Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History / The Belgian Congo's Rubber Terror: The Kasai-Velu Campaign of 1904
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to The History of Belgium. Last time we talked about the Luluabourg Massacre of 1893, where the Force Publique crushed an Arab-Swahili stronghold. The Congo Free State was still in its violent adolescence back then. But by 1904, the rubber terror had reached a fever pitch, and there's one campaign that sums up the brutality better than most: the Kasai-Velu Campaign. Luna: Kasai-Velu — I don't think I've heard that name before. Lucas: Not many have. It's not as famous as the Équateur District horrors that guys like Morel and Casement exposed. But in the Kasai region, which is south-central Congo, the rubber concession companies were just as ruthless. The campaign was named after two key locations: the Kasai River and the village of Velu, where the worst atrocities happened. It was essentially a punitive expedition ordered by the colonial administration to force the local Bena Luluwa and Bena Kanioka peoples to collect rubber quotas. Luna: Punitive expedition — that usually meant burning villages and taking hostages. Lucas: Exactly. And in this case, it was led by a Force Publique officer named Commandant Charles Liebrechts. He was a Belgian career soldier who'd served in the Congo since the 1890s. His orders came straight from Governor-General Théophile Wahis, who was under pressure from King Leopold II to increase rubber profits. The Kasai region had been underperforming compared to the Équateur District, so Wahis wanted results. Luna: So Liebrechts went in with a heavy hand. Lucas: He did. In early 1904, Liebrechts assembled a force of about 200 soldiers — mostly African askaris under Belgian officers — and launched a series of raids. The standard procedure was to surround a village at dawn, round up the men, and demand a certain number of baskets of rubber. If the villagers couldn't deliver, the soldiers would take women and children hostage. Sometimes they'd mutilate hostages — cutting off hands or feet — to send a message to the others. Luna: That's the same red rubber system we heard about in the Équateur, just further south. Lucas: Exactly the same. And it worked the same way: fear and violence drove production. But what makes the Kasai-Velu Campaign important is that it was one of the first times that the atrocities were documented by an eyewitness who wasn't a Belgian official. That witness was a Swedish missionary named E.V. Sjöblom. He had been stationed in the Kasai since the late 1890s and spoke the local languages. He saw what happened at Velu. Luna: Sjöblom — I've come across that name. He testified to the Congo Reform Association. Lucas: That's right. In 1904, Sjöblom wrote a detailed report about the campaign and sent it to the British Consul in Boma. He described how Liebrechts's men rounded up over a thousand people from the villages around Velu and forced them to work on rubber trails. When the quotas weren't met, soldiers would shoot the men and take the women as concubines. He also reported that the soldiers cut off the hands of living victims as punishment. His report eventually reached E.D. Morel and the Congo Reform Association, who used it as evidence in their campaign against Leopold. Luna: So Morel had proof of atrocities beyond the Équateur. That must have been powerful. Lucas: It was. But here's the thing: the Kasai-Velu Campaign was actually smaller in scale than what happened in the Équateur. The reason it matters is that it shows how widespread the system was. This wasn't just one rogue officer in one corner of the Congo. It was a coordinated policy directed from Brussels. Governor-General Wahis approved the campaign, and Leopold knew about it. The rubber companies — like the Kasai Company, a subsidiary of the Société Générale de Belgique — were demanding ever-higher quotas. Luna: And the Force Publique was the enforcer. Lucas: Exactly. The Force Publique didn't just fight wars — they were essentially a police force for the rubber economy. By 1904, the Force Publique had grown to over 15,000 men, and they were deployed in punitive expeditions across the entire colony. The Kasai-Velu Campaign was just one of many. But Sjöblom's testimony gave the outside world a clear picture of how the system worked at the village level. He described how the Bena Luluwa people were forced to abandon their farms and spend days in the forest tapping rubber, leaving their families vulnerable to starvation and disease. Luna: It sounds like the rubber system was destroying the very society it was exploiting. Lucas: It was. And it had long-term effects. The Kasai region was traditionally a farming area, known for its maize, millet, and livestock. The rubber quota system decimated the local economy. Villages were abandoned, fields went fallow, and the population declined sharply. A census taken after the campaign showed that some villages had lost up to 40% of their population — either killed, fled, or taken as hostages. The trauma was passed down through oral traditions that are still remembered today. Luna: What happened to Liebrechts and Wahis after the campaign? Lucas: Liebrechts was promoted. He continued to serve in the Force Publique and eventually retired with a pension. As for Wahis, he remained Governor-General until 1905, when he was reassigned to a diplomatic post in East Africa. Neither faced any consequences for the Kasai-Velu Campaign. In fact, Wahis was later decorated by the Belgian government. It wasn't until 1908, when the international pressure from the Congo Reform Association forced Leopold to cede the Congo to the Belgian state, that any reforms were attempted. But even then, the rubber system continued in modified form until the 1910s. Luna: So the Kasai-Velu Campaign was a preview of the entire Congo Free State's collapse. Lucas: In a way, yes. It showed that the rubber terror wasn't limited to one district. It was systemic. And it's a reminder that the history of Belgium's colonial legacy isn't just about the famous names — Leopold, Stanley, Morel. It's also about the local commanders, the missionaries who spoke out, and the thousands of African communities who bore the brunt of that violence. The Kasai-Velu Campaign may not be as well-known as the Luluabourg Massacre or the Matadi-Kinshasa railway, but it's just as essential to understanding how Belgium's small country built a giant colonial legacy on the backs of forced labor. Luna: And on the testimony of a Swedish missionary who wouldn't stay silent. Lucas: Exactly. Sjöblom's courage is part of the story too. He risked his life to get that report out. The Congo Reform Association published it in their pamphlets, and it helped sway public opinion in Britain and the United States. In the end, the Kasai-Velu Campaign is a microcosm of the entire red rubber system: brutal, efficient, and hidden from view until people like Sjöblom shined a light on it. Luna: It makes you wonder how many other campaigns like that are still unrecorded. Lucas: That's a good question. Historians are still uncovering documents in Belgian archives, and oral histories in the Congo are being collected. The Kasai-Velu Campaign is one piece of a much larger puzzle. But it's a piece we can hold in our hands and examine, thanks to that missionary's testimony. And that's why it's worth remembering.