History of Kinshasa
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated on the Congo River near Pool Malebo and forms a single urban area with Brazzaville which is the capital of the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. Considered a megacity, it is among the largest urban communities in Africa.
The origins of the modern-day city date to 1881 when a
On independence in 1960, Léopoldville became the capital city of the newly formed
Pre-colonial settlements
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/The_River_Congo_from_its_mouth_to_B%C3%B3lob%C3%B3%3B_with_a_general_description_of_the_natural_history_and_anthropology_of_its_western_basin_%281895%29_%2814783891223%29.jpg/220px-The_River_Congo_from_its_mouth_to_B%C3%B3lob%C3%B3%3B_with_a_general_description_of_the_natural_history_and_anthropology_of_its_western_basin_%281895%29_%2814783891223%29.jpg)
From the 16th to 17th century, the Pool region became an important hub between the river and coastal areas. Vegetables of the Americas were also introduced to the interior of the continent through trade; slaves (most often the losers in various conflicts) were travelling to
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of mostly fishermen and traders from the north Teke install markets and villages in the southern Pool Malebo and on the board that will appoint the latest Batéké plateau. The tribes of the region,
Colonial era
AIC and Congo Free State, 1881–1908
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Stanley_Founding_of_Congo_Free_State_186_View_of_Leopoldville_Station_and_Port_1884_The_Baptist_Mission_on_the_summit_of_Leopold_Hill.jpg/220px-Stanley_Founding_of_Congo_Free_State_186_View_of_Leopoldville_Station_and_Port_1884_The_Baptist_Mission_on_the_summit_of_Leopold_Hill.jpg)
Henry Morton Stanley established a trading post on a hill close to the shore of Ngaliema Bay in 1881 some distance to the west of the modern-day city centre. Stanley named the settlement Léopoldville (French) or Leopoldstad (Dutch) in honour of King Leopold II who was the patron of the International Association of the Congo (Association internationale du Congo, AIC) and later King-Sovereign of the Congo Free State. Stanley delegated the settlement to his British subordinate Anthony Swinburne.[1] It initially consisted only of a small wooden fortification and village which Stanley described in The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State in April 1882 :
Léopoldville, with its one-story block-house, commanding from its windows all approaches, impregnable to musket-armed natives, and proof against fire, despite its grass roof, because, underneath that grass roof, there was an earth roof two feet thick, on which the fire might burn itself out harmlessly, offered a safe refuge should trouble arise. The terrace was long and wide — the native village was formed of one broad street — flanked by a row of clay huts on either side. Starting from a point thirty feet below the blockhouse, and sloping gently down to the landing place, gardens of young bananas and vegetables extended beyond these huts. Water was handy; fuel was abundant. The agricultural Wambunda were our landlords as well as our good friends.[2]
The post flourished as the first navigable port on the Congo River above
Local indigenous groups died off in large numbers and the city saw immigration from other parts of Congo. Many immigrants came to join the Force Publique and encouraged the spread of Lingala as a common language in this multiethnic city. As time went on, textiles and brewing developed as local industries in addition to boat-building. However, Kinshasa did not profit greatly from the emergence of copper industry in Katanga Province after the First World War, the output from which was diverted first through British territories and then through Portuguese Angola.[1]
Belgian Congo, 1908–1960
Year | Pop. | ±% |
---|---|---|
1925 | 24,058 | — |
1930 | 32,594 | +35.5% |
1935a | 21,518 | −34.0% |
1940 | 34,976 | +62.5% |
1945 | 70,780 | +102.4% |
1950 | 126,844 | +79.2% |
1955 | 174,697 | +37.7% |
a The decline was associated with the Great Depression. Source: [3] |
Léopoldville began to undergo major expansion around the year 1910, with the creation of a geometric city plan and the construction of new buildings including the Banque du Congo Belge and the Hotel A.B.C. (owned by the Compagnie Commerciale et Agricole d'Alimentation du Bas-Congo.) Schools were constructed and a Chamber of Commerce formed. The 1920s also saw the beginning of regular airplane service to Elisabethville (modern-day Lubumbashi) operated by the Belgian airline Sabena.[4]
The African population was 20,000 in 1920 and 27,000 in 1924; the European population rose from 245 in 1908 to 2,521 in 1914 to 2,521 in 1918. In 1926, the city was elevated to capital of the
Some researchers have identified Léopoldville as an origin point of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A University of Oxford team in 2014 reported a high likelihood that the ancestor of HIV-1, Group M emerged Léopoldville between 1909 and 1930.[5]
The original layout of the city was segregated between African and European, with a "no man's land" in between. As the city grew this in-between area became the commercial district. The city was formally redesigned in the 1930s with stricter rules for segregation and a bigger central area. A new central market for both races, as well as a golf club, a park, and a botanical garden for whites, were developed as part of the new cordon sanitaire dividing (not altogether effectively) the neighborhoods by race. Additional segregated master plans, proposed in Brussels and locally in the 1950s, were never implemented.[6]
Independence and Mobutu era
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/1974_market_Kinshasa_4334475205.jpg/220px-1974_market_Kinshasa_4334475205.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Kinshasa%2C_tour_de_l%27%C3%A9changeur_de_Limete_-_20090705.jpg/170px-Kinshasa%2C_tour_de_l%27%C3%A9changeur_de_Limete_-_20090705.jpg)
When the Belgian Congo became independent of Belgium in 1960, Dutch was dropped as an official language and so was the alternative name Leopoldstad. The city grew rapidly (11.6% annually from 1960 to 1967; 6.43% annually from 1967 to 1973),[7] drawing people from across the country who came in search of their fortunes or to escape ethnic strife elsewhere. This inevitably brought about a change to the city's ethnic and linguistic composition as well; Lingala remained the lingua franca.[8] 367,550 people immigrated to Kinshasa in 1950–1967.[9] Urbanized land area grew from 2,331 hectares in 1950 to 5,512 hectares in 1957 to 12,863 hectares in 1968 to 17,922 hectares in 1975.[10]
In 1965 Mobutu Sese Seko seized power in the Congo in his second coup and initiated a policy of "Africanizing" the names of people and places in the country. In 1966, Léopoldville was renamed Kinshasa for a village named Kinchassa that once stood near the site. The city developed as the bureaucratic and cultural capital of the country, and developed an indigenous intellectual elite.[11]
In 1974, Kinshasa hosted the '
, in which Ali defeated Foreman to regain the World Heavyweight title.Kinshasa suffered greatly from the late 1970s through 1990s due to Mobutu's excesses, mass corruption, nepotism and the civil war that led to his downfall. Foreign businesses left, and roads, infrastructure, and transport links with other cities deteriorated. However, population continued to increase, due to endogenous growth and to migration from the countryside—driven by the cultural appeal of music, film, and football as well as by war and necessity.[11][1]
Kinshasa post-Mobutu
On May 20, 1997, after the
The announcement in 2016 that a new election would be delayed two years led to large protests in September and in December which involved barricades in the streets and left dozens of people dead. Schools and businesses were closed down.[12][13]
The population of Kinshasa has increased steadily, due to endogenous growth and to migration from the countryside. Migrants come to the city fleeing violence, attracted by the promise of jobs, and lured by its cultural image.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f Joe Trapido, "Kinshasa's Theater of Power", New Left Review 98, March/April 2016.
- ^ Stanley 1885, p. 383.
- ^ Kapagama & Waterhouse 2009, p. 4.
- ^ a b Pain (1984), p. 15–20.
- ^ "HIV pandemic's origins located". University of Oxford. 3 October 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
- ^ a b Luce Beeckmans & Liora Bigon, “The making of the central markets of Dakar and Kinshasa: from colonial origins to the post-colonial period”; Urban History 43(3), 2016; doi:10.1017/S0963926815000188.
- ^ Pain (1984), p. 21.
- ISBN 978-0-313-31485-8; pg. 72-75
- ^ Pain (1984), p. 22.
- ^ Pain (1984), pp. 30– 31.
- ^ a b Bill Freund, "City and Nation in an African Context: National Identity in Kinshasa"; Journal of Urban History 38(5), 2012; doi:10.1177/0096144212449141.
- ^ "DR Congo election: 17 dead in anti-Kabila protests", BBC, 19 September 2016.
- ^ Merritt Kennedy, "Congo A 'Powder Keg' As Security Forces Crack Down On Whistling Demonstrators", NPR, 21 December 2016.
Bibliography
- Pain, Marc (1984). Kinshasa : la ville et la cité. Paris: Editions de l'ORSTOM. ISBN 2-7099-0728-3.
- La Fontaine, J. S. (1970). City Politics: A Study of Léopoldville, 1962-63 (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521088848.
- Kapagama, Pascal; Waterhouse, Rachel (2009). "Portrait of Kinshasa: A City on (the) Edge". Crisis States Research Centre Working Papers Series (2).
- Freund, Bill (2009). "The Congolese Elite and the Fragmented City: The Struggle for the Emergence of a Dominant Class in Kinshasa" (PDF). Crisis States Research Centre Working Papers Series (54).
- Gondola, Ch. Didier (1996). Villes miroirs: Migrations et identités urbaines à Kinshasa et Brazzaville, 1930-1970. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2738448682.
- Stanley, Henry Morton (1885), The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State: A Story of Work and Exploration, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-108-03131-8, retrieved 5 September 2020
External links
Media related to History of Kinshasa at Wikimedia Commons