Dutch Entrepreneurs in Congo: Navigating ‘Belgian’ Imperialism in the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo (1870s-1920s)

Gijs Dreijer

doi:10.51769/bmgn-lchr.19951

Dutch Entrepreneurs in Congo

Navigating ‘Belgian’ Imperialism in the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo (1870s-1920s)

Author(s)

Gijs Dreijer Erasmus University Rotterdam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.19951

Abstract

Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasised that European imperialism was largely a transnational phenomenon, as actors from various nations participated in different empires through for example capital investments or (maritime) labour. Foreigners also played a role in ‘Belgian’ imperial expansion from the start. Drawing on these insights, this article analyses the role played by Dutch entrepreneurs in ‘Belgian’ imperial expansion, more specifically in the build-up and expansion of the Congo Free State under the Belgian King Leopold II, as well as the early years of Belgian Congo. The article seeks to answer why and how Dutch entrepreneurs from the port city of Rotterdam participated in imperial expansion in the Congo Basin between the 1870s and the 1920s, and shows how they profited from transimperial opportunities in the ‘empire of others’.

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Author Biography

Gijs Dreijer, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Gijs Dreijer works on Dutch entrepreneurship across Africa, at present with a grant from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, and is a lecturer at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University and the Alfred D. Chandler jr. International Visiting Fellow at Harvard Business School in the fall of 2024. He received his PhD from the University of Exeter and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2021. He has published on various topics, including maritime law in sixteenth-century Antwerp, the eighteenth-century Ostend Company, and Dutch entrepreneurs in the nineteenth-century Scramble for Africa. E-mail: dreijer@eshcc.eur.nl.

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Published

2025-12-18

Issue

Vol. 140 No. 4 (2025): Transimperial Opportunities? Small State Colonisation of Congo (1876-1940)

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Dreijer, G. (2025). Dutch Entrepreneurs in Congo: Navigating ‘Belgian’ Imperialism in the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo (1870s-1920s). BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 140(4), 79-100. https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.19951