Belgian Expansion in Congo and Brazil: Colonial Entanglements trough the Movement of People, Perceptions, and Performances in an Atlantic Space (1880-1914).

African and Latin American colonial histories differ strongly. While European powers divided Africa during the late nineteenth-century wave of 'New Imperialism', Latin American countries had become independent over half a century earlier. But, African and Latin American histories were also entangled: first through a century long slave trade (16th to mid-19th century), then through simultaneous European expansion in both regions (late 19th and early 20th century). Whereas the former dynamic of entanglement is well studied, the latter has received little attention. Due to the megalomaniac imperial ambitions of King Leopold II, Belgians were involved in expansion projects on both continents—and beyond. At the Conference of Berlin, Congo became the private property of the Belgian king (1885-1908) and subsequently a Belgian colony (1908- 1960). The Belgian participation in the colonization of Africa is well known, but it is rarely studied in relation to Belgian expansion in other parts of the world. This project will lay bare how Belgian expansion in Congo related to Belgian expansion in Brazil, an important destination of Belgian imperialists in Latin America around the turn of the 20th century. The Belgium-Congo-Brazil case offers a unique opportunity to study simultaneous expansion in Africa and Latin America and, more importantly, the entanglement between both through the movement of people, perceptions, and performances around the Atlantic Ocean.