Chapter 946 Nales Diary
June 2, 1898.
The capital of the Belgian Congo, Pointe-Noire.
Nales, an employee of Dongbi Trading Company, and his team completed this trading activity with the Belgians. As an East African employee who has been engaged in trading activities in the Belgian Congo since 1886, Nales is here Xing discovered a very surprising fact.
After returning to Luanda, he reported his experience in the Belgian Congo in detail to the company, which subsequently attracted the attention of the East African government.
In order to determine the accuracy of this news, East Africa once again organized personnel to enter the Belgian Congo in July to conduct secret investigations.
So in 1898, the East African government came to a surprising conclusion. The East African government discovered that the Chinese population in the Belgian Congo had accounted for an absolute majority. Although there was no data to support it, when the East Africans penetrated into the Belgian Congo No one can deny this fact.
That is, the local indigenous people are likely to be completely extinct. From 1897 to 1898, the staff of the East African colony in Belgium did not find a single indigenous person.
This shows that the local black people have been completely wiped out by the Belgian colonists. Of course, except for the black people transported from East Africa to the Belgian Congo, they are also aliens and are not considered indigenous.
In other words, the indigenous people of the Belgian Congo may have become extinct today, and the current population of the Belgian Congo comes from other areas, including Belgians, Chinese and black slaves from Angola.
After the East African government occupied Angola, it sent hundreds of thousands of diehards who were loyal to Portugal during the South African War to the Belgian Congo. These diehards have now become the main black population in the Belgian Congo. However, in just a few years, they From the initial number of more than 100,000, it dropped to 20,000 to 30,000.
However, with the start of various projects in East Africa, East Africa is in urgent need of a large number of laborers. Under such circumstances, East Africa has suspended the export of black slaves. Now there are not enough black slaves in East Africa, not to mention that there will only be Some stocks were driven outward, so before 1892, Dongfang officially stopped the slave trading business for more than 20 years.
The reports of Nales and some East African personnel attracted Ernst's attention, especially Nales's diary.
“February 7, 1898, today is the twenty-third day since I entered the Belgian Congo. I have gone deep into a local colonial stronghold called Kalabi, which is in the eastern part of the Belgian Congo. The local Belgians said that less than 60 kilometers to the east is our East Africa. This colonial stronghold is mainly engaged in the mining industry, and the main mineral product is tin ore. This is also one of the main purposes of my trip.”
"I have arrived here before, in April 1892 and May 1895, but today I found that there was not a single black person among the workers in the mine. You must know that when I came last time, there were at least Sixty percent of the people were black slaves.”
"Out of curiosity, I asked the local Belgians, but most Belgians were hesitant, their answers were mostly ambiguous, and they were reluctant to answer this question."
"However, this It didn’t bother me. Through a pack of cigarettes, I got the answer I wanted, that is, the local indigenous people have been exhausted in the past three years. I really haven’t seen many black people, which aroused my interest. Of course, I can pay attention to the specific results on the next journey.”
Start from here. Ernst's diary contained the details of Nales's census results of Belgium, page by page.
“On February 8, 1898, after spending a day in Calabi, I found that not only were the black people there completely devoid of reality, I think most of them had been physically exhausted, and the local Chinese laborers had It is also very difficult, but the situation is only a little better than that of black people. Although many people in East Africa are also from the Far East, I know nothing about Chinese. However, the local Chinese workers also learned some French under the rule of the Belgians, and the Belgians can speak German. and French, so the Belgians are very stupid. They deliberately placed the German and French people on the border of East Africa and France respectively. Karabi is closer to East Africa, so most of the Belgians here speak French, but this does not trouble me, after all. When doing business with Belgians, French is also a required subject.”
"Through communicating with the local Chinese in simple French, I have some understanding of their living conditions. I can only describe them as horrific. They have to do a lot of manual labor every day, don't get enough rest, and their meals are also mixed. All kinds of weird things.”
“However, compared to the black people here, the black people are still better. The Belgians don’t treat black people as human beings at all. Of course, their private attitudes towards the Chinese are similar. , it’s just that due to the existence of East Africa, there is some room for the Chinese.”
“Furthermore, because the Belgian Congo is seriously lacking in population, the Belgians’ governance strategy has changed a lot. In the past, the Belgians often cut off the arms or other parts of black slaves, or directly executed them. Now they have restrained themselves a lot, because the local population is too small, and it is obviously impossible for the Belgians to complete these heavy physical tasks themselves. "
The authenticity of the records in Nales's diary is quite different. East Africa has stabilized its national system, so the Chinese are also very influential in East Africa, the most typical of which are the military and education circles.
Of course, this influence will eventually dissipate after the death of the first generation of Chinese immigrants. As for the second generation, they are basically mixed-race.
“On February 13, 1898, during my trip, I specifically focused on the situation in the Belgian colonies and conducted an in-depth investigation. Through local observations and the narratives of Belgians and Chinese, I can basically confirm that the Belgian Congo is now Most of the black indigenous people have disappeared. Of course, this only represents what I saw and heard on the route I traveled. I don’t know whether it is different in other areas..."
“On June 2, 1898, I finally returned to Pointe Noire. Here I finally saw a large number of black people again, but these black people seemed to be provided to Belgium by East Africa. Pointe Noire is now the most important port in the Belgian colony. , so most of these black people work here. I heard that there were hundreds of thousands of them at the beginning, but now there are less than 20,000 left. This also gave me a deeper understanding of the cruelty of the Belgians. Understand. ”
“The black population provided by East Africa to Belgium is half of the original local indigenous people in Belgium. Because most of the Belgian Congo has a tropical rainforest climate like Cabinda, the original number of local indigenous people. Not enough. According to our estimates, before the Belgian colonization, the local population may have been only 200,000 to 300,000 people, and could not have exceeded 400,000. This number of indigenous people is simply not enough for Belgium to consume.”
The facts are as Nales said, the Belgian Congo was probably part of the French Congo and Gabon in the previous life, covering an area of about 300,000 square kilometers. , because there is no specific data on the border between Belgium and the French Gabon colony, it is difficult to calculate the specific territory of the Belgian colony, but it is very different from the previous life of Congo (Brazzaville).
In the previous life, Congo (Brazzaville) had a population of just over two million when it first became independent from France. That was already in the 1960s. Therefore, through this data, we can analyze the local population before Belgian colonization, that is, The scale of two to three hundred thousand mentioned by Nales is relatively reliable.
In his previous life, Leopold slaughtered at least five million people when he harmed the Congo (DRC). Therefore, the current population of the Belgian Congo is even less than a fraction of the Congo (DRC). These indigenous populations are simply not enough to harm Belgium.
(End of this chapter)