British and Belgian Territorial Claims
Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company approached Katanga from the south, the Belgian King Leopold II's Congo Free State (CFS) approached from the northwest. Southeast Katanga was controlled by the Yeke or Garanganze kingdom of Msiri based at Bunkeya (see map), and the BSAC and CFS competed to sign treaties with him, while he tried to play the one off against the other. For more detail and the story of how a CFS expedition led by a Canadian killed Msiri in December 1891, see the article on Msiri.
After Msiri's death the CFS was faster off the mark to consolidate their claim to Msiri's territory called 'Garanganza', and later Katanga, west up to the Luapula. Since 1885 they already had claimed land north of the Congo-Zambezi watershed. The BSAC were left with the land south of the watershed and east of the Luapula. The 1884–5 Berlin Conference was organised by Germany to resolve the outcome of the Scramble for Africa. It did not set the actual boundaries but agreed areas of influence, including the CFS's control over the Congo. Detailed borders were left to bilateral negotiations.
Read more about this topic: Congo Pedicle
Famous quotes containing the words british, belgian, territorial and/or claims:
“Quite frankly, if you bed people of belowstairs class, they go to the papers.”
—Jane Clark, British millionaire politician’s wife. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 15 (June 13, 1994)
“This fat pistache of Belgian grapes exceeds
The total gala of auburn aureoles.
Cochon! Master, the grapes are here and now.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)