The Compagnie du Katanga was a

concession Concession may refer to: General * Concession (contract) (sometimes called a concession agreement), a contractual right to carry on a certain kind of business or activity in an area, such as to explore or develop its natural resources or to opera ...

company of the

Congo Free State ''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leopo ...

that engaged in mining in the

Katanga Province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika Province, Tanganyika, Hau ...

History

The company was founded by Leopold II in 1891 to occupy part of the Free State in order to dissuade a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

claim on the land. It was formed by the

Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l'Industrie The Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (CCCI) was a private enterprise in the Congo Free State, later the Belgian Congo and then the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose subsidiaries engaged in a wide range of activities in the ...

(CCCI) and a group of English investors. The company received 99-year mineral exploitation right on one third of the land and preferential rights for twenty years on the remainder. The company explored the area and found rich deposits of copper. In 1899 the company and the Free State government formed the Comité Special du Katanga (CSK) to administer the whole province, with its own police force. In many ways the CSK was independent of the administration at Boma and reported directly Brussels. The CSK hired Robert Williams of

Tanganyika Concessions Tanganyika Concessions Limited (TCL or Tanks) was a British mining and railway company founded by the Scottish engineer and entrepreneur Robert Williams in 1899. The purpose was to exploit minerals in Northern Rhodesia and in the Congo Free Sta ...

(TCL) to prospect for minerals. In 1906 the ''Compagnie du Katanga'', the CSK and the TCL formed the mining company ''

Union Minière du Haut-Katanga The ''Union Minière du Haut-Katanga'' (French language, French; literally "Mining Union of Upper-Katanga") was a Belgium, Belgian mining company (with minority British share) which controlled and operated the mining industry in the copperbelt r ...

'' (UMHK).

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Compagnie Du Katanga Belgian colonisation in Africa History of Katanga 1891 establishments in the Congo Free State Congo Free State Companies established in 1891 Mining in Katanga Province