Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1896 Corps des Travailleurs Arabes: Congo's Forced Arab Labor
In 1896, after crushing the Arab-Swahili slave trade in eastern Congo, Belgian colonial authorities faced a dilemma: what to do with thousands of captured fighters and traders? Their solution was the Corps des Travailleurs Arabes—a forced labor battalion that conscripted former slave traders into building colonial infrastructure. This episode traces the creation of this unit, its deployment on the Lualaba River, and the brutal irony of using slave traders as forced laborers in the name of anti-slavery. We examine the lives of men like Bwana Mwema, the Manyema porters, and the Belgian officers…
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