Lesson video

Hello, welcome to today's geography lesson.

I'm Miss Robert, and I'm really excited to be taking you through this lesson from our unit of work, which is all about a country called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Today's lesson focuses on the colonial history and the legacy that that has left in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

By the end of the lesson today, you are going to be able to describe the impact that that colonial history has had on the DRC and the lasting effects of it.

I'd like to begin by taking you through some really important terminology.

These are our key words for the lesson.

These are words that you need to be able to understand as we are going through the lesson today, and they're words that I would really like you to be able to use when you are talking about the colonial history of the DRC.

Pause the video and read the key words and the definitions now.

There are two parts to the lesson today.

We've split the history of the DRC into two halves really.

First, we're gonna look at the history of the DRC before 1960.

So we're looking at the early history.

Later, we are going to look after 1960 at the more modern history of the country.

Let's get started then.

Here is a map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Now, different geographical and cultural aspects about a country and its people can give us clues about what happened in that country in the past.

So let's think about this more in the context of the DRC.

For example, 95% of the population in the DRC identifies themselves as Christian for their religion.

I wonder why that might be.

A lot of people in this country in Africa speak French.

So why is French one of their official languages? And if we look more closely at that map, some of those borders are perfectly straight lines.

Now that's quite strange.

I wonder how that came to happen.

Well, the answers to these questions and many other questions like these is that the answers can be found in the past, and that's because history often shapes geography.

So today, we are delving into the history of the DRC in order to help us better understand the geography of the country.

The country that we call the DRC, as it is today with the borders that we see today hasn't always been there.

It hasn't always existed.

Those borders that we are familiar with that you can see on this map, they have changed over time.

The DRC has been smaller at some points in its history, and the way that it is ruled, the people who were in charge, the type of government, all of those things have also changed a lot throughout the history of this country.

It's had a past that has been filled with controversy and conflict, and all of that is born out, leaving its legacy in the country that we see today.

So let's find out some more about this legacy and how it came to happen in this lesson.

But before we do that, we're gonna have a quick stop for a quick check before we move on.

Now, were you paying attention? Which continent is the DRC in? Is the DRC in Asia, Europe, Oceania, or Africa? Make your choice.

Ready? The DRC is an African country.

It's in Africa.

Well done if you are paying attention and got that right.

Let's move along then.

Now, the best way when we are looking at history is to look at the history on a timeline, because that helps us know where in the past we are moving from and to.

So you can see this timeline starts here in the 1st century, and goes all the way up to the 20th century.

Throughout the history of the DRC, different people have lived there.

In the 1st century BC there were indigenous peoples here.

The indigenous people didn't live in a country as such, they lived in groups or tribes.

But eventually those groups and tribes started to join together, and the areas where they lived became more identifiable.

They grew into small states, or areas, or kingdoms. Now by the 14th century, a large area of the country we now call the DRC was called the Kingdom of Kongo.

This grew again over history, and by the 19th century, colonisation had happened, and that's when Congo became the Congo Free State.

It didn't remain the Congo Free State, and in the 20th century, things changed again and it became the Belgian Congo.

Now we also know that the country we know today is called the DRC, but we are only looking up to 1960 in this first half of the lesson.

Let's look in a little more detail now at each of these stages from this timeline in the history of the DRC.

We know that there were indigenous peoples living in the DRC as early as the 1st century because we have found historical artefacts there that prove this to be true.

We know that people were living and farming here in the 1st century, and that's on a par, really, with the same type of agricultural development that was happening in many other countries around that time.

Those indigenous peoples, as I said before, lived in groups or tribes that began to start to join together.

Many years later, by the 14th century, we see the arrival of something called the Kingdom of Kongo.

Now notice we have Congo spelt with a K here.

So over history, we also have a spelling change from Kongo with a K to Congo with a C.

The map you can see here shows you the area of the Kingdom of the Kongo, and this is starting to resemble the map of the DRC that we are familiar with today.

The Kingdom of Kongo began to grow, and encompass other lands from the area around them, and this included two empires called the Luba and Lunda Empires.

They gradually spread, covering more of the area of the country we call the DRC.

At the same time as this was happening here in Africa, other countries around the world, in Europe and in Asia, they were also expanding, and some of those countries were becoming very, very powerful.

500 years later, by the 19th century, European countries in particular began exploring.

Navigation was becoming more and more common, and countries were having races with each other to see who could reach the furthest territories in the world and who could claim them for their own.

This didn't stop when it came to Africa.

This was actually the start of a process that we now call colonisation.

Colonisation was where countries, often European countries, would take control of lands that they found on their journeys, and they would take the resources from that land, even if that meant taking it by force, and they would use it for their own benefit.

Because they had claimed that land as their own, it became their colony, and that meant that they then had rule over the people, over the entire population living in that area.

The Kingdom of Kongo became the Congo Free State in the 19th century when it was colonised.

Now, the country that did the colonising in this case was Belgium.

It was a little different though when it became the Congo Free State, because it wasn't just taken over by the Belgium country for the good of Belgium, it was actually forcibly taken over, specifically by King Leopold II.

He named the area the Congo Free State, and he made himself the official and only owner of the entire land of the Congo Free State.

It's this period in history after Belgium becomes colonised that we start to see some of the legacies that we were discussing earlier begin to take place.

Do you remember the questions we asked at the start of the lesson? Why do people in the DRC identify themselves as a Christian? Well, that's because there were Christian missionaries who came over when the DRC was colonised by Belgium.

It's the same for the official language being French.

French is not only spoken in France, it was spoken in lots of other European countries.

And as for those straight lines in the borders, the straight line here that you can see pointed to on the map, is there thanks to a deal that was made between Belgium and Portugal.

They literally drew a straight line across a map, and gave themselves each part of Africa.

That is why we have a straight line border on the map today.

Quick multiple choice question for you now.

Think about that timeline to help you.

Which of these names was used first, the Kingdom of Kongo, Congo Free State, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Have you picked one? It was the Kingdom of Kongo.

That's the name that we saw given to the area in around the 14th century.

Now, just before, we were talking about how that straight line border on the map came from the fact that a deal was made between Belgium and Portugal to portion out huge parts of Africa.

Belgium took what we call the DRC that was then called the Kingdom of Kongo.

That is what is depicted here in this cartoon, which shows European nations literally carving up Africa as if it were a pumpkin.

Now, why were these other European countries so interested in taking control of these lands in Africa? What exactly were they after? One of the main reasons is natural resources.

Countries like the DRC are rich in natural resources, and those natural resources found in African nations can't be found in European nations in most of the cases.

If a country is able to mine or dig and extract those natural resources, they could potentially generate a lot of money, and that's why King Leopold II, for example, of Belgium wanted to get his hands on that land in the Kingdom of Kongo.

His reign as the ruler of what he called the Belgium Free State lasted for 23 years.

That's over two decades, which is a very long time.

And for the entire duration of that time, king Leopold's main priority was extracting those resources, taking away those natural resources to make as much money as he could from those lands.

The type of resources that can be extracted in this area include some very, very rare minerals and metals like diamond and golds.

There's also ivory, for example, from animal tusks, and the rainforest trees.

The rainforest covers a vast area of the DRC.

Not only are the trees themselves a natural resource, but within those trees is a form of natural rubber.

So everything around him in the DRC was useful to King Leopold II, and he wanted to make money from that.

Now, we can look back through historical records and data, and very sadly, we can discover that during that 23 year period when Leopold was in charge, millions of people actually died during his reign.

And that was mostly as a result of the appalling conditions that people had to work in in order to extract those natural resources.

A lot of the minerals, for example, need to be dug up from deep underground, and at that time, there was no machinery either.

If targets were not met, if Leopold did not get the amount of the resources that he wanted, then there would be cruel punishments for not meeting those targets.

Those atrocities continued for the entire duration of his reign.

But news of what was happening there soon got back to Europe, and people were not actually in favour of the way King Leopold was behaving.

In 1908, the Belgian people decided to reclaim the Congo Free State.

King Leopold was sent back to Belgium, and he actually died not too long, within two years later.

The Belgian government at that time renamed the Congo Free State to the Belgian Congo, and it kept that name from 1908 all the way up to 1960, which is where we are going to start looking in some more detail in the next half of this lesson.

So, thinking about what we know about King Leopold and what he did, I would like you to read this sentence and then think about the words that you might fit in here to complete the blanks.

As a bit of a hint, two of these are from our key words for today.

Pause the video now and I'll share the answers with you in a moment.

Ready? Good job.

Let's take a look.

Now, King Leopold II was, of course, of Belgium.

He colonised the Free State because he wanted to exploit the natural resources that were found there for his own benefit and wealth.

So we have exploit, and natural resources there from our key words.

Let's stop here and do an activity together now before we move to the second half of the lesson.

The first task is to do with this timeline.

We have a timeline with some periods of history from the DRC and some blank boxes.

I want you to write down in each blank box the correct name for the country we now call the DRC, at that point in its history.

And then for the second task, I want you to write a short paragraph.

I would like you to explain why King Leopold of Belgium wanted specifically to go and be the sole ruler, the sole owner of those lands in the place that he called the Congo Free state.

There are some words provided here, and I would like you to use those words in your writing.

Pause the video now, complete the tasks, and then when you come back, I will share the answers and an example paragraph for Question 2 with you, All done? Lovely, let's take a look at the timeline then to begin with.

14th century, we have the Kingdom of Kongo with a K there.

Be careful, make sure you spelled it correctly.

Then in 1885, it became the Congo Free state when Leopold took over.

And then when Leopold's reign ended in 1908, it became the Belgian Congo.

Did you get all three of those correct? Well done.

Now, Question 2, let's have a look at an example paragraph from one of the Oak Academy children.

In Africa, there are lots of natural resources that are not found in Europe, like rubber, from the rainforest trees in the Congo basin.

King Leopold wanted to exploit those natural resources and use the people in the Congo Free State so that he could generate wealth for himself.

We know that he generated a lot of wealth from the natural resources of ivory and rubber.

A lot of people died during the rain of Leopold II because of bad treatment.

Let's move now, we stopped in that section at 1960, and we're gonna move along now and think about what happened after 1960.

You may, first of all, be thinking, well, why are we starting in 1960? That's because there was a change in 1960, and you may know that 1960 is a post-war year.

That means that it is after the First World War and the Second World war both finished.

And after those wars had ended, there was a growing want and a growing movement across African nations, because this wasn't the only colony, there were other colonies as well.

And many of these places and the people wanted to end that European control.

They wanted to end the colonisation so that they could rule over their own countries and govern themselves.

A lot of African people, as well as European people, had fought in those wars, and they understood the value of freedom and of equality, and they wanted those rights for themselves.

In June, 1960, that independence was finally granted to the Belgian Congo.

It was no longer a colony of Belgium.

The lands of the Belgian Congo were given back to the Congolese people.

So in 1960, they created a brand new flag that you can see here, and they gave themselves the name of Republic of the Congo.

One of the neighbouring countries to the Republic of the Congo had exactly the same name as Republic of the Congo.

So in 1960, suddenly we had two countries both calling themselves the Republic of the Congo right next to each other.

And this was very confusing, not necessarily for the people of the countries, but certainly for everybody else.

So in 1964, a change came into place to differentiate the two countries from each other.

The original Republic of the Congo maintained its name, Republic of the Congo, and the country that we now call the Democratic Republic of the Congo was born.

So, were you listening to all of those years? Can you tell me what name the country had in the year 1940? Was it Congo Free State, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgian Congo, or Republic of the Congo? Ready? In 1940, it was still the Belgian Congo.

Independence wasn't obtained until 1960, so up until 1960, Belgian Congo was the name.

Although Belgian rule ended in 1960, the country had been a colony of Belgium for so many years that some of the impacts were ingrained into the culture of the people, and we still see those impacts.

We see that legacy in the DRC today.

Can you give me three examples of how that legacy has endured? What do we see in the DRC today that indicates that past as a colony of Belgium? We mentioned some earlier, didn't we? We were talking about the religion, how so many people are Christians in the DRC, the borders, which in some parts are straight lines across a map, and that language of French, which is a language that came from Belgium.

Those things, religion, and borders, and language are all parts of the legacy of the DRC, and part of the endurance of its colonial past.

But there are other legacies that we also see born out in the modern history.

Although at the time of the Belgian Congo, there was some investment in the country, the longer lasting impacts have been more serious, and these are issues that have been created since the DRC gained independence.

Those borders that the European people were happy with, for example, are causing problems for the people of the DRC.

That language that was spoken by the Europeans and brought into the DRC was not the native language of the people.

And the leadership that came from Europe was not the leadership that the people of the DRC would've chosen.

This is one of the future leaders of the DRC who we'll talk some more about later.

Let's think first of all about those borders again.

We mentioned earlier that countries from Europe got a map of Africa and made deals with each other to portion out the land, to just carve it up amongst themselves.

They did not consider in these discussions the ethnic groups that were there in the area, or the indigenous peoples that were living and farming there when they chose to draw these straight lines across a map.

This meant that in the land that we call the DRC today, there are over 200 different ethnic groups.

And when the Europeans came and colonised the area, they simply just grouped all of these ethnicities together.

And that has been a source of conflict and tension for the people.

The Belgian people brought the French language with them, and they expected the people of the DRC, as we now call it, to begin to use this language, which eventually they did, but the Europeans didn't consider that there were already languages being spoken in those lands.

There were already over 200 languages, as many as there were different ethnic groups that were being spoken.

So all of these different languages and the forced use of friendship on them made communication and unity very difficult.

A country that cannot communicate with each other was never going to be able to unite together.

This is a photograph of one of the DRC's future leaders called Colonel Mobutu.

In 1960, independence happened for the DRC.

They had wanted this for a long, long time, but when this independence happened and the Belgian government moved out, the Belgian government were no longer in charge, the DRC and its people had to suddenly govern themselves.

But they hadn't governed the country before.

They had no prior experience of governing anything because the Belgian people wouldn't let them.

They had no prior experience of responsible positions or leadership roles, because in the past it had been Belgian people in those posts.

So when the Congolese people were finally able to take control and run their own country, it was very difficult for them, because they didn't have the experience of doing so.

It made it very hard for them to run a country in an effective way.

We mentioned before that there were over 200 different ethnic groups, and when the Belgian people moved out, all of those different ethnic groups started to want their own people to be the ones that would step forward into those government roles.

There was a lot of very different opinions within the country and among the people.

And this caused tensions and conflict within the country itself.

And some of that conflict was actually very serious, and it led to civil war within the country itself.

Before we move on to find out a little bit more about that, let's stop and try this quick multiple choice question.

Which of the following was a problem caused by colonialism in the DRC? Pause the video, choose your answer, and then I will share the correct answer with you.

The correct answer here is C.

It's that lack of experience in leadership roles.

That was a major problem that was caused by colonialism.

The DRC has a very large population.

It had over 200 ethnic groups, and English was not the official language, it was French.

So we're going to use a timeline to work our way through this modern history.

Our timeline starts when independence was obtained in 1960, and brings us up to the present day.

The five men that you can see on this timeline are the five men that have been in charge of the DRC since 1960.

We're gonna start in 1960 and work our way through to the present day.

So the first ever Congolese ruler was Patrice Lumumba.

He was Prime Minister for a very short time, less than a year, in fact.

This next photograph is a Congolese leader called Colonel Mobutu.

He used the military.

He was a Colonel in the Congolese army.

And he ceased control, and he renamed the country again.

So we have a new name being given to the country in 1965, and this was when Colonel Mobutu took over, and he called the country the Republic of Zaire.

Mobutu managed to stay in power in his Republic of Zaire for decades, for well over 30 years.

And this wasn't because it was a peaceful nation and the people voted for him.

It was because he seized power with his military support, and he maintained his power, thanks to a lot of corruption and violence, and the military backing that he had.

Let's pause here before we move on, and think again about how the name of this country is changing.

In the year 1980 this time, what was the name of the country? Republic of Congo, Republic of Zaire, Democratic Republic of Congo, or Belgian Congo.

Have you picked one? It was the Republic of Zaire.

It became this in 1965.

The Republic of Zaire existed until 1997.

Mobutu was ousted, and a new government came in to take control.

However, this was also not a peaceful transition.

The people were not happy.

There was still unrest, there was still violence.

This leader was only in power for four years before he was actually assassinated after a rebellion took place.

in 2001, Kabila's son, Joseph, took over.

He tried his best to end the civil war that had been going on in the country, but conflict still, and still to this day, endures isolated in many different parts of the country.

This guy that you can see here is the President of the DRC today.

He was elected.

The country is now trying to be represented by someone who the people choose to elect as their leader.

This was the first time in history that an elected ruler had been put in charge of the DRC.

And it was the first time since 1997 that a member of that Kabila family was not in charge.

Even today, under the rule of this newly elected ruler, tensions and violence are still happening in the DRC.

People have experienced conflict, violence, and oppression, and people still feel that.

Young people still hear about that.

The people of the DRC are really trying to build their nation today.

Within that nation, there are still so many different ethnic groups, and lots of people continue to have their own individual opinions and beliefs about what should happen next for the country.

And this can lead to more conflict because people don't always agree, especially about issues that are affecting the country where they live.

So would you agree with this statement? Is it true or false to say that since the newly elected ruler took over in 1997, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been a peaceful nation? I am going say that I think this is false.

Can you think of some reasons why I have said that this is false? Perhaps you had some of these ideas.

There've been centuries of conflict, and that has left a great legacy of violence.

The ruler, the first ruler, Laurent Kabila, was killed in 2001 when he was assassinated.

There has been outbreaks of unrest and violence even today, and that's due to so many groups of people in the country having all these different opinions about the most important issues.

Let's complete this activity, which will help you to consolidate all of this information that you've heard today.

I know that there has been a lot to take on board today.

So you have an opportunity now to look back over this lesson and perhaps use any other books or internet sources as long as they are trustworthy for your research.

So the first task for today is to look at these images and write a sentence next to each one to explain how the legacy of colonialism has caused challenges for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

For the second activity, there are two statements here from some of the Oak Academy children.

Lucas and Sam are chatting.

Lucas says, "It's a long time since the end of colonialism, "so I don't think it's the reason for the challenges "that the DRC faces." But Sam says that, "The legacy of colonialism still endures "and causes problems in the present day." So I would like you to decide who you agree with, and I would like you to explain why.

Pause the video, have a go at the activities, and then when you come back when you are ready, I will look at some answers with you.

Okay, ready? Let's take a look.

First of all, these images, and how they relate to the legacy of the colonial history of the DRC.

First of all, we see a map and the borders, and some of those borders are straight lines.

The borders were created without considering the many different ethnic groups that lived there.

Over 200 ethnic groups were just brought together, and that caused a lot of tension and conflict.

Then we have a speech bubble representing the French language.

And although French is the official language, there are over 200 local languages and dialects spoken the country, and this makes communication, and specifically unity very difficult.

And then we have the photo of Colonel Mobutu there.

Now, when the DRC became independent in 1960, very few Congolese people had been given any chance to gain experience in government or in leadership roles, and that made it hard to run the country effectively.

Then we had Sam and Lucas's conversation.

I have decided to say that I partially agree with Lucas.

Colonialism was a long time ago, that's true, but Sam also has some good points because she points out that decisions and actions taken during that time during colonialism, like creating those artificial borders, for example, they're really key factors into why conflict and challenges remain in the DRC today.

Well done for completing those tasks.

Well done for paying attention and working so well during today's lesson.

Let's just recap what we've done before we bring the lesson to a close.

We can say now that we know the DRC was a former Belgian colony, and it's had multiple names over time, some of them, for example, being Belgian Congo, and the Republic of Zaire.

We know that King Leopold II from Belgium exploited the country for their natural resources, and he exploited the people, and that during his reign, there were millions of deaths.

We know that independence was obtained in 1960, but that ever since then, political instability and conflict has been faced in the DRC.

We know that the borders drawn up during colonialism, and that exploitation still have impact in the DRC today.

Thank you for listening.

I hope you'll join me next time to find out more about the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Bye for now.