Alexandre Delcommune
| Alexandre Delcommune | |
|---|---|
Portrait from HM Stanley's book The Congo and the founding of its free state; a story of work and exploration (1885)
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| Born |
6 October 1855 Namur, Belgium |
| Died | 7 August 1922 (aged 66) Brussels, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Known for | Exploration of the Congo Basin |
Alexandre Delcommune, or del Commune, (6 October 1855 – 7 August 1922) was a Belgian officer of the armed Force Publique of the Congo Free State who undertook extensive explorations of the country during the early colonial period of the Congo Free State. He explored many of the navigable waterways of the Congo Basin, and led a major expedition to Katanga between 1890 and 1893.
Delcommune was born at Namur on 6 October 1855. His father had reached the rank of sergeant major in the engineer corps before retiring and joining the Belgian and French railways. Alexandre Delcommune studied at the Athenaeum in Brussels, then worked for three months as a clerk in the Brussels North railway station before quitting due to boredom.
He traveled to Portugal in January 1874 to work for his half brother, the director of a French olive oil factory. Still restless, he got his brother to write a letter of recommendation to one of his Portuguese friends so that he could go to Brazil or Portugal. After less than six months he arrived in São Paulo de Loanda, modern Luanda. Delcommune travelled from Luanda to Ambriz where he joined the French merchant Lasnier-Daumas, Lartigue et Cie. At that time he was one of just sixteen Europeans living in the Congo, and the only Belgian. He arrived at Boma in 1874. He received Henry Morton Stanley in 1877 during Stanley's crossing of the continent from east to west.
In 1883 Delcommune joined the Association Internationale Africaine. A year later he was appointed director of the Belgian factories in Boma and Noki, and became head of the future capital of the Congo Free State at Boma. He was tasked with getting the local chiefs to accept Belgian sovereignty, and on 19 April 1884 three important agreements were signed. Delcommune had succeeded due to his long familiarity with Boma and to having married a daughter of the principal chief of Boma. The other Europeans trading on the lower Congo River were furious with what they saw as his deception in gaining the treaties. Despite an Anglo-Portuguese treaty signed in February 1884, he obtained recognition of the Etat Independent du Congo, and this was ratified in the Berlin Conference (1884) in which the territory at the mouth of the Congo was divided between the Portuguese, French and Belgians.
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