Looking for Maps in the King's Library: Leopold II's Maps of the Congo Basin

Proceedings of the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences 3 (2025 – 1): 147-171 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16925668 Looking for Maps in the King’s Library: Leopold II’s Maps of the Congo Basin by Wouter Bracke* Keywords. — Congo; Central Africa; Leopold II; Berlin Conference; Mapping; Library Studies; Royal Archives; Colonialism. Summary. — King Leopold II considered his personal library as an essential instrument in the development of his colonial policy. However, scholars have hardly paid any attention to its content. In this paper the library’s importance as a historical source will be illustrated by focusing on the cartographical component. More specifically this paper lists and deals with the maps of Africa and in particular of Central Africa and Congo the King and his staff had at their disposal during the years of intensive exploration of the Congo Basin which would ultimately lead to the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) and the creation of the Congo Free State. As the library is not (yet) accessible to the general public, its inventory published in 1909 in the Moniteur belge is the only source to study its composition. After a general description of the inventory’s origins and structure, the paper will concentrate on a description of the library’s geographical content, identifying books, booklets and journals mentioned in the inventory that contain maps of (Central) Africa, and more specifically of the Congo Basin. Additionally, maps kept as loose sheets in the archives of the Royal Palace, which date from 1885 or before and therefore presumably belonged to king Leopold II, are taken into account when discussing the library’s cartographical content. Introduction On 8 August 1884 Leopold wrote to Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), chancellor of Germany from 1871 to 1890, asking him to recognize the Association internationale du Congo (AIC). The letter was accompanied by the following map on which the King roughly outlined the borders of the AIC: Karte von Central-Afrika. Nach den neuesten Forschungen bearbeitet von Dr. Joseph Chavanne (Wien/Pest/Leipzig: A. Hartleben’s Verlag). In 1884, Joseph Chavanne (1846-1902) had been sent on an exploration journey of the Congo river by the Institut national de Géographie (ING), a private company founded in 1882 in Brussels by Merzbach and Falk. Three months later, on 8 November 1884, Otto von Bismarck and the AIC signed a convention in which Germany recognized the association. For its borders, once again reference was made to a map. This time it was a manuscript map: Croquis des stations fondées ou en cours de fondation dans les bassins du Congo et du Kwilu-Niadi et formant les chefs-lieux des territoires acquis en toute souveraineté par l’Association Internationale du Congo. This map was printed the same month by the ING under a slightly modified title: Croquis de l’Afrique équatoriale contenant les derniers renseignements recueillis par les agents de l’Association Internationale du Congo (fig. 1). The printed map was used by the AIC during the Berlin Conference [1]**. * Head of the Map Room – curator of cartographic collections, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, Keizerslaan 4, B-1000 Brussels (Belgium). ** Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to the notes, pp. 165-167. — 148 — a — 149 — b Fig. 1. — Manuscript (a) and printed (b) map with the tracing of the borders according to the convention signed between the AIC and Germany on 8 november 1884 (© Berlin, Bundesarchiv). — 150 — The Institut national de Géographie was an important player in the dissemination of geographical knowledge in Belgium in the last quarter of the 19th century. From 1884 onwards the Institute published a bimonthly magazine titled Le Mouvement Géographique to inform the larger public on exploring activities going on all over the world. In its first years, though, the main focus was on the exploration of the Congo river (Henry, 2008). In those years the journal’s editor-in-chief, Alphonse-Jules Wauters (1845-1916), was close to the Royal Court, which explains the speed with which the ING received the latest news on the explorations of the Congo Basin, largely financed by the King. It thus became a partner in the strategy developed by the Crown to convince the public, especially in Belgium, of the importance of the King’s colonial aspirations. What becomes clear from this close, albeit informal, collaboration between the Court and the ING, is that maps played an important role in the King’s colonial policy. It also raises the question of how the King informed himself about his future colony and more particularly which maps he and his staff had at their disposal to get an idea of the territory the King wanted to claim for himself. In the following it will be shown that the King’s personal library is a good place to start looking for an answer to these questions. As the library has never been thoroughly studied before, I will first give a general description of its content on the basis of its inventory, with a focus on its African component. Then, I will deal with the maps of the Congo Basin and its neighbouring countries that have been found in the Royal Archives, most of which as I will show are taken out of books the King (must have) possessed. Finally, I will identify the books and journals mentioned in the inventory of the King’s library that are somehow related to the geography of the African continent, pointing out in what way they could have been of interest to the King and his staff in their search for information about the Congo Basin. In my analysis I will concentrate on the maps present in these works. The King’s Library and its Inventory The library of Leopold II is preserved in the Royal Palace at Laeken but is not accessible today. Negotiations are currently conducted to have the library moved to the Royal Library of Belgium and thus make it accessible to the general public. Moreover, an inventory of the library was drawn up a few days before the King’s demise in December 1909 and was published the same month in the Moniteur belge, the official journal of the kingdom of Belgium (Moniteur belge, 1909) [2]. The library’s inventory consists of almost nine thousand items. Some items contain more than one publication. The presence of a book or another publication, be it a booklet, a fascicle, a report, or a journal, in a given library does not prove its owner has actual ly read the work. Especially in the case of a king’s library, one has to keep in mind that many books were probably offered to him as gifts from authors or publishers well aware of the king’s interests, or looking for some patronage. In the case of King Leopold’s library, though, its content, as reflected in the inventory, clearly shows that it was not a ceremonial library, a biblio thèque d’apparat. On the contrary, as the description of its inventory will show, it has all the characteristics of what one would call a personal work tool. Its origins, as far as can be ascertained on the basis of accessible documents, should be traced back to a personal initiative of the King which is also traditionally marked as the starting point of the Africa library of the Belgian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In a letter to his close collaborator Henri-Alexis Brialmont (1821-1903), dated 1861, the future King wrote he wanted to create his own library, — 151 — which would allow him to obtain the necessary ‘arsenal’ with which to attack Belgian critics of his colonial ideas (Geeraerts, 1972, p. 5; Bils-Lambert, De Spiegeleer-Lamiroy & Van Hemelrijck, 1991, p. 5; Périer, 1935, pp. 222-223; Crokaert, 1925, p. 409). The correspondence with Brialmont in the early 1860s shows a Leopold eagerly looking for all sorts of information on existing colonies, especially from London and (in a lesser degree) Paris. A book that often comes up in the King’s letters to Brialmont is Money’s on Dutch colonialism (see infra), which really forms the basis of the colonial doctrine he was developing in those years (Crokaert, 1925, pp. 409-427). The library’s inventory, prepared under the direction of Louis Paris (1864-1934), private librarian of the King and from 1919 to 1929 director of the Royal Library of Belgium, was part of a larger inventory of the King’s personal belongings that would merge into a private foundation created according to the King’s wishes. In that way the King wanted to avoid that the royal patrimony be divided amongst the families to which two of his three daughters had married. The fact that it was hastily drawn up tells us something about what the library must have looked like at the time of the King’s demise. The inventory lists books, maps, booklets and journals. Maps and booklets are mingled with the books, although item 8894 of the inventory mentions “Maps and plans, about 250 rolls” without further detail. Journals, on the contrary, are grouped together, with annuaries and all sorts of reports, at the very end of the inventory. Overall the inventory follows an alphabetical order — the order is repeated over and over again as if it were describing contents of individual bookcases. There is also a sort of chronological order within the alphabetical order and in general the most recent items appear towards the end of the inventory. Clearly books were displaced or reordered according to changing interests. There are many thematical clusters on all kinds of subjects, interrupting the alphabetical order, which show Leopold’s personal interests and reflect his work as a prince and king: medical works, dictionaries, catalogues of exhibitions and museums, books on the history of typography, publications related to official visits, books on music, on politics, biographies, books in Greek, contemporary literature, etc. Nos. 2225-2320 include an important geographical corpus, in random order: about a hundred works, mostly from before 1870, thirty-seven of which on Africa, while the others are mainly about the Far East, China, India and the Dutch colonies, countries which had played a prominent role in Leopold’s search for a colony outside Europe in the 1860s. Books published after 1870 are almost all about Africa, which shows the King’s shift of interest in matters of international expansion. That the King and his staff used the library professionally also becomes apparent from the study of the correspondence related to the library, which is preserved in the archives of the Royal Palace in Brussels [3]. The letters deal with acquisitions, donations, loans and restitutions of books and journals, and often the King’s name is mentioned. Some letters in particular show the King’s (direct) involvement with the geographical content of his library. In early August 1875, the royal military house wrote to the King’s librarian, August Scheler (18191890), that Leopold wanted to know the whereabouts in the library of Petermanns Mitteilungen, of the journals of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and the Société de Géographie de Paris. The King also asked for a complete list of the works on geography in his possession. A couple of days later, on 7 August, the military house asked access to the library on a Sunday morning, to do research in the journals of the RGS and the Société de Géographie de Paris. On 20 September, several issues of the latter journal were sent to Scheler because the King didn’t need them anymore. The King had them bought directly from the Brussels librarian and — 152 — publishing house Muquardt. On 2 January 1877, the librarian was informed by John C. d’Oultremont (1848-1917) that the King wished to create a special office where he would bring together all maps and works regarding Africa and the Far East. Scheler was asked to put the books in two boxes, one for each continent, but it was emphasized that it would be the King who would order the books and assign them their proper place (AKP/Bib K 1-3). Perhaps the aforementioned geographical corpus is still a remainder of this initiative. In the inventory, I counted over six hundred books on Africa or related affairs that could be of interest for the exploration and administration of the Congo Basin. More than a third of them date from 1885 or before. They are spread all over the inventory, but one also finds clusters, for instance over seventy works (nos. 5850-5924) which mostly deal with Congo or West Africa. The most recent publications on the Congo, from the early 20th century, are grouped together at the end of the list of books. Not all books on Africa are about geography, of course. There are poetry books, books on music, medical books, works of a political or commercial nature, and also a number of works on slavery. It has not always been easy to identify these works, nor has it been evident to determine, on the sole basis of a title or name, if a work has or had a colonial interest, let alone a specific importance for the study of the Congo. Here are some examples. Nos. 1948-1949 of the inventory (fig. 2) mention the following author and title: Gott will’es Wer bleibt zurück im heiligen Kampfe fur Chintenthum, 1889. It can be identified with the anonymously published work of Walter Helmes, Gott will es! Wer bleibt zurück im heiligen Kampf für Christentum und Menschenrechten?, published in Münster in 1889. It is the human rights’ aspect of the work that probably was decisive in putting the book in the library amongst the works on slave trade. The items that are next on the list (nos. 1950-1952) are again by the same Helmes: two of them are translations of the third, titled Der sclavenhandel in Afrika und seine Grevel, beleuchtet nach den Vorträgen des Kardinals Lavigerie und Berichten des Missionaren und Forschern, Münster, 1888. No. 2152 is a book by Léon de Thier (1825-1903), founder of the journal La Meuse, on the free navigation of the Danube, a topic of great importance in the debate on the juridical status of the Congo river during the Berlin Conference (1885). It should thus be considered complementary to the writings by sir Travers Twiss (1809-1897) (nos. 5907 and 5920) on Africa and Fig. 2. — Excerpt from the inventory of the King’s library (Moniteur belge, 1909). — 153 — the Congo river in which he dealt with questions of navigation and free trade. Twiss argued against the proposal of the economist and expert on primitive property Émile de Laveleye (1822-1892) (Vandersmissen, 2011), published in the journal’s same issue, to declare the Congo neutral (Sylvest, 2008). Twiss, instead, referred to the Danube and argued in favour of the creation of an international commission that would control free navigation for at least the lower Congo river (Twiss, 1883a,b; Vandersmissen, 2011) [4]. For similar reasons, because they were deemed important to the King’s colonial doctrine, one should include in the Congo collection the works by Jules Duval (1813-1870) on European emigration and on the French colonies in North Africa (1862 and 1877, nos. 2307 and 4478), Java or how to manage a colony by James William Money (1819-1890, no. 2278), or the conference by Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894) on the scientific and civilizing character of large industrial enterprises (1883, no. 6423) [5]. The Loose Sheet Maps The inventory gives a short description of a variety of single and multiple sheet maps and plans, but none of them depicts Central Africa [6].This seems to indicate that the maps of Africa were kept separately. From one of the letters from the archives of the Royal Palace mentioned before we know that in 1875, the King had indeed the intention to bring together in one room his books and maps related to Africa. Furthermore, the inventory of the archives of the former Ministry of Colonies informs us that a collection of maps, mostly of Africa, belonging to King Leopold II, had disappeared from the archives. The archives were originally created in the 1920s by a historical committee established with the idea of writing a history of Congo (Van Grieken & Van Grieken-Taverniers, 1958, p. 59). So far no traces of this collection have been found. However, if the African map collection has indeed disappeared, several maps that were part of the collection at some stage or of which we may assume they must have belonged to the collection, have survived in the archives of King Albert I, Leopold’s successor, and his wife, Queen Elisabeth I. For the region and period that are of interest here, thirty maps could be identified. A list of these is annexed to this article. It is worth notifying that most maps were originally part of a book or were published in journals which are listed in the library’s inventory [7].The map by John Arrowsmith (no. 25 of our list published in the appendix) was actual ly part of the book by David and Charles Livingstone on their expedition to the Zambezi river (1865, no. 2247 of the King’s library’s inventory), and 27 is from Henry Morton Stanley’s book Through the Dark Continent which recounts his first trans-African expedition of 1874-77 (1878, no. 5235). No. 4 is from the travel account by Lyons McLeod (†1893), at the time consul in Mozambique (1860, no. 2272). No. 10 is from Émile Banning’s report of the Brussels Geographical Conference on Africa of 1876 (nos. 2229-2230; see infra). The conference can be considered as the starting point of Leopold’s active Congo policy which would eventually lead to the creation of the Congo Free State (Académie royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, 1976). No. 18 comes from Chaillé-Long’s account of his journeys to Lake Victoria and the Niam-Niam (1876, no. 819; see infra) [8]. Other maps were published in journals such as L’Afrique Explorée et Civilisée (8, 13, no. 8434), the journal founded in Geneva in 1879 by Gustave Moynier (1826-1910) and ideologic ally close to Leopold II (Rossinelli 2021; Vandersmissen, 2011), the Bulletin de la — 154 — Société Belge de Géographie (11, no. 8436), Petermanns Mitteilungen (14, no. 8452; see infra), the Bulletin de la Société Khédiviale de Géographie (19, no. 8435), and the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (29, no. 8127a). Several maps were published by the already mentioned Institut national de Géographie (21-22, and 30) as was 28, a map by captain Boyé published in Le Mouvement Géographique on 18 June 1888 (no. 8185). Others were published by the Institut cartographique militaire, forerunner of the current Belgian Geographical Institute and another partner in the King’s colonial policy (12, 23) [9]. Nos. 5, 7, 17 (and 13) are by Keith Johnston (1844-1879), fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and its map curator responsible for the verification, interpretation and drawing of maps from the exploration surveys of famous explorers of Africa of the day, in particular the mapping of the source of the Nile. He died in 1879 in East Africa where he had just started his expedition towards the Great Lakes (McCarthy, 2004). To these we must add of course Rutherford Alcock’s map of Africa, which the president of the Royal Geographical Society offered to the King when he participated in the aforementioned Brussels Geographical Conference of 1876 and which was used as a reference at the conference itself (Denis, 1976, p. 39). Two reproductions were produced of this map: a facsimile, of which the archives of the Royal Palace hold several copies, which shows the explorations that took place on the whole continent with the explorers’ names written on the itineraries, and a photographic reproduction which only indicates the itineraries (without the explorers’ names) of the Congo area. On this copy (fig. 3) the exploration of the Ogooué by Savorgnan de Brazza (1852-1905) is drawn as partly accomplished, partly projected (1876/78). The first expedition by Paul Pogge (1838-1884), from Loanda to Cassange (which he continued afterwards into Mussumba) (1874-1876), is still in progress. Amongst the accomplished explorations we have the Welle river discovered in 1870 by Georg Schweinfurth (18361925), Livingstone’s explorations of Lakes Nyassa, Moero and Banguelo (1868-1869), the travels by Verney Lovett Cameron (1844-1894) from Nyangwé to the north of Benguela (18731875), and finally Stanley’s travels to Lake Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyangwé (1870s), following the travels of Richard Burton (1821-1890), John Speke and James Grant to the Great Lakes (1857-1863). The map of Egypt and Equatorial Africa (20) is authored by the engineer John Fowler (1817-1898) who devoted his life to the construction of railways. This copy of the map, which was published for the first time in 1876 (Mackay, 1900), once belonged to Gordon Pasha (1833-1885), governor-general of Sudan between 1877 and 1879, who must be the author of the manuscript tracings and notes in English and in Arabic [10]. Finally, no. 9 includes sheets of the first general map of Africa on scale 1:2,000,000 by Richard de Régnauld de Lannoy de Bissy (1844-1906), member of the French Geographical Society and in close contact with the AIC at a time when France opposed the King regarding the valley of the Kwilu-Niari. His map is a product of the 19th-century colonial expansion and was considered by contemporaries as an indispensable guide for travellers in Africa (Loiseaux, 2004) [11]. I would like to add to this list the wall map of Africa by Jean-Baptiste Louis Clouet (c. 17301790) (fig. 4) [12]. It is not mentioned anywhere in the inventory, nor in the archives of the King’s successor, but it was donated to the Royal Library in 2022 by the Royal household. Since the death of King Albert I, it has been stored in the attic of the Royal Palace in Laeken. A manuscript subscription says it was bought in November 1876, ten days after the closure of the Universal Exhibition of Philadelphia, by a certain Müllender. The latter, from Eupen (which was not yet part of Belgium at the time), could be identified as Alphons Maria Hubert Müllender (1853-1932) who would be naturalized in 1884, an engineer with aspirational ideas, whose many projects — a metro in Brussels, an electric train between Antwerp and Brussels, — 155 — a tunnel connecting Antwerp with its left bank — have never been carried out, but his publications found their way into the King’s library (nos. 1434, 1638, 3550, 5056, 5058, 5197, 6246, 7832-3, 7874, 7905, 7906; Müllender, 1994). He participated in the Universal Exhibition as a representative of the industries in Verviers (Liège). The Court’s interest in antiquarian maps is (again) demonstrated in the maps by Jacob Meursius (born 1618), Guillaume Delisle (16751726), and Robert de Vaugondy (1688-1766) mentioned in our list (1-3). In the library’s inventory, other antiquarian maps, or reproductions of them, can be found. In fact, the map by Meursius (1) was published in the French edition of Olfert Dapper’s work, of which the King owned a copy (1686, no. 1516). A reproduction of Dapper’s map of 1676 can also be found in Stanley’s Through the Dark Continent (1878). Another ancient source to which contemporary authors, like Stanley and Banning, liked to refer to is the work of Filippo Pigafetta (15331604), of which we find an English and French edition in the inventory (1881 and 1883, nos. 2005 and 2105; Périer, 1939, 1955, pp. 135-140) [13]. As we will see, there may have been other reasons than purely cartographic ones to explain their presence in the King’s library. Fig. 3. — Reproduction photographique d’un croquis des explorations en Afrique offert à Sa Majesté le Roi des Belges par Sir R. Alcock K.C.B., P.R.G.S., etc. le 11 septembre 1876 (© Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium). — 162 — academic geography was not yet fully established, often focused on commercial opportunities offered by national and other colonies (Clout, 2008). They are followed in the inventory by other French journals, explicitly dedicated to exploration and expedition accounts. L’Exploration (8418) bears the revealing subtitle Journal des conquêtes de la civilisation sur tous les points du globe, which was changed in 1884 into Revue hebdomadaire des découvertes géographiques et de la politique coloniale. It was published for the first time in 1876 under the direction of Charles Hertz (†1879), secretary-general and founder of the Société de Géographie commerciale in Paris, whose journal can also be found in the inventory (8413) [18]. Amongst the German journals, one should mention the Correspondenzblatt der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft that published in its first issues letters, reports and maps by the members of the Güssfeldt expedition (1877, no. 8340). Petermanns Mitteilungen A crucial role in the dissemination of the latest updates on exploration was played by Petermanns Mitteilungen [19]. August Petermann (1822-1878), after whom the monthly journal was named, had stressed in his foreword the excellent quality of the maps published in the journal, which distinguished the latter from other similar initiatives (Demhardt, 2000, p. 22). The impact of these highly successful maps cannot be overestimated. The maps were copied by other journals and were used to make other maps. They provided explorers with first-hand information they couldn’t find elsewhere, information whose sustainability was sometimes longer than one might expect in those years of intensive exploration and mapping. To give but one example: the RGS published in 1884 the letters by Frank Lupton (1854-1888), dated 1882, on his geographical observations with regard to the Bahr-el-Ghazal region (South Soudan) read and discussed by its members at their evening meeting of 10 March 1884 (Lupton & Lupton, 1884). In his letters, Lupton referred to the maps he had with him at the time. He suggested several corrections to the map of equatorial Africa published in Petermanns Mitteilungen in 1877, which shows the then-latest results of the explorations in Central Africa, including Stanley’s in 1876/77 (fig. 5). In 1882, this was still Lupton’s most recent map! The latter went on criticizing another map, i.e. Schweinfurth’s from the account of his travels in Central Africa between 1868 and 1871 (Schweinfurth, 1874), and finished with a request for the latest published maps, for his “are all old ones, not worth anything” (Lupton & Lupton, 1884, p. 252). Between 1877 and 1882, when Lupton explored the northern Congo region, the Congo Basin had been intensively explored, but the only recent map then available to him was, so he said, a small map the Russian explorer Wilhelm Junker (1840-1892) sent to him about his discoveries in the region while he was investigating the Nile-Congo watershed. From time to time, there are physical traces of the journal’s use by the King or his collaborators. For instance, the account by Clemens Denhardt (1852-1928) of his travels in East Africa and the discovery of the Tana river (Kenya), published in Petermanns Mitteilungen, was preserved as a separate fascicle in the library (Denhardt, 1881, no. 6458). Its accompanying map, on the other hand, was probably taken out and kept aside, as it is now in the archives of the King’s successor (fourteen of the maps described in the appendix). — 163 — Fig. 5. — Standpunkt der Erforschung von Äquatorial-Afrika, 1887 […] von A. Petermann, Petermanns Mitteilungen, 1877, tafel 22 (© Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium). — 164 — Conclusion The King’s library contained so to say all the contemporary literature on Central Africa and the Congo Basin that a potential reader at the time could wish for. Most of the literature also offered maps, largeand small-scale maps, particular maps of itineraries, lakes and other specific areas of interest. Even old maps were present in the library, some in contemporary facsimile editions. The library’s structure at the King’s demise, which is reflected in the inventory drawn up at the time, is that of a working tool. It shows the library was not just a ceremonial one. The preserved correspondence on acquisitions, loans and restitutions, on the library’s accessibility, confirms this. Furthermore, the letters referred to in this paper are testimony to the library’s practical use for the King and his staff in establishing the former’s colonial policy. The few maps that have been preserved in the archives of the King’s successor and that have been taken out of books and journals, are proof of the particular interest their owner took in that sort of items. The library (and its inventory) thus becomes a privileged testimony of the King’s colonial policy, a testimony that should be heard by scholars of Belgium’s colonial past and, more generally, of 19th-century colonialism. APPENDIX List of maps of Africa, and particularly Central Africa, which have or may have belonged to the King’s library and are now in the archives of King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth [20]. 1. 538/A. Africae accurata tabula ex-officina Jacobum Meursium. 2. 1482/B. Carte d’Afrique. Dressée pour l’instruction. Par Guillaume Delisle […] Revue et augmentée par Dezauche […] À Paris, Chez l’Auteur, Rue des Noyers, 1819. 3. 944/A. Afrique divisée en ses principaux Empires et Royaumes. Par Robert de Vaugondy, Géographe à Paris. Chez Delamarche, Géographe, Rue du Jardinet, no 13. 4. 562/A. Map of East Africa by Lyons McLeod F.R.G.S., etc. Late H.B.M.’s Consul Mozambique 1859. Day & Son Lith.rs to the Queen, London, Hurst & Blackett, Great Marlborough Street, 1860. 5. 461/ Stanford’s Library Map of Africa constructed by A. Keith Johnston, F.R.S.E. F.R.G.S., etc. London, Edward Stanford, 55 Charing Cross, July 2nd 1866. 6. 361/B. Fac Simile d’un croquis des explorations en Afrique offert à Sa Majesté le Roi des Belges par Sir R. Alcock K.C.B., P.R.G.S., etc. le 11 septembre 1876. 7. 589/A. General Map of Africa constructed from the most recent coast surveys and embodying the results of all explorations to the present time. By Keith Johnston, F.R.G.S., 1879. Engraved, printed and published by W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London. 8. 626/A. Afrique. Wm. Rosier del.; Aut. Hoverraz, Genève, L’Afrique Explorée et Civilisée, n° 11, mai 1880. 9. 454/A, 1170/A (1625/A). Afrique. Carte dressée et dessinée par le Chef de Bon du Génie Régnauld de Lannoye de Bissy (étant chef du Service Géographique le général Perrier), Paris, Dépôt de la Guerre, Service Géographique de l’Armée, 1881. 10. 565/A. Africa shewing the routes of the Leading Explorers to accompany M. Banning’s Africa and the Brussels Conference. Stanford’s Geographical Establishment, Sharing Cross. London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivingston [1877]. 11. 633/A. Croquis des explorations dans le sud de l’Afrique, dans les territoires équatoriaux de l’ouest et dans le Soudan. 12. 624/A. Itinéraires suivis par les principaux explorateurs de l’Afrique, par E. Adan, Lt col. d’État-Major. Bruxelles, Institut Cartographique Militaire de Belgique, 1879. 13. 625/A. Carte de l’Ousambara Méridional avec l’itinéraire de Keith Johnston en 1879. Wm. Rosier del.; autogr. Noverraz, Genève. L’Afrique explorée et civilisée, 1re année, o. 6. — 165 — 14. 575/A. Originalkarte des Äquatorialen Ost-Afrika zwischen Mombasa und Nijansa. Mit Zugrundelegung der Tana-Fluss-Aufnahme nach den eigenen Erkundigungen über die Handelswege des Innern construirt und gezeichnet von Clemens Denhardt. Red. von B. Hassenstein, aut. von B. Domann, C. Schmidt; Drück von C. Hellfarth i. Gotha. Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1881. 15. 597/A. Manuscript map of German East Africa: region of Lake Kigarama, Bugarura, Bugesera and Buhoma. 16. 598/A. Manuscript map of German East Africa: region between Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. 17. 556/A. Map of the Route adopted by Captains Speke & Grant, on their Journey across Africa from Zanzibar to the Mediterranean, by A. Keith Johnston F.R.S.E. W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh. Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood & Sons, 1864. 18. 353/A. Map of Expeditions made to the Lake Victoria Nyanza and West of the White Nile to Makraka-NiamNiam 1874 and 1875 by Col. C. Chaillé Long […] Adding notes of Stanley & Linant who have since visited the Lake. E. Weller, Lith. London, Sampson Low, et Co. 19. 632/A. Carte d’une reconnaissance faite par feu M.E. Linant de Bellefonds (février-juin?1875) entre Regaf et le Lac d’Ukerewe. Dressé d’après les notes et croquis du voyageur par G. Schweinfurth. Autogr. par Schweinfurth; Imp. lith. V. Penasson, Alexandrie. Bulletin de la Société Khédiviale de Géographie, Année 1876, n° 2. 20. 590/ Egypt and Equatorial Africa compiled from original surveys and the best authenticated sources by John Fowler, 1877. London, Thomas Kell Lith. 21. 380/B, 853/B. Croquis de l’Afrique Équatoriale contenant les derniers renseignements recueillis par les agents de l’Association Internationale du Congo. Bruxelles, Institut National de Géographie, novembre 1884. 22. 854/A. Carte politique de l’Afrique centrale. A Messieurs les Membres de la Chambre des Représentants. Hommage du Mouvement Géographique. Bruxelles, Institut National de Géographie, 10 mars 1885. 23. 635/A. Le Tanganyika. Institut Cartographique Militaire, 1880. 24. 622/A. Association Internationale Africaine. Croquis de l’itinéraire suivi de la côte au lac Tanganyka par Mr. Cambier chef de la 1re expédition. Litho Verhavert Frères et Sœurs, rue du Cornet, 131. EtterbeekBruxelles. 25. 563/ South Eastern Africa. Map of the River Shire, the Lakes Nyassa & Shirwa, the Lower Courses of the Rivers Zambesia & Rovuma. Based on the Astronomical Observations & Sketches of Dr. Livingstone. Constructed by John Arrowsmith, 1865. London, John Murray, [1865]. 26. 937/ Carte Partielle des missions de l’Afrique Équatoriale dressée par le R.P. Fx. Charmetant, Missionnaire Apostolique d’Alger. Gravée par R. Hausermann, 27, Rue St. André des Arts. Paris, Imp. Becquet, 1879. 27. 586/A. Survey of the Livingstone Falls (32 in Number) of the Lower Livingstone River from Stanley’s Pool to Boma, by Henry M. Stanley. Stanford’s Geographical Establishment, 55 Charing Cross. London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. 28. 358/A. Le Congo de Boma à Matadi. Les chiffres indiquent les profondeurs en brasses. 29. 535/A. The Congo River from its Mouth to Bolobo to illustrate the journeys of Mr H.H. Johnston. Edward Weller, Red Lion Square; H. Sharbau, R.G.S. del. From the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1883. 30. 808/B. Le Congo depuis l’Équateur jusqu’à l’Océan et la Vallée du Niadi-Kwilu. Bruxelles, Institut National de Géographie, novembre 1883. NOTES [1] Copies of the printed map published by the ING, signed by Maximilien Strauch (1829-1911), president of the AIC, are found in the documents of the Berlin Conference kept in the National Archives in Berlin. One bears the tracing of the borders as they appear on the map added to the convention of 8 November 1884; the other shows the borders as they appear on the map added to the declaration signed by the Belgian government and the AIC on 23 February 1885 (R 1001/4170). The — 166 — original manuscript map together with the text of the convention of 8 November 1884 can be found in the same archives (R 1001/9047). For an introduction to the political history of the Congo colony, see Stengers (2020); for a study of Leopold’s interest in matters of geography, see Vandersmissen (2009). [2] Jan Vandersmissen (2009, pp. 409-412) has been the first to offer a short description of the library, underlining its importance for the study of the King’s colonial doctrine. I am grateful for his precious help in studying the King’s library. [3] Archives du Palais Royal (ARP), Bib K 1-3. [4] Noteworthy in this respect is the absence of Laveley’s writings on Congo in the library, except for his article of 1891 on the partition of Africa (no. 5904). [5] James William Money was a British lawyer based in India, who defended the Dutch colonial Cultivation System, the so-called Cultuurstelsel, requiring that 20 % of village land had to be devoted to government crops for export or that, alternatively, peasants had to work in government-owned plantations for sixty days each year. On 25 October 1883, Ferdinand Marie, comte de Lesseps, developer of the Suez Canal (1869), held a public lecture which was titled: Sur le caractère scientifique et civilisateur des grandes entreprises industrielles ayant pour but de faciliter les relations entre les peuples. [6] In order of appearance in the inventory: the topographical map of Russia, 1860 (no. 2945), a detailed map of the surroundings of Hernstein castle in Austria drawn by Joseph Wanka von Lenzenheim (no. 3898), a plan of the Gileppe dam published in 1880 by the city of Verviers (no. 3976), different editions of the Carte de Belgique, indiquant toutes les voies de communication. Dressée au Dépôt de la Guerre, 1875 (scale 1:160,000, nos. 4037-4041 and 5527), the Carte hydrographique et routière de la Belgique (scale 1:100,000) by the Belgian cartographer Philippe Vandermaelen (1795-1869, no. 4084), The Original Map of South Africa (scale 1: 2,500,000) by Alexander Merensky, 1837-1918 (no. 4538), a Plan topographique des environs d’Anvers au 1/20 000 by the Dépôt de la Guerre, 1859 (no. 5200), a map for cyclists by E. Hennequin and published by the Ministry of War, 1898 (no. 5279), a map of Southern Germany by Carl Arends (no. 5522), Joseph Schlacher’s Orohydrographische Karte von Mittel-Europa (no. 5529), the 1882 reproduction of the large map of Flanders by Gérard Mercator of 1540 (no. 5530), the map of the battle in the Royal Parc in Brussels in 1830 by Léon Teusch (no. 5535), the Carte de la production, de la circulation et de la consommation des charbons belges en 1877, 1879 by Max Goebel (no. 5653), the Carte militaire de la Crimée et de la côte de Kinburn engraved by J. Claes (no. 6469), J.N. Fritschi’s Topographische Karte der Umgebungen von Baden, ca. 1880 (scale 1:37,500, no. 6470), a city plan of The Hague by M. Couvée (?) (no. 6471), This is the first map of the world ever constructed on the variation of the needle (by Midleton [sic]), (= Middleton’s Pioneer map of the world?, no. 6472), E. Higginson’s map of the Republic of Peru, 1903 (no. 7580), and finally Jules Hansens’ Carte topographique du Grand Duché de Luxembourg, 1905-1907 (scale 1: 50,000, no. 8169). As we have seen, one item of the inventory (8894) assembles a collection of two hundred and fifty enrolled maps; possibly, this collection held maps of Africa. [7] It is true that for long it was common practice among archivists to separate maps from the fascicles in which they were found and the stamps with their stack number were put on the maps by the first archivist of the royal palace in the early 1960s. Still, the fact remains that in this case most maps were taken out of books and journals, which is not, nor was, a current practice amongst librarians or archivists. [8] No. 17 was published in the account by James Augustus Grant (1827-1892) of his journey with John Hanning Speke (1827-1864) searching for the source of the Nile (1864). I didn’t find this book in the inventory. On the other hand, Grant’s study of the botany described during this expedition is present in the library (1878, no. 5745). [9] For no. 23 see also the Bulletin de la Société Belge de Géographie (Adan, 1880). [10] The date of 14 July 1879 added to the map near Tasha (?) must refer to the battle between Romolo Gessi (1831-1881), serving under Gordon, and the slave trader and rebel leader Suleiman Zobeir, which led to the latter’s capture and execution on 15 July (Gessi Pasha, 1892, p. 329). — 167 — [11] We can try to complete these results by going through the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose secretary-general from 1859 onwards was Auguste, later Baron, Lambermont (18191905), one of the key figures in the Belgian preparation of the Berlin conference and its joint reporter with Baron Alphonse Chodron de Courcel (1835-1919), or by looking for maps in the family archives of the Goffinet family, three male members of which were at the royal court in the period under consideration and one, Constant, served as secretary to the Belgian delegation in Berlin. In both cases, the results are equally meagre, most maps being of later dates. On the other hand, the catalogues of the so-called Africa Library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are more promising. There are two of them for the 19th century and their comparison is quite illuminating: the first one published in 1878 mentions only eight maps of Africa and a few works on Congo. The second catalogue, published in 1889, gives a quite different image. We have more than five pages of monographies and eight with travel reports — most of them we will also find in the inventory of the King’s library — and sixty-three maps of Africa. This is basically thanks to its librarian Émile Banning (1836-1898) who had become an expert on Africa and would as such participate in the Berlin Conference (see infra). [12] Carte d’Afrique divisée en ses principaux Etats dressée sur les observations astronomiques de Mrs de l’Academie roy[a]le des Sciences, et sur les memoires les plus récents. Par Mr l’abbé Clouet de l’Academie r[oya]le des Sciences de Rouen = La África dividida según lo dilatado de sus principales partes cuyos puntos principales están delinados sobre las últimas obsevationes [sic]: por el Señor abad Clouet del Academia real de las Sciencias. A Paris: chez Mondhare rue St Jaques a la Ville de Caen, 1782; [...] en Cádix: casa de Mondhare, 1782. [13] In chapter II of his book The Congo and the founding of its Free State, Stanley inserted an English version of Pigafetta’s map of the Congo kingdom (1885, p. 10). [14] “Je vous envoie quelques notes, dont quelques-unes étaient déjà préparées. Il va de soi qu’il faut suivre sur les cartes. Vous avez Stanford et Kiepert pour l’ensemble. Il y a ensuite les cartes spéciales jointes aux ouvrages ou rapports de Schweinfurth, etc. Je ne sais si vous avez le ‘Tour du Monde’. Il y a là des notices, des résumés, des cartes. Le premier libraire venu vous fera venir la collection de Paris en 4 heures” (Vandewoude, 1976, p. 436). For Lambermont’s notes see file G.M. 439 of the Archives of the Royal Palace (ibidem, n. 26). The journal Le Tour du Monde is not mentioned in the inventory, but from the correspondence related to the library in the Archives of the Royal Palace we know it was regularly consulted by the Royal household (Bib K 1-3). [15] According to Pigafetta, the Congo river found its origin in this central lake, which in the 1870s was sometimes identified as Lake Tanganyika (Duveyrier, 1876, p. 125). [16] According to J.-L. Vellut (Congo: ambitions et désenchantements, 1880-1960. Karhala, 2017, p. 41), the author of the wall map was the Prussian geographer Ludwig Friederichsen (1841-1915), who drew the map of Central Africa added to the protocols of the Berlin Conference. [17] Letter from the Direction de la liste civile to the King’s librarian, dated 19 March 1877: “J’ai l’honneur de vous prier, d’après les ordres du Roi, de faire relier les collections de publications périodiques dont vous avez pris note samedi dernier, et de tâcher de vous procurer les numéros qui pourraient manquer pour compléter ces collections” (APR Bib K 1-3). [18] In 1885, it was continued by the industrialist and politician Édouard Marbeau (1847-1940), under the title La Gazette géographique et l’Exploration, and in 1888, under the same Marbeau, merged into the Revue française de l’Étranger et des Colonies et Exploration (8423). [19] Its full title read at first as follows: Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geographischer Anstalt über wichtige neue Erforschungen auf dem Gesammtgebiet der Geographie. From 1879 onwards, after Petermann’s demise in 1878, it became Dr. A. Petermanns Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geographischer Anstalt, and in 1938 this was changed into Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen. [20] References are copied from the provisional map inventory of the archives of the Royal Palace drawn up by Baudouin D’Hoore. We have added to this list nos. 15 and 16, two undated manuscript maps. I haven’t been able to date them precisely, but I think they must have been made after 1885. — 168 — ARCHIVES Berlin, Bundesarchiv, R 1001/4170 and R 1001/9047. Brussels, Archives du Palais royal, Bib K 1-3. REFERENCES Académie royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer (1976). La Conférence de Géographie de 1876. Recueil d’études. Bruxelles: Académie royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer. Adan, E. (1877a). Les exploration africaines. Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge de Géographie, 1, 67-91, 133-158, 267-297, 399-418. Adan, E. (1877b). Récit autographié d’un cours d’astronomie à l’usage des explorateurs de l’Afrique centrale. Aut. de l’École militaire. Adan, E. 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