History of the Congo

Early history

The early inhabitants were farmer-trappers, fishing peoples, and Pygmy hunters. People lived in households including kin and unrelated individuals; at the centre of the household was a "big man," who represented the group. Mobility--of individuals, groups, goods, and ideas--figured prominently and created a common social environment. Such intercommunication is evident from the closely related Bantu languages of the region. Speakers of the Eastern (Ubangian) languages lived in the north but maintained ties with their forest neighbours.

Larger-scale societies emerged between AD 1000 and 1500; they were based on clans whose members lived in different villages, village clusters with chiefs, and small forest principalities. Chiefdoms on the southern fringes became more complex; three kingdoms eventually developed: Loango, at the mouth of the Kouilou River on the Atlantic coast; Kongo, which had its beginnings in the first millennium, in the far southwest; and Tio, which grew out of small chiefdoms on the plains north of Malebo (Stanley) Pool. Rulers derived power from control over spirit cults, but trade eventually became a second pillar of power.

In 1483 the Portuguese landed in Kongo. Initially, relations between the Kongolese and Portuguese rulers were good. Characterized by the exchange of representatives and the sojourn of Kongolese students in Portugal, this period was a harbinger of late 20th-century technical assistance. Unfortunately, the need of Portuguese planters on São Tomé for slaves undermined this amicable arrangement by the 1530s.

Between 1600 and 1800, the slave trade expanded. Local leaders challenged state control. Among the Tio the western chiefs became more autonomous. Contact with Europeans also introduced new American food crops. Corn (maize) and cassava allowed greater population densities. This, along with the emergence of a "market" for foodstuffs, led to greater use of slaves, intensified women's work, and changed the sexual division of labour.
 

The colonial era

The French were preoccupied with acquiring labour. Forced labour, head taxes, compulsory production of cash crops, and draconian labour contracts forced Africans to build infrastructure and to participate in the colonial economy. No project was more costly in African lives than the Congo-Ocean Railway, built between 1921 and 1934 from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville; between 15,000 and 20,000 Africans died.

In 1940 Congo rallied to the Free French forces. Charles de Gaulle, Governor-General Félix Eboué, and African leaders held a conference in Brazzaville in 1944 to announce more liberal policies. In 1946 Congo became an overseas territory of France with representatives in the French Parliament and an elected Territorial Assembly. Ten years later, the loi cadre (enabling act) endowed the colony with an elected government. Congo became a republic within the French Community in 1958 and acquired complete political independence in August 1960.

Congo since independence

Corruption, incompetence, mass disapproval, general strikes, and lack of French support led to Youlou's ouster in 1963. His successor, Alphonse Massamba-Débat, shifted policies to the left, notably by founding the National Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement National de la Révolution; MNR) as the sole party. The country sought assistance from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China and voted with the more radical African states in world forums. Regionally, Congo extended concrete support and offered a geographic base for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the Marxist movement that won independence for that country. Congo also offered asylum to the Patrice Lumumba followers who fled the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (from 1971 to 1997 called Zaire) and plotted for a return to power there.

Regionalism and policy failures led the military to replace Massamba-Débat with Major Marien Ngouabi in 1968. Ngouabi maintained a socialist line, renaming the country the People's Republic of the Congo on Dec. 31, 1969; the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) replaced the MNR at the same time. Ngouabi was a northerner, and his regime shifted control of the country away from the south. Such moves created opposition among workers and students in the highly politicized environment of Brazzaville and other southern urban centres. Ngouabi was assassinated in March 1977. His successor, the more conservative Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango, soon clashed with the PCT, and Colonel Denis Sassou-Nguesso replaced Yhombi-Opango in 1979.

Although Sassou-Nguesso represented the more militant wing of the PCT--and immediately introduced a new constitution intended as a first step toward building a Marxist-Leninist society--he improved relations with the Western nations and with France. The regime's political language became more moderate, but the inefficient state enterprises created by earlier socialist policies remained in place in the early 1980s. They had been subsidized by petroleum production, but the drop in oil and other raw material prices led to economic crisis. The external debt surpassed $1.5 billion in 1985, and debt service consumed 45 percent of state revenue. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund the following year led to an agreement to help the national economy in exchange for cuts in public spending and the state bureaucracy. At the end of the 1980s, however, the debt had tripled in size and the economic crisis continued.
(D.D.C.)

In 1991 a new constitution was drafted, which included dropping the word "People's" from the country's official name and was adopted by referendum in March 1992. Pascal Lissouba succeded Sassou-Nguesso following elections that August. A period of shaky parliamentary government ensued, which ended when Sassou-Nguesso led a successful insurrection against the government in 1997; he was reinstated as president late in the year.
(Ed.)

Bibliography