French and Belgian Colonial Expansion
During the period of 1870-1900 many European countries engaged in an unprecedented period of territorial expansion. How these countries were able to secure, influence, and manage their new territories is still studied by historians today. Each country that expanded beyond their own borders left imprints on the society they claimed. Civil administration, military establishments, educational reforms, transportation, sanitation, and more are examples of the impact that European countries had on their colonial territories. France’s expansion into Southeast Asia and the creation of French Indochina, as well as the Belgian expansion into Central Africa and the creation of the Belgian Congo, are each prime examples of early 19th century European imperialism.
Imperialism is the expansion of a country through diplomacy or military force. During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s there was a rush of European expansion. There are several reasons these countries wanted to expand their influence and power. Some imperialists were nagged by an overwhelming sense that the world itself was, for once and never again, to be partitioned.[1] Some countries in Europe were worried that if they did not take part in expansion now, they were never going to be able to take part in it again. On that same note, some countries were worried that if they did not expand, they were going to be left behind by the countries that did. Time and peer pressure were two major roles in European imperialism. There were a few nations in Europe that saw it as their duty to ‘civilize’ certain countries they deemed inferior to their own. Benjamin Kidd informed people that ‘the natural inhabitants of the tropics represent the same stage in the history of the development of the race that the child does in the history of the development of the individual.’[2] Another reason some countries began to focus on foreign affairs is because they wanted their citizens to forget about domestic issues at home. Some European countries began to lose large amounts of their citizens due to emigration to other nations. Governments began to tell their citizens to immigrate to the country’s colonized areas around the world as a means of limiting workers and citizens to profiting only their ‘mother country.’ More than anything, money, new markets, and resources were most important to almost all of the European countries that began to expand.
Most countries in Europe tried their hand at expansion, and France was no different. They craved resources and more trade markets. They also dispatched many Christian mission groups to try and gain more catholic followers. Jules Ferry, a prime minister of France during the 1880’s was an avid supporter of French expansion. He wrote a speech on French colonial expansion that stated…
“The policy of colonial expansion is a political and economic system…that can be connected to three sets of ideas: economic ideas; the most far-reaching ideas of civilization; and ideas of a political and patriotic sort. In the area of economics, I am placing before you…from the perspective of a need, felt more and more urgently by the industrialized population of Europe and especially the people of our rich and hardworking country of France: The need for outlets [for exports]. Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more honestly! We must say openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races. I repeat…that the superior races have a right because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior races. The conditions of naval warfare have greatly changed…a warship, however perfect in design, cannot carry more than two weeks’ supply of coal; hence the need to have places of supply, shelters, ports for defense and provisioning. And that is why we need Tunisia…that is why we need Saigon and Indochina; that is why we need Madagascar. Gentlemen, in Europe such as it is today, this competition of the many rivals we see rising up around us, some by military or naval improvements, others by the prodigious development of a constantly growing population, a policy of withdrawal or abstention is simply the high road to decadence!”[3]
Ferry plays on the emotions of the citizens of France in hopes that they will support his vision of colonial expansion. He mentions several of the reasons I mentioned in my earlier paragraph: Economic growth, free markets, exports and trade, the feeling of superiority over smaller nations, military growth and sustainment, peer pressure from other countries, etc. His last sentence is important because it plays on the patriotic notions of French citizens. He says, “withdrawal or abstention is simply the high road to decadence” and this means that if France abstains from colonial expansion it will lead to their cultural decline. They could be forgotten as a great power and left behind in the shadow of those countries that made the effort to grow. With this sense of duty, France turns their head toward expansion.
With the Dutch in firm control of the East Indies, and the British newly entrenched in Burma and the Malay Peninsula, the French turned toward Vietnam as a toehold on the Southeast Asian mainland and a base of possible future expansion into Southern China.[4] Vietnam had a very colorful background before the French became involved with them. In the tenth century the Vietnam we know today was not in place. Instead, Dai Vet was located where modern day northern Vietnam is now. As the country began to grow and flourish they, too, reached out to expand their borders. Going north was not an option due to geographic hindrances, so instead, they expanded south towards Champa. The two areas were very different due to earlier colonization patterns. War raged for hundreds of years until, eventually, Dai Vet conquered Champa in the sixteenth century, along with the Mekong River delta from the nearly defunct kingdom of Angkor, the once glorious predecessor of Cambodia.[5] The country lacked cohesion due to its geographical shape similar to the letter ‘S’ which caused disassociation between the two sections which promptly split into separate states. As the two groups of people began to travel from north to south, their difference became quickly evident. In the early nineteenth century, an energetic member of the ruling house in southern Vietnam successfully reunited the country under his rule and declared the founding of the Nguyen dynasty.[6] Tensions between the two sides of Vietnam were not healed even when the capital was moved from Hanoi to Hue as a demonstration of unity between the two areas. Little did they know, a civil squabble was the least of their worries by the mid 1800’s.
European traders as well as missionaries were located throughout Vietnam as early as the 1700’s. When the Vietnamese court began to restrict foreign commercial and missionary activities, most European merchants had already abandoned the area, although French missionary interests continued to cater to the needs of the country’s numerous Christian converts.[7] When a French missionary was arrested in Vietnam, France saw their window and dispatched a naval fleet into the Da Nang harbor in hope of capturing the city of Hue, located some miles north of the harbor. The attempt failed because of unexpected disease and resistance from the locals; it was abandoned. Shortly after, the French launched a new attack on the Mekong River delta and rapidly seized control of several provinces near the center of Saigon.[8] Eventually, the Vietnamese government signed a treaty with the French allowing them control over some of the provinces they captured. They created the colony of Cochin China, with its capital in Saigon.[9] One of the most important reasons, if not the most, for France attempting to gain control over Vietnam was the fact that they hoped it would lead them to the vast Chinese markets. In an attempt to explore the Mekong River, France took control over Cambodia but when they found out the Mekong River was unable to reach the border of China, they turned toward northern Vietnam as a passageway to their imperial destiny. In the 1880’s France captured the rest of Vietnam and divided it into two separate protectorates: Tonkin, comprising the area of the Red River delta, and Annam, consisting of the provinces along the central coast.[10] Even though France was now the leader of Vietnam, they ‘allowed’ the present monarch to retain some of their previous power within the country. France added a buffer zone, also known as Laos, to create a small area of protection from Britain’s advances in Burma. By the end of the century, all five territories-one colony and four protectorates-were united into a single Indochinese Union and placed under French administration.[11]
French rule in Vietnam was two-sided: The side they wished to portray to the people of Vietnam and the side that truly represented their motivations in Indochina. In 1917, Albert Sarraut told a Vietnam audience, “I want to give you the instrument of liberation which will gradually lead you toward those superior spheres to which you aspire.”[12] In all actuality, national independence was not on the table for Indochina from France. France wanted cheap resources, raw materials, and un-educated workforces. France continued to push the idea that they were benefiting Indochina with their presence there. Some of the improvements they boasted of were: the promotion of export crops such as rubber, coffee, tea, and rice, the draining of marshlands near the Mekong River to create more fertile lands for farms, and technological improvements such as roads and railways.[13] While these ‘improvements’ seemed like good ideas on paper, as it is often the case, the results of some of these actions left the common citizen underwhelmed and often out of work. As the market became increasingly commercial, the ‘local’ farmer became increasingly obsolete. Traditional farmers were unable to pay the rising taxes on their lands and were forced to sell their lands to moneylenders and wealthy land owners.[14] France discouraged urban commercialism because it could lead to progression within the Indochinese states. Small local commercial areas were created for use in export only and workers were paid very low wages. In some well-to-do areas, western schools were introduced that provided education to the small native elite.[15] Unfortunately, the native masses were given only a small amount of education because France was afraid too much education would lead to intellectual revolt. Two sections of Indochina fared better than the rest: Laos and Cambodia. This is because they had little resources to offer and acted mostly as a buffer between French colonial settlements and British colonial settlements. For these reasons, France set up a small skeleton government and ultimately left them to their own devices. Overall, it seems as though the ‘improvements’ set up in Indochina were more to benefit French business rather than the native peoples living there.
France did not encourage the development of political institutions that were capable of reflecting the aspirations of the indigenous peoples of Indochina.[16] France knew that if they were to allow the people of Indochina to begin running their own government it would eventually lead to a call for independence. The first elected political bodies in Indochina, consisting of municipal councils in the major cities and assemblies at the provincial level, had only limited advisory powers and were composed almost exclusively of Europeans or of wealthy local elites willing to collaborate with France.[17] Overall, the political system in Indochina was more for show than to actually create any national progress.
Apart from early conquest and capture, military establishment in French Indochina was again, more for show than use. Each section of Indochina received a military force to maintain control and keep the peace. It was only when French and Vietnamese attitudes went sour that military action was required between the two parties. In the mid 1800’s when France began to enact a stricter regime, native tempers began to flare. There was a question as to how to handle the situation: militarily or diplomatically. Nguyen Truong To, a member of the appeasement faction, remarked, “To resist would simply be like pouring oil on a fire. Not only would it fail to put out the fire, but the blaze would burn more fiercely.”[18] Eventually the country was split between natives that wanted to fight and natives that wanted to keep the peace. Phan Dinh Phung began a military militia guerrilla warfare group to try and fight off the French from Vietnam. A friend of Phung’s from childhood, Hoang Cao Khai wrote to Phung in a letter…
“The subject I should now like to introduce is the suffering imposed upon our country. Until now, your actions have undoubtedly accorded with your loyalty [to the king]. May I ask, however, what sin our people have committed to deserve so much hardship? As of now, hundreds of families are subject to grief; how do you have the heart to fight on? Should you pursue your struggle, not only will the population of our village be destroyed but our entire country will be transformed into a sea of blood and a mountain of bones.”[19]
Khai does his best to try and persuade Phung to let go of his anger towards the French for the sake of his village and his people. Khai believes that if Phung is to carry on with his current path, there will be nothing left to fight for after the war is over. Unfortunately, Khai’s words do little to deter Phung; his determination can be seen in his response to Khai…
“I have concluded that if our country has survived these past thousand years when its territory was not large, its wealth not great, it was because the relationships between king and subjects, fathers and children, have always been regulated by the five moral obligations. In the past, [four of the great imperial dynasties in China] time and again dreamt of annexing our country within the Chinese administrative system. But never were they able to realize their dream. Ah! If even China, which shares a common border with our territory and is a thousand times more powerful than Vietnam, could not rely upon her strength to swallow us, it was surely because the destiny of our country has been willed by Heaven itself.”[20]
Phung believed that it was the Vietnamese’s destiny to be an independent nation and they had survived for hundreds of years without rule; they did not need to start now. His vision was never realized in his lifetime. His efforts failed and he and his men perished within the hills of Indochina. Fortunately for Phung his resistance began a new phase in Vietnamese thinking. With the help of a few prominent native members, they were able to adopt new western ideas of freedom and independence (but that is another story).
Just as France began their journey of colonial expansion, Belgium (or should I say King Leopold II) had plans to expand the small Belgian borders into Central Africa; more specifically: the Congo. King Leopold began his endeavors into imperialism in 1876 when he held a conference in Brussels to discuss expansion into Africa. Just as many European countries began, Leopold II proposed an international benevolent committee for the propagation of civilization among the peoples of Central Africa (the Congo region).[21] King Leopold II elaborates on the tasks of the colonial missionaries in a letter sent in 1883…
“The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already. They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. To avoid that they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you. Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason. Evangelize the niggers so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. Convert always the blacks by using the whip. Keep their women in nine months of submission to work freely for us. Force them to pay you in sign of recognition-goats, chicken or eggs-every time you visit their villages. And make sure that niggers never become rich. Sing every day that it’s impossible for the rich to enter heaven. Institute a confessional system, which allows you to be good detectives denouncing any black that has a different consciousness contrary to that of the decision-maker. Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours. Never present a chair to a black that comes to visit you. Don’t give him more than one cigarette. Never invite him for dinner even if he gives you a chicken every time you arrive at his house.”[22]
This letter is very important in understanding European contact with African people during the time of colonial expansion. King Leopold II is very clear in his directions for the colonial missionaries and he expects no less than full obedience. There are many important things to understand when reading this letter. Firstly, this letter features the prime motive for most European countries reason for colonial expansion: money and resources. Leopold II has no desire to truly civilize the African people; his motivations lie in Belgian profit. Secondly, this letter shows another common behavior of Europeans during expansion into new nations: superiority over ‘inferior’ races. Not only does Leopold II insinuate European superiority over these native peoples of Africa, he goes into how to keep them that way: make them love poverty, do not let them see the riches in their own lands, convert them using the whip, teach them to forget their heroes, never show them respect, always make them expect to have to give you a gift when you visit, etc. This letter is a prime example of European attitudes toward their colonies during the time of early expansion.
King Leopold II’s organization sent to civilize Central Africa (AIA: African International Association) became nothing more than a development company. His primary objective was to exploit various natural resources in Central Africa such as ivory, minerals, and rubber as well as securing a trade route between the Upper and Lower Congo.[23] By the mid-1890’s rubber extraction would become the colony’s most profitable industry.[24] The Congo was a source of tension between many of the European colonies; especially Belgium, France, Britain, and Portugal who each had a stake in the matter. Eventually, Bismarck held a conference in Berlin between the years of 1884-1885 to settle the various disputes over land partitioning in Africa.[25] King Leopold left the conference happy, and with a large portion of land south of the River Congo to be known as the Congo Free State.[26]
During the conference Leopold II pledged various improvements that were to be made for the Central African people such as: to suppress the East African slave trade; promote humanitarian policies; guarantee free trade within the colony; impose no import duties for twenty years; and to encourage philanthropic and scientific enterprises.[27] Unfortunately for the Congo Free State (CFS), Leopold II had no real intention of implementing any of these policies. Instead, he began to strip the colony of their lands, rights, and resources. Leopold II had begun to grow his operation until in the early 1890’s he had almost completely monopolized the ivory and rubber trade. The result was one of the most brutal and all-encompassing corvée institutions the world has known . Male rubber tappers and porters were mercilessly exploited and driven to death.[28] To make matters worse Leopold II held the worker’s wives and children captive until they returned with their ivory and rubber quota for the day; if they failed to supply enough materials, Leopold II would have their villages burned down, their families murdered, and their hands cut off.[29]
The government set up in the CFS was an Absolute Monarchy. King Leopold II was at the top and a Governor-general was below him. No natives were allowed to work in government for fear that they might become interested in independence.
King Leopold had to establish a military force quickly if he wanted to control his growing enterprise in the Congo. He came up with the Force Publique (FP). The military force was comprised of white males, Belgian regular soldiers, Arab slaves, and mercenaries from other countries.[30] The FP was ruthless in their conquest of the African Congo. They burned villages, carried out heinous acts of violence, and killed any rebels in their wake. To prove the success of their patrols, soldiers were ordered to cut off and bring back dead victims’ right hands as proof that they had not wasted their bullets.[31] If their shots missed their targets or if they used cartridges on big game, soldiers would cut off the hands of the living and wounded to meet their quotas.[32]
Due to the atrocities King Leopold II conducted and allowed during the early years of Belgian expansion, in 1908 the Belgian government annexed the CFS as the Belgian Congo, removing King Leopold II from power.[33] Violence and riots continued within the country even until present day.
There are many similarities and differences between the French and Belgian approach to colonial expansion. Many of their primary ideas about the native people were similar. Each country expected to find a land filled with an inferior race. The important difference between the two regarding that idea is that France tried to work with their colony while Belgium worked their colony. The amount of brutal violence was also very different between the two colonies. It was a long time before France had to use military force to keep control of their colony while Belgium opened with brutality towards the natives. France also allowed many of the governments in place in Indochina remain somewhat in power while Belgium created an Absolute Monarchy with Leopold II in charge. It is also important to notice the effect western ideas had on French Indochina. It was because of the introduction of these ideas from France that Vietnam was able to hold fast to the notion of eventual independence. The influence Leopold II’s actions had on the CFS are also something to be studied. Is the violence still seen today in the Congo a shadow of the teachings created during the Kings reign over the area or was the Congo always destined for violence? Overall, the sections of Indochina fared much better than the natives in the African Congo.
European expansion into Southeast Asia and Africa exploded between the years of 1800-1900. Each country involved managed their colonies in different ways. During this time it was inevitable that both the mother country and the colonized area would begin to share certain aspects of life: ideas in particular. Some of the implementations of European nations on colonized areas can still be seen today. There are many scholarly opinions as to whether imperialism helped or hindered the world, but there were certainly some wonderful and disastrous things that manifested because of it.
Bibliography
Leopold II, King. Letter from King Leopold II of Belgium to Colonial Missionaries, 1883. Universidade Federal De Minas Gerais. URL.
McMahon, Robert J. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008.
Rapport, Michael. Nineteenth-Century Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Schimmer, Russell. Belgian Congo. Genocide Studies Program. Yale University. Accessed 8 December 2012. URL.
[1] Michael Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) 339.
[2] Ibid, 342.
[3] Jules Ferry, Jules Ferry Justified French Colonial Expansion,1884, In Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, ed. Robert J. McMahon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008), 17-18.
[4] William J. Duiker, France’s Imperial Dreams, Vietnam’s Trauma, In Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, ed. Robert J. McMahon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008), 28.
[5] Ibid, 27.
[6] Ibid, 28.
[7] Ibid, 28.
[8] Ibid, 28.
[9] Ibid, 28.
[10] Ibid, 29.
[11] Ibid, 29.
[12] Ibid 29.
[13] Ibid 30.
[14] Ibid 30.
[15] France discouraged urban commercialism because it could lead to progression within the Vietnamese state. Small local commercial areas were created for use in export only.
[16]Ibid, 30.
[17] Ibid, 30.
[18] Ibid, 31.
[19] Ibid, 32.
[20] Ibid, 32.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Michael Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) 350.
[26] Ibid, 350.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
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