Colonial History

Archives

• Institutional archives
  RMCA institutional archives include a rich collection of documents, the oldest of which date to 1910.  These archives are an important source for researchers and offer many avenues of historical investigation. Of particular note are the mission reports of scientists who travelled in Africa at the very beginning of the colonial period.
  Contact: Dieter Van Hassel
• Private archives
  350 private original archive items which are described in an inventory with explanatory notes. These items concern the exploration of Central Africa from the middle of the 19th century, the colonial expansion policy of Léopold II, the Congo Free State, the Congo under the Belgian colonial regime and the Congo after it gained independence in 1960.
  An overview of these 350 archive items is available online (La mémoire des Belges en Afrique - pdf 3 MB)
  Contact:  Dieter Van Hassel,  Patricia Van Schuylenbergh
• The Henry Morton Stanley Archives
  65 diaries and notebooks, around 10,000 letters, some 800 drawings, photographs, slides and maps, manuscripts and press cuttings which constitute the personal archives of the journalist and traveller Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904).
  See : http://www.africamuseum.be/stanley
  Contact: Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi
• Business and institutional archives
  Presentation of collections inventoried by the Association pour la valorisation des archives d’entreprises - asbl (‘Association for the Valorization of Business Archives’, a non-profit organization).  - (pdf in French)
  Contact:  Dieter Van Hassel,  Patricia Van Schuylenbergh

Films

650 films (16 and 35 mm), black/white, colour, mainly French-Dutch version. These films come from the Office of Information and Public Relations for the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (InforCongo), the Upper Katanga Mining Union (UMHK) and private contributors. They examine different aspects of the Belgian Congo and of the colonial world between 1940 and 1960.
Contact:  Patricia Van Schuylenbergh

Photographs

The collection of photographs includes around 400,000 images.
It is a source of key documentation on the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi during the colonial period from the end of the 19th century until independence.
Contact:  F. Morimont

Old maps

Some 3000 maps of Africa from the 16th to the 20th century. The maps from the 19th and 20th centuries concern Congo during the colonial period.
Contact: Nancy Vanderlinden and Wulf Bodenstein

Africanist art and contemporary African art

The collection comprises almost 4000 works of art. It includes paintings, drawings, watercolours and sculptures by European artists who were influenced by Africa or who worked in Central Africa in the 19th and 20th century.
The Section also houses paintings, ceramics and sculptures produced in the art schools of the former Belgian Congo and a few contemporary African paintings.
Contact:  Sabine Cornelis

Historical objects

The inventory of the collection of historical objects is currently being put into a database.
It includes objects connected with the European presence in Central Africa, for example crucifixes relating to the christianisation of the Congo and of Angola between the 15th and 18th century and the war between the Congo Free State and the Afro-Arabs of the East coast.
Contact: Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi

A vast audiovisual collection conveys the memory of colonization from both Congolese and Belgian points of view.
Contact: Patricia Van Schuylenbergh

A specialized scientific library
Contact: Lucienne Di Mauro

All collections maintained by the History Section are accessible free of charge by appointment at the Stanley Pavilion, Leuvensesteenweg, 13, B-3080, Tervuren.
To make an appointment, contact the persons indicated above.

>>> Which archival documents can you photograph (pdf in French or in Dutch)