Editing Congo River (section)

==History==
===Pre-colonial history===
{{Main|Pre-colonial history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo}}{{See also|Category:Ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo}}
[[File:Mercator Congo map.jpg|thumb|17th-century map of the Congo estuary]]
[[File:Routes of European explorers in Africa, to 1853.jpg|thumb|In this 1853 map of Africa, the remaining ''Unexplored Region'' essentially corresponds to the Congo basin]]

The entire Congo basin is populated by [[Bantu peoples]], divided into several hundred ethnic groups. [[Bantu expansion]] is estimated to have reached the middle Congo by about 500 BC and the upper Congo by the first century AD. Remnants of the aboriginal population displaced by the Bantu migration, [[Pygmy peoples|Pygmies]]/''[[Twa|Abatwa]]'' of the [[Ubangian languages|Ubangian]] phylum, remain in the remote forest areas of the Congo Basin.

By the 13th century there were three main confederations of states in the western Congo Basin. In the east were the [[Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza]], considered to be the oldest and most powerful, which likely included [[Nsundi]], [[Mbata Kingdom|Mbata]], [[Mpangu]], and possibly [[Kundi kingdom|Kundi]] and [[Okanga]]. South of these was [[Mpemba]] which stretched from modern-day [[Angola]] to the Congo River. It included various kingdoms such as [[Mpemba Kasi]] and [[Vunda]]. To its west across the Congo River was a confederation of three small states; [[Vungu]] (its leader), [[Kakongo]], and [[Ngoyo]].<ref>{{Citation |title=The Development of States in West Central Africa to 1540 |date=2020 |work=A History of West Central Africa to 1850 |pages=16–55 |editor-last=Thornton |editor-first=John K. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/development-of-states-in-west-central-africa-to-1540/CE71122CF8DFD7B4B188BA34F8F65BFC |access-date=2024-09-21 |series=New Approaches to African History |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-56593-7}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=24–25}}

The [[Kingdom of Kongo]] was formed in the late 14th century from a merging of the kingdoms of [[Mpemba Kasi]] and [[Mbata Kingdom]] on the left banks of the lower Congo River. Its territorial control along the river remained limited to what corresponds to the modern [[Kongo Central]] province. European exploration of the Congo began in 1482 when Portuguese explorer [[Diogo Cão]] discovered the river estuary{{sfn|Cana|1911|p=917}} (likely in August 1482), which he marked by a [[Padrão]], or stone pillar (still existing, but only in fragments) erected on Shark Point. Cão sailed up the river for a short distance, establishing contact with the Kingdom of Kongo. The full course of the river remained unknown throughout the early modern period.{{efn|The [[Dieppe maps]] of the mid-16th century show the Congo only as a minor river while having the [[Nile]] run throughout the continent, rising in Southern Africa. The same interpretation is in essence still found in Jan Blaeu's ''[[:File:Congo map 1690.jpg|Atlas Maior]]'' of 1660. Jacques Bellin's [[:File:Congo map 1754.jpg|map of the Congo]] in ''Histoire Generale Des Voyages'' by [[Antoine François Prévost]] (1754) shows awareness of the river reaching further inland, to the provinces of ''Sundi'' and ''Pango'', but has no detailed knowledge of its course.}}

The upper Congo basin runs west of the [[Albertine Rift]].{{sfn|Cana|1911|p=917}} Its connection to the Congo was unknown until 1877. The extreme northeast of the Congo basin was reached by the [[Nilotic peoples|Nilotic expansion]] at some point between the 15th and 18th centuries, by the ancestors of the [[Southern Luo language|Southern Luo]] speaking [[Alur people]]. [[Francisco de Lacerda]] followed the Zambezi and reached the uppermost part of the Congo basin (the [[Kazembe]] in the upper Luapula basin) in 1796.

The upper Congo River was first reached by the [[Indian Ocean slave trade|Arab slave trade]] by the 19th century. [[Nyangwe]] was founded as a slavers' outpost around 1860. [[David Livingstone]] was the first European to reach Nyangwe in March 1871.{{sfn|Cana|1911|p=917}} Livingstone proposed to prove that the Lualaba connected to the Nile, but on 15 July, he witnessed a massacre of about 400 Africans by Arab slavers in Nyangwe, which experience left him too horrified and shattered to continue his mission to find the sources of the Nile, so he turned back to Lake Tanganyika.<ref name="Livingstone 1871">{{cite book |last=Livingstone |first=David |title=Livingstone's 1871 Field Diary. A Multispectral Critical Edition |year=2012 |publisher=UCLA Digital Library: Los Angeles, CA |url=http://livingstone.library.ucla.edu/1871diary/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140905100511/http://livingstone.library.ucla.edu/1871diary/ |archive-date=2014-09-05}}></ref><ref name="Jeal 1973">{{cite book |last=Jeal |first=Tim |year=1973 |title=Livingstone |place=New Haven, CT |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=331–335}}</ref>

===Early European colonization===
{{Main|Colonization of the Congo Basin}}

The Europeans had not reached the central regions of the Congo basin from either the east or west, until [[Henry Morton Stanley]]'s expedition of 1876–77, supported by the [[Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo]]. At the time one of the last open questions of the [[European exploration of Africa]] was whether the Lualaba River fed the Nile (Livingstone's theory), the Congo,{{sfn|Jeal|2007|pp=188–219}} or even the [[Niger River]]. Financed in 1874, [[Henry Morton Stanley's first trans-Africa expedition|Stanley's first trans-Africa exploration]] started in [[Zanzibar]] and reached the Lualaba on October 17, 1876. Overland he reached Nyangwe, the center of a lawless area containing cannibal tribes at which [[Tippu Tip]] based his trade in slaves. Stanley managed to hire a force from Tippu Tip to guard him for the next {{convert|150|km|mi|sigfig=1}} or so, for 90 days.

The party left Nyangwe overland through the dense Matimba forest. On November 19 they reached the Lualaba again. Since the going through the forest was so heavy, Tippu Tip turned around with his party on December 28, leaving Stanley on his own, with 143 people, including eight children and 16 women. They had 23 canoes. His first encounter with a local tribe was with the cannibal [[Tumbuka people|Wenya]]. In total Stanley reports 32 unfriendly meetings on the river, some violent, even though he attempted to negotiate a peaceful thoroughfare. But the tribes were wary as their only experience of outsiders was with slave traders.

On January 6, 1877, after {{convert|400|mi|km|order=flip}}, they reached Boyoma Falls (called Stanley Falls for some time after), consisting of seven cataracts spanning {{convert|60|mi|km|sigfig=1|order=flip}} which they had to bypass overland. It took them to February 7 to reach the end of the falls. Here Stanley learned that the river was called ''Ikuta Yacongo'',{{sfn|Jeal|2007|p=199; February 7, 1877}} proving to him that he had reached the Congo and that the Lualaba did not feed the Nile.

From this point, the tribes were no longer cannibals{{clarify|date=May 2020}} but possessed firearms, apparently as a result of Portuguese influence{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}. Some four weeks and {{convert|1200|mi|km|order=flip}} later he reached Stanley Pool (now Pool Malebo), the site of the present day cities Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Further downstream were the Livingstone Falls, misnamed as Livingstone had never been on the Congo: a series of 32 falls and rapids with an elevation change of {{convert|900|ft|m|order=flip}} over {{convert|220|mi|km|order=flip}}. On 15 March they started the descent of the falls, which took five months and cost numerous lives. From the Isangile Falls, five falls from the foot, they beached the canoes and ''Lady Alice'' and left the river, aiming for the Portuguese outpost of [[Boma, Democratic Republic of the Congo|Boma]] via land.

On August 3 they reached the hamlet Nsada. From there Stanley sent four men with letters forward to Boma, asking for food for his starving people. On August 7 relief came, being sent by representatives from the [[Liverpool]] trading firm Hatton & Cookson. On August 9 they reached Boma, 1,001 days since leaving Zanzibar on November 12, 1874. The party then consisted of 108 people, including three children born during the trip. Most probably (Stanley's own publications give inconsistent figures), he lost 132 people through disease, hunger, drowning, killing and desertion.{{sfn|Jeal|2007|p=217}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Through the Dark Continent |last=Stanley |first=Henry M. |year=1988 |publisher=Dover Publications |isbn=978-0-486-25667-2 |edition=Reprint |orig-year=Originally published: London: G. Newnes, 1899}}</ref>

Kinshasa was founded as a trading post by Stanley in 1881 and named Léopoldville in honor of [[Leopold II of Belgium]]. The Congo Basin was privately claimed by Leopold II as [[Congo Free State]] in 1885 where the many [[Atrocities in the Congo Free State]] were committed until the region was called the [[Belgian Congo]].

<gallery widths="200px" heights="160px">
File:Advance Column of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition 1890.jpg|Henry M. Stanley with the officers of the Advance Column, Cairo, 1890. From the left: Dr. [[Thomas Heazle Parke]], [[Robert H. Nelson (explorer)|Robert H. Nelson]], [[Henry M. Stanley]], [[William G. Stairs]], and [[Arthur J. M. Jephson]]
File:Monument aux pionniers belges au Congo 001.jpg|Congo River Allegory by [[Thomas Vinçotte]].<ref>Brussels, [[Monument to the Belgian Pioneers in Congo|Monument to Congo pionniers]], [[Cinquantenaire|50th Jubileum Park]].</ref>
</gallery>