avant (Léopoldville shipyard, launched 21 February 1881)
1881 [edit ]
- L’Association Internationale Africaine (in service at Léopoldville shipyard, launched in November 1882)
1882 [edit ]
- Le Peace (in service at Léopoldville, launched 27 July 1883)
1884 [edit ]
- Le Stanley (Léopoldville, launched 1887)
1886 [edit ]
- Le Ville de Bruxelles (Léopoldville, launched 5 July 1888)
1887 [edit ]
1897 [edit ]
After the completion of the chemin de fer Matadi-Léopoldville, the first big steamers were launched ( 150 tonnes or 150 hanker tons or 170 short tons ) .
- Le Brabant
- Le Hainaut
- Le Flandre
Others [edit ]
Le Président Urban de la S.A.B. 1905
Le Peace
Le Florida
Le Flandre
Le Stanley
Le Roi des Belges
Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin on a Congo trade soft-shell clam, c. 1890 .
steamer from Compagnie Belge du Congo, c. 1912 .
See besides [edit ]
References [edit ]
- “Steam Across Africa” New York Times, 1902.
- Waldron, d’Lynn. “The Secret in the Heart of Darkness: the Sabotaged Independence of the Belgian Congo”
far reading [edit ]
- Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness
- Kingsolver, Barbara. Poisonwood Bible
- Butcher, Tim. Blood River.
- Online Diary of Hershey Longebecker