The colonizers seldom recognized how dependent they were on traditional Mongo skills and knowledge. For example, in the infant days of the SAB company, the company adopted many trade routes and market towns developed by African long-distance traders. The company’s ivory purchases were dependent on the African elephant hunters skill and courage. The many dimensional contributions of African workers can not be overlooked or denoted. The Mongo people provided most of the labor that was important for the European profit coming from the Congo basin.
While colonial economic strategies were fundamentally shaped by these three basic conditioning factors, they were also molded by European perceptions of Africans and their society. In comparison to their culture, the Belgians found Mongo society to be both technologically backward and morally deficient, the product of an inferior, indolent, and primitive people who lacked both the ability and incentive to change. Colonial anthropological studies often reaffirmed these ideas. Van der Kerken segmentary lineage model of Mongo society, with its emphasis on kinship, social equilibrium, and continuity, implied that the Mongo lacked a tradition of historical change and innovation.
These views not only justified but also shaped colonial policy in the Congo basin. The colonists…show more content… When given the opportunity, many groups eagerly welcomed commerce with the Europeans, taking advantage of the new opportunities for wealth, status, and power within the framework of traditional society. Other individuals chose to collaborate chose to collaborate more closely with the colonizers, seeking out European patrons for their own personal advancement outside of traditional
