Dramatic events in the Congo and Nigeria occupied the front pages of the newspapers during the 1960s. Many Europeans saw in these conflicts proof of the inability of Africans to govern themselves. But, the roots of the crisis are in the colonial past which made the pride of Europe.
The excellent account of the ancient history of the Congo is given to us by Joseph Conrad in his Book of Darkness. published in 1906. In some lively pages, it evokes the vast remoteness of the Congo, the abundance of natural resources and the rapacity of the first European settlers. This situation extinguished a critical point when the Congo. devastated by the slave trade, became for thirty years the property of King Leopold II.
1908. Léopold was forced to cede his colonial empire to the Belgian government, the Congolese did not derive any benefit from this change of authority because, from the very beginning of colonization, they were going to seize all the land and apply a rigorous system of work strength. Hence a dramatic drop in the rate of the population of Congo:the regions, once populous and flourishing. became deserted.