It might seem as if there is nothing much to see in the quiet cobbled lane behind the royal palace in Brussels. But Rue Brederode was once the hub of King Leopold II’s vast African colony. It was as important a street as Downing Street in London, or possibly even New York’s Wall Street.
Here were the offices of the Congo Property Company, the Congo Sugar Company, the Katanga Company, the Congo Company for Commerce and Industry and the cocoa-producing company Urselia. Eventually these obscure organisations became known collectively as ‘the companies of the Rue Brederode’.
In 1885, just a few days after Leopold declared himself sovereign of the Congo Free State, Joseph Conrad arrived in this street to take up a position in Leopold’s company. He travelled up the River Congo on the Roi des Belges, a dilapidated two-deck steamer with iron roofs propped up on rickety wooden posts.
The experience had a profound impact on the young Polish writer, who described Leopold’s colony in an essay as ‘the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration.’
