Shows / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium: a patchwork of Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, a cobbled-together buffer state that punched far above its weight. In its short 1830s independence, it carved out a brutal African empire under King Leopold II—a personal colony that became a byword for atrocity in the Congo Free State (1885-1908). The show traces the arc from the Burgundian and Spanish Habsburg rule, through the Austrian Netherlands and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, to the revolutionary…
Episodes
The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo HistoryThe 1895 Kongo-Sundi Tax Revolt: Belgium's First African Uprising
In 1895, barely a decade into King Leopold II's Congo Free State, the Kongo-Sundi people of the Lower Congo rose up against a brutal new tax system. This…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1897 Congo Museum: Science, Racism, and Empire
In 1897, Belgium opened the Palace of the Colonies in Tervuren, a monumental museum designed to showcase the 'civilizing' achievements of King…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1926 Katanga Mining Decree: The Birth of Corporate Colonialism
In 1926, Belgium issued a decree that reshaped the Congo forever: the Katanga Mining Decree. It gave Union Minière du Haut-Katanga—a consortium of Belgian…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1934 Kasa-Vubu Letter: Congo's First Independence Demand
In 1934, a young clerk named Joseph Kasa-Vubu wrote a letter that would echo through Congo's colonial history. Addressed to the Belgian colonial…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1919 Kipushi Mine Strike: Congo's First Industrial Uprising
In 1919, the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga's Kipushi copper mine saw the first major strike by African workers in the Belgian Congo. This episode follows…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1895 Tetela Rebellion: Congo's Fractured Revolt
In 1895, the Tetela people of the central Congo rose up against the Congo Free State's brutal rubber and ivory extraction regime. But this was no simple…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1892 Luluabourg Siege: Congo's First Anti-Colonial War
In 1892, the Luba kingdom of the Kasai region rose up against the Belgian Congo Free State in what is now recognized as Congo's first organized…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1955 Exposition Universelle: Belgium's Colonial Propaganda Show
In 1955, Brussels hosted the Exposition Universelle, a world's fair that showcased Belgium's colonial achievements. But behind the gleaming pavilions…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1906 Bwaka Rebellion: Congo's Arrow Poison Revolt
In 1906, the Bwaka people of the Ubangi region launched one of the most coordinated anti-colonial uprisings in the history of the Congo Free State. Using…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1929 Opala Uprising: Belgium's Cocoa Rebellion
In 1929, the Belgian Congo's cocoa plantations in the Opala region of the Equateur province erupted in a violent revolt against forced labor and brutal…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1908 Annexation of the Congo Free State
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the 1908 annexation of the Congo Free State by Belgium, a pivotal moment that ended Leopold II's personal rule and…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1951 Visit to the Congo: A King's Apology That Never Came
In 1951, King Baudouin of Belgium visited the Congo for the first time. It was a carefully choreographed tour designed to showcase colonial progress and…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Lovanium 1925: Congo's First University and the Colonial Mind
In 1925, the first stone of Lovanium University was laid in a hillside near Leopoldville. Conceived by Belgian Catholics as a civilising mission, it became an…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Léopoldville 1944: The Force Publique Mutiny That Shook Belgium
In February 1944, while World War II raged in Europe, a mutiny erupted in the heart of the Belgian Congo. Congolese soldiers of the Force Publique stationed in…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1930s Luluabourg Railroad Strike: Belgium's Colonial Labour Revolt
In 1931, Luluabourg in the Belgian Congo erupted in a strike by African railroad workers that exposed the brutal contradictions of colonial labour policy. This…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1927 Lovanium Medical Faculty: Belgium's Colonial Healthcare Paradox
In 1927, the Catholic University of Louvain opened a medical faculty at Lovanium in Léopoldville, training Congolese évolués as doctors. But behind the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1930s Belgian Congo Uranium Rush
This episode dives into the little-known story of Belgium's control over the global uranium supply in the 1930s, centered on the Shinkolobwe mine in the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1950s Belgian Colonial Housing Crisis in Leopoldville
In the 1950s, Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) underwent a dramatic transformation as tens of thousands of Congolese moved to the city, straining the colonial…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1931 Lovanium University: Belgium's Colonial Education Experiment
In 1931, Belgian colonial authorities opened Lovanium University in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), the first Catholic university in Central Africa. But was it a…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1895 Kongo-Sundi Tax Revolt: Belgium's First African Uprising
Before the rubber atrocities and the Force Publique campaigns, the Belgian Congo's first major anti-colonial revolt erupted in 1895 among the Kongo and…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1921 Uele Uprising: Cotton, Coptis, and Colonial Resistance
In 1921, the Uele district of the Belgian Congo erupted in rebellion. This episode examines the roots of the uprising: colonial cotton quotas, the forced…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1925 Ruanda-Urundi Coffee Mandate: Belgium's Agricultural Empire
In 1925, Belgium imposed a coffee cultivation mandate on the newly acquired territories of Ruanda-Urundi, forcing farmers to plant arabica coffee for export…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1897 Belgian Rubber Tax Revolt in the Equateur
In 1897, the Bangala people of the Equateur region rose up against Leopold II's rubber tax system, which forced village chiefs to deliver ever-increasing…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1891 Congo-Arab War: Tippu Tip and the Battle for the Upper Congo
In the early 1890s, the Congo Free State fought a brutal war against Swahili-Arab slave traders led by the powerful Tippu Tip. This episode dives into the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1922 Boma Fire and the Loss of Congo Free State Archives
In 1922, a devastating fire swept through Boma, the colonial capital of the Belgian Congo, destroying thousands of official records from the Congo Free State…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1892 Luluabourg Siege: Congo's First Anti-Colonial War
Before the Force Publique mutinies and the rubber atrocities, there was the first major armed resistance to Belgian colonial rule in the Congo: the 1892…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1920s Coptis Revolt: Congo's Yellow Root Rebellion
In the 1920s, the Belgian colonial administration in Congo forced the Lese and Mbuti peoples to collect coptis, a yellow root used in Chinese medicine and…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1916 Belgian Conquest of Ruanda-Urundi
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the 1916 Belgian military campaign that seized Ruanda-Urundi from German East Africa during World War I. They discuss…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1928 Ituri Forest Rubber Atrocities: Belgium's Hidden Holocaust
Lucas and Luna delve into the brutal forced labor system in the Ituri Forest during the 1920s, focusing on the rubber atrocities committed by the Anglo-Belgian…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1914 Force Publique Campaign in German East Africa
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the little-known 1914 campaign of the Belgian Force Publique against German East Africa. While World War I raged in…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1920s Coptis Revolt: Congo's Yellow Root Rebellion
In this episode of The History of Belgium, Lucas and Luna explore the Coptis Revolt of the 1920s, a forgotten uprising in the Ituri and Uele regions of the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1897 Boma-Banana Railway: King Leopold's Iron Road to Plunder
In 1897, King Leopold II of Belgium opened a railway linking the Atlantic port of Banana to the colonial capital Boma, a 140-kilometer line that became the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1928 Ituri Forest Rubber Atrocities: Belgium's Hidden Holocaust
In the dense Ituri rainforest of northeastern Congo, the Belgian colonial administration's rubber extraction system reached its most brutal extremes. This…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1921 Uele Uprising: Cotton, Coptis, and Colonial Resistance
In 1921, the Uele district in northeastern Belgian Congo exploded in a series of coordinated uprisings. This episode dives into the revolt that broke out in…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1920s Coptis Revolt: Congo's Yellow Root Rebellion
In the early 1920s, the Belgian Congo saw a wave of resistance centered not on rubber or cotton, but on a medicinal plant: coptis, or yellow root. This episode…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1909 Belgian Colonial Army Officer Scandal
In 1909, a Belgian colonial officer named Charles Tombeur was appointed to lead the Force Publique in the Congo Free State, but his career nearly ended before…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1890s Belgian Concession in Tianjin: A Colony in China
In 1902, Belgium acquired a 1.5-square-mile concession in Tianjin, China, part of the unequal treaty system after the Boxer Rebellion. This episode explores…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1900 Aruwimi Ivory War: Force Publique vs Mangbetu
In 1900, the Force Publique launched a brutal military campaign along the Aruwimi River in northeastern Congo, ostensibly to suppress Arab-Swahili slave…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1900 Force Publique March on the Aruwimi: Belgium's Ivory War
In this episode of The History of Belgium, we travel back to 1900—a pivotal year in the Congo Free State's brutal ivory rush. Lucas and Luna uncover the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1908 Congo Free State Transfer: A Colony Changes Hands
In 1908, after two decades of brutal private rule under King Leopold II, the Congo Free State was officially annexed by the Belgian state. This episode unpacks…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1944 Luluabourg Mutiny: Congolese Soldiers vs Belgian Authority
In February 1944, Congolese soldiers of the Force Publique in Luluabourg staged a mutiny that shook Belgian colonial authority. This episode explores the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1923 Uele Forced Labour Revolts: Cotton and Resistance
In 1923, the remote Uele district of the Belgian Congo erupted in a series of coordinated revolts against forced cotton cultivation. This episode zooms in on…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1895 Luluabourg Mutiny: Force Publique Soldiers Revolt
In 1895, Congolese soldiers of the Force Publique in Luluabourg turned their guns on their Belgian officers. This episode examines the mutiny's causes —…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1931 Pende Revolt Masks and Colonial Repression
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the 1931 Pende Revolt in the Belgian Congo, a violent uprising rooted in forced cotton cultivation, labor abuses, and…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1921 Pende Uprising: Masks, Messianism, and Belgian Repression
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the 1921 Pende revolt in the Belgian Congo, a fiery uprising driven by new prophetic movements and oppressive colonial…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Leopold II's 1854 Grand Tour: Shaping a Colonial King
In 1854, a young Prince Leopold set off on a year-long journey through the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and the Holy Land. This Grand Tour, far from being a simple…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1897 Tervuren Exhibition and the Making of Belgian Colonial Myth
This episode of The History of Belgium returns to the 1897 Tervuren Exhibition, where King Leopold II staged a 'human zoo' of 267 Congolese men…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1903 Bula Matari Rebellion in Bas-Congo
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a lesser-known but pivotal uprising in the Belgian Congo: the 1903 Bula Matari rebellion in Bas-Congo. Lucas explains…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1931 Pende Revolt: Masks, Mutilation, and Colonial Repression
In 1931, the Pende people of the Belgian Congo rose up against forced cotton cultivation, brutal taxation, and abusive colonial chiefs. This episode tells the…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1959 Léopoldville Riots: Congo's Urban Uprising
This episode zooms in on the January 1959 Léopoldville riots, a pivotal but often overshadowed event that cracked open the Belgian Congo's colonial…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1894 Biafrans in Belgium: Congo's Forgotten Envoys
In 1894, three young men from the Biafran interior were brought to Belgium to be displayed at the Antwerp World's Fair. Their names were Mbiyia, Okori…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1894 Biafrans in Belgium: Congo's Forgotten Envoys
This episode of The History of Belgium uncovers a forgotten chapter: the arrival of three Biafran chiefs – Mbiyia, Okori, and Akwa – in Brussels in 1894. Sent…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Lovanium University 1954: Congo's First Doctors and Colonial Contradictions
In 1954, the first Congolese doctors graduated from Lovanium University near Léopoldville. This episode follows Dr. Joseph N'Singa, Dr. Albert Kamba, and…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's 1920s Rubber Terror: The Abir Company and the Monopoly
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the brutal rubber extraction system in the Congo Free State under Leopold II, focusing on the Abir (Anglo-Belgian India…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1930s Belgian Congo: Forced Cotton and Rural Revolt
In this episode of The History of Belgium, Lucas and Luna explore a lesser-known corner of Belgium's colonial legacy: the forced cotton cultivation scheme…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1950 Lovanium University: Belgium's Colonial Ivory Tower
In 1950, the Catholic University of Lovanium opened its doors in the hills outside Léopoldville, becoming the first full university in Central Africa. But was…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1958 World's Fair Congo Village: Human Zoo or Cultural Bridge?
In this episode, Lucas and Luna delve into the controversial Congo Village at Brussels' 1958 World's Fair, a year before Congo's independence…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1920s Ngiri-Ngiri Roundabout: Brussels' Colonial Heart and Congo's Lost Memorial
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the Ngiri-Ngiri Roundabout in Brussels, a little-known monument to Belgium's colonial past. They discuss how this…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Colonial Justice in the Courtless State: The 1911 'M'Boma Verdict'
Long before Belgium formalized its colonial legal system in the Congo, local chiefs and colonial agents clashed over authority. This episode zooms in on a…
- The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The Belgian Congo's 1921 Bena-Dibele Revolt: Tax, Rubber, and Resistance
In 1921, the Bena-Dibele people of the Belgian Congo rose up against a brutal taxation system and forced rubber collection. This episode focuses on a specific…