Being Colonized: The Kuba Experience in Rural Congo, 1880–1960

by Jan Vansina

What was it like to be colonized by foreigners? Highlighting a region in central Congo, in the center of sub-Saharan Africa, Being Colonized places Africans at the heart of the story. In a richly textured history that will appeal to general readers and students as well as to scholars, the distinguished historian Jan Vansina offers not just accounts of colonial administrators, missionaries, and traders, but the varied voices of a colonized people. Vansina uncovers the history revealed in local news, customs, gossip, and even dreams, as related by African villagers through archival documents, material culture, and oral interviews.
    Vansina’s case study of the colonial experience is the realm of Kuba, a kingdom in Congo about the size of New Jersey—and two-thirds the size of its colonial master, Belgium. The experience of its inhabitants is the story of colonialism, from its earliest manifestations to its tumultuous end. What happened in Kuba happened to varying degrees throughout Africa and other colonized racism, economic exploitation, indirect rule, Christian conversion, modernization, disease and healing, and transformations in gender relations. The Kuba, like others, took their own active part in history, responding to the changes and calamities that colonization set in motion. Vansina follows the region’s inhabitants from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, when a new elite emerged on the eve of Congo’s dramatic passage to independence.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction

348 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2010

About the author

Jan M. Vansina was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa.

Reviews

[Paul,]

From the discussion on the back of the cover, it sounded like this book would have lots Kuban sources included. Instead, it was just a history that consulted a lot of Kuban sources to get a more balanced picture. So I quit reading.

[Kelsey]

This book says it is merely an introduction, and it is right. While I found myself frustrated for lack of details in some areas, there's no doubt that this book covers much of Congolese history that is glossed over by Westerners.