Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History / The 1922 Boma Prison Uprising: Congo's Forgotten Rebellion
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to The History of Belgium. I'm Lucas, and as always I'm here with Luna. Today we're going to talk about something that's barely a footnote in most histories of the Belgian Congo: the 1922 Boma Prison Uprising. Luna: I have to admit, I've never heard of it. What happened? Lucas: So Boma, remember, was the original capital of the Congo Free State and later the Belgian Congo. It was a port town on the Congo River, the administrative heart of the colony. And right in the middle of it was the central prison, a place that held political prisoners, common criminals, and a surprising number of former Force Publique soldiers who had been convicted for things like insubordination or desertion. Luna: So it wasn't just a regular prison—it had a lot of military men inside. Lucas: Exactly. In February 1922, conditions were especially brutal. The prison was overcrowded, rations were meagre, and the chicotte—that infamous whip made from hippopotamus hide—was used freely. On the night of February 14th, a group of prisoners, led by a man named Mwamba Kakesa, who had been a sergeant in the Force Publique, managed to overpower the guards. They seized weapons from the armoury and took control of the prison compound. Luna: They actually managed to take over the whole prison? Lucas: For three days, yes. The rebels held out, demanding better conditions and the release of certain political prisoners. The colonial administration in Boma was caught completely off guard. They had to call in troops from the Force Publique garrison at nearby Matadi. The retaking of the prison was violent—according to colonial reports, about thirty prisoners were killed in the assault. Mwamba Kakesa was captured and later executed. Luna: Thirty killed just for demanding better food and less whipping. And yet this event is almost unknown. Lucas: That's partly because the colonial authorities suppressed the news. They didn't want word spreading that prisoners, especially former soldiers, could rebel so effectively. The official report downplayed it as a minor disturbance, but we know from oral traditions in the Boma area that it was a moment of real defiance. It's a window into how the colonial system treated even its own former enforcers—once a Congolese soldier stepped out of line, he could end up in the same prison he might have guarded before. Luna: It reminds me of the Tetela revolt we talked about in an earlier episode—where the Force Publique's own soldiers turned against their Belgian officers. Lucas: Exactly the same pattern. The Boma prison uprising fits into a longer thread of resistance within the colonial apparatus itself. The prison was a microcosm of the colony: arbitrary violence, racial hierarchy, and the constant threat of punishment. And when men who had been trained to use weapons and organized themselves along military lines, like Mwamba Kakesa, found themselves inside, the potential for rebellion was always there. Lucas: I want to read something from a missionary's letter written shortly after the event, which I came across in the archives. He wrote: 'The natives are not as tame as the administration believes. The prison walls are high, but the anger is higher.' That's a pretty stark warning that the colonial authorities chose to ignore. Luna: Did the uprising have any long-term consequences? Did it change anything in how the prison was run? Lucas: Officially, there were some minor reforms—rations were slightly increased, and there was talk of reducing the use of the chicotte. But in practice, very little changed. The real consequence was that the colonial state tightened its surveillance of former soldiers. They started keeping closer tabs on discharged Force Publique men, fearing they might spread 'subversive ideas'. But the uprising itself faded from official memory. It's only in recent decades that Congolese historians have begun to recover stories like this from oral sources. Luna: And that's part of the challenge, right? So much of Congolese resistance history was either erased or written from the coloniser's perspective. Lucas: Absolutely. The Boma prison uprising is a perfect example. We don't have Mwamba Kakesa's own words. We have the colonial records, the missionary letters, and later oral accounts passed down in the communities around Boma. Piecing it together is like archaeology—you have to read between the lines of the official reports, which always frame the rebels as 'criminals' and 'troublemakers', never as political actors. Luna: It makes you wonder how many other uprisings like this are still waiting to be uncovered. Lucas: That's exactly the kind of curiosity that keeps this show going. And speaking of which—you know, we're able to do deep dives like this because of listeners who support us directly. We don't have ads, no corporate sponsors. A small group of people chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's what makes it possible for us to spend hours in archives tracking down stories like Mwamba Kakesa's. So if you're one of those supporters, thank you. And if you've been thinking about it, that's the place. Luna: Yeah, it genuinely makes a difference. Every little bit helps us keep going deeper. Lucas: So, back to the uprising. I want to talk about the symbolism of Boma itself as a location. Boma wasn't just any town—it was the seat of colonial power, where the governor-general had his palace, where the high court was, where the big decisions were made. For prisoners to seize control of the central prison in the capital, even for a few days, was a direct challenge to the authority of the state. Luna: It's like if someone took over the prison in Brussels, right? That would have been a huge scandal. Lucas: Exactly. And the colonial administration wanted to avoid any scandal. That's why the official reports are so terse. They buried it. But the memory persisted in the Boma region. There's a local saying in Kikongo that roughly translates to 'the stones of Boma remember the blood of Kakesa'. That oral tradition kept the story alive long after the colonial archives were closed. Luna: That's powerful. 'The stones remember'. Lucas: It's a reminder that history is never truly lost—it just waits for someone to listen. And I think that's the core of what we try to do here: listen to the voices that were silenced.