Emergence of the Nation.
Throughout Congo's prehistory, most ethnic groups were isolated from one another by the thick forests that engulf the country. For several hundred years before the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century, many kingdoms were highly organized and efficient administrators of health, education, and trade. Regions located along the Congo River were most easily accessible to outside traders. Therefore, they were the first to open themselves up to Christianize and the Portuguese slave trade in the 1480s. Throughout the sixteenth century, the worldwide demand for slaves increased, triggering violence between ethnic groups as European slave traders kidnapped people and encouraged African men to capture members of other ethnic groups for money. Even missionaries, who thought of themselves as bringing the "pure light" of Europe to shine on the Congolese "darkness," sometimes participated in the lucrative business of slavery.
In the 1885 scramble for Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium declared himself the dictator and sole proprietor of the new Congo Free State. Leopold garnered public support at home by publicly announcing his intent to Christianize and modernize the Congolese population, all the while planning the forced labor of men, women, and children for the lucrative ivory and rubber business. When people did not meet the king's quotas, his army killed them or cut off their hands. The overall population of the country greatly diminished during the early twentieth century due to such cruelty and to the susceptibility of many Congolese to new European diseases.
Mounting international criticism forced Leopold to sell his colony to Belgium in 1908. The Belgians, unfortunately, failed to contain his blood-thirsty troops, who were responsible for managing the rubber trade that caused over five million people to perish. From 1890 to 1910, between 5 and 8 million people perished as a direct result of the rubber trade.
By 1903, the economy for rubber in the Congo had collapsed, so the new Belgian colony focused on exploiting the Katanga province for copper, diamonds, and oil. So-called "vacant land" could be used by businesses from many countries willing to exploit one of the world's richest areas. Both forced labor and high taxes continued the horrors of Leopold. Families were split as many men went far away from their villages to the mines to work, nearly destroying the fabric of traditional society.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the Belgian colonial government tried to enforce mass cultivation standards, but without proper transportation mechanisms in place, large amounts of food lay wasted and unsold. The demand for copper grew during the World War II era, creating peripheral markets for household goods such as soap and sugar. Though economic growth increased and education improved during this time, the Belgians remained staunchly authoritarian. Local chiefs were used as pawns of the government; often they were removed from power if rumored to be anti colonialist.