Sister Henriette points to the ruined buildings once part of the Saint Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Charity, Lusambo convent.
May 7th, 2026: We had an important meeting in Lusambo.
The quickest surest way to get there was to fly into another province a couple days before and then take a 10-hour motorbike ride through thick sands and down slippery clays.
Four of us took the road trip Mbuji-Mayi to Lusambo.
5th May: we were lodged in solid rooms, rented at an austere, expansive monastery. We were wakened at 5h30 by the gothic chants of the Brothers of Charity.
An impressive building that far exceeds the needs of the handful of Congolese Brothers that live there, now.
Not only the monastery, but all of central Lusambo held a faded aura from the end of the 19th century, when Lusambo was a key growth point for King Leopold II’s Congo Free State. This was before the Belgian Congo, before Zaire and it is now disappearing under the daily struggle of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Until mid-20th century, the history of Lusambo was a Story of Glory told by colonial storytellers to the colonizing world:
In 1890 Paul Le Marinel built the Congo Free State military post of Lusambo on the Sankuru River.
Cameo: Paul Le Marinel made Lusambo into a strong military station. He left the army in 1899 to join the large colonial commercial companies: first the Compagnie du Lomami and then SAB in Haut-Congo (ivory and rubber).
Lusambo was created as the garrison to counter the Arab Ivory merchants.
Twice defeated at Lusambo, the Tetela chief, Ngongo Lutete, switched allegiance, from the Arab side to the Belgian side of the conflict.
With his Tetela army, he stood by Belgian Commander, Francis Dhanis, and propelled the Belgians to decisive victory over the militarized Arab traders. The storytellers of the glorious victory were writing to Leopold II’s court.
Cameo: Francis Dhanis realized he owed his 1890s victory to the tactics and strength of Ngongo Lutete’s Tetela army. He was not present at Ngongo Lutete’s rapid trial and execution at the Ngandu post.
1892_Paul Le Marinel turned over Lusambo post to Francis Dhanis.
1894_Dhanis turned over the post to Cyriaque Gillain.
1895 was the largest military mutiny within the “Force Publique” before independence 65 years later. It erupted at the Luluabourg post (now Kananga), 150 km SW of Lusambo. The story that reached Europe from the Congo Free State labeled this as Tetela revenge for their leader Ngongo Lutete, executed by firing squad — a murder hard to justify.
Cameo: Father Emeri Camberi, also known as the King of Kasai, built the catholic mission at Luluabourg called Mikalai, that largely survived the 1895 rebellion partly because of his gutsy use of revolver and “express rifle”. He illustrated that the state and mission were one, engaged in a shared endeavor. He, too, eventually signed a remunerative contract with a Congo Free State commercial enterprise, the Kasai Company, supplying, among other things, labor.
The 1895 mutiny was called the “revolt of the Tetela.” Was Ngongo Lutete’s murder truly the reason? The firing squad was two years earlier and since then some of these same Tetela soldiers, who had been part of Ngongo Lutete’s personal guard, were credited with heroic service for the Force Publique. Nevertheless, at Luluabourg, under Captain Pelzer, the Tetela, in particular, received inhumane treatment. The news of how these ex-milicians of Ngongo Lutete were violently disciplined for minor infractions – such as 125-lash whippings for falling asleep on night watch — was not leaked to the European public until the 1950s.
On the left: Two soldiers of the Force Publique in 1914.
Below: Soldiers of the Force Publique next to the statue of Leopold II in what is now Kinshasa. This was taken in 1929 or soon after.
The Force Publiique was first created in 1885, made up of Congolese soldiers with white officers to serve Leopold II. From the beginning it cemented Leopold II’s absolute personal control of the Congo and its resources.
The stories that went to press in Europe concerning the Tetela Mutiny of 1895 were not of Belgian humiliation, but of overwhelming numbers of barbarous mutineers. Although the true numbers are hard to pull out of the grossly exaggerated stories, the first reports were of less than 200 mutineers leaving Luluabourg, far fewer than the Congo Free State armies sent to stop them.
How much did the Fear and False storytelling around this rebellion presage what the Belgian Congo would become?
Although Lusambo was spared the blood and pillaging, the big garrison at Lusambo was essential to the final scattering of the rebels well over a year after they broke out of Luluabourg. But the pall of the bloody revolt was drawn over all of the Kasai-Lualaba District.
Nevertheless, Leopold II’s Congo Free State flourished in the district; by the early 20th century, Lusambo, was a booming commercial center for trade in rubber and ivory. When I toured Lusambo, the signs of its past shipping wealth were barely visible…though remnants remained.
ONATRA and before that UNATRA (Union nationale des transports fluviaux au Congo) was the state shipping company that bought the goods and freighted them to Kinshasa (then Leopoldville).
The old ONATRA port could dock large freight barges.
The port today, on the now un-dredged river, is for much smaller scale traffic.
The commercial explosion, seeded a growing need for skilled labor. Some level of schooling was essential. The Fathers of Scheut (led by Father Camberi), who oversaw the vicariate of greater Kasai, called in the Brothers of Charity in 1911, tasked with creating a utilitarian school system based in Lusambo. These Brothers built elementary and middle schools as well as a professional school. Although that level was the extent of schooling provided anywhere in Congo, the schools were rigorous and of high- standing. Their glory, still visible in the deteriorating infrastructure, makes Lusambo a nostalgic place to visit.
The Brothers of Charity also built the Lusambo cathedral. Local people told me it dated from 1913.
This was a well-constructed dormitory for the middle school, but now converted to government offices for Sankuru province.
Cameo: Édouard De Jonghe was Secretary-General of the Royal Institute of Belgian Colony, and later became the General Director of Native Affairs. De Jonghe was well placed to be a storyteller for the Belgian Congo.
In 1924, De Jonghe inspected the schools throughout the Belgian Congo. He found the Lusambo schools exemplary. Four hundred students were taught with matchless discipline. In the first elementary classes, there was excellent teaching by “black teachers” under the direction of a European brother. The brightest students continued to the 4 middle classes or the professional school, taught by the European Brothers of Charity. That was the limit of training provided.
The professional school offered specialized training with appropriate machinery for a variety of trade careers taught in the workshops, half of which are shown in this photo.
It has been many years that most of the outdated machinery no longer functions.
In the carpentry workshop there are still a few operational saws.
In the professional school there was carpentry, smithy, shoemaking, printing and production of uniforms for all the children. De Jonghe commended the Brothers of Charity; his only criticism was a lack of schooling for girls.
After De Jonghe’s inspection the Sisters of Charity were called to build and oversee a school for girls. The associated infrastructure is just as impressive as for the boys and also semi-abandoned.
Lusambo’s convent for the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
The School for Girls managed by the Sisters of Charity.
1933 – 1950 Lusambo was the capital of Kasai Province and an education and commercial center for the Belgian Congo. Sister Henriette, now the sister superior at the Lusambo girls’ school, said the real loss at Lusambo came during the “recent” wars of the late 1990s when Kabila and the Rwandans swept across the south border of the forest toward Kinshasa, raping and pillaging along the way. This was within her memory.
But the decay in Lusambo set in even before independence in 1960. Mid-century the storytellers and the story began to change. The Congolese started to tell their own story, as missives to a changing world.
Cameo: Joseph Ngalula (in tie), although only educated through professional schools in Lusambo, became a writer and a politician. He was editor of “Presence Congolaise” and became prime minister of the briefly seceded South Kasai in 1960, but later became the national Minister of Education for Zaire.
13 June 1959, before independence, Joseph Ngalula wrote, in a French much more beautiful than my English, a short article about “Lusambo, la Moribonde.” Ngalula was from Kasai and attended boarding school in Lusambo; after he left, in 1950 the Belgian governor, M. Peigneux, moved the capital to Kananga. Already Ngalula sees Lusambo’s slide into ruin. “From a passionate city, a hive of activity to the point of agitation, as I knew it, Lusambo now is a village of indolent street-slouchers.”
Cameo: Joseph Okito finished middle school in Lusambo and then took a correspondence course as an accountant. He became a successful business man in Kasai. He was known for wisdom and moderation. After independence Okito was senator for Kasai and led a commission to address the crises following the secession of Katanga, but after the coup by Mobutu, was arrested and killed by firing squad.
Joseph Okito, born (1910) and raised in Lusambo, educated at the Catholic schools by the Frères de la Charité was another voice of the emerging Congo, with a different story. He was a man of unfailing democratic principles. Active in the call for independence and holding up the institution of the Senate, he was swept up with Lumumba also from Kasai in the resulting unrest. Okito, Patrice Lumumba and Maurice Mpolo were murdered and dismembered January 1961, in Katanga.
Okito, center, with Patrice Lumumba and Maurice Mpolo, headed to their execution.
Cameo: A true story teller, Papa Wemba, “the Kasaï nightingale”, was born close to Lusambo in Lubefu and first trained in a church choir.
I agree with Sister Henriette: wars have destroyed. But the descent has been decades long and slow. At independence most educated people had only a middle school education, and there were too few to manage, to lift up and to reinvest. Lusambo’s next story must grow out of a fresh start.
Papa Wemba tells his stories to a Congolese people in Rumba – Soukous – as a Sapeur….
When asked, Wemba said “politics is for politicians.” Papa Wemba believed a musician’s role was to provide “taste for life” rather than to campaign for change. His music and the extravagant sapeur lifestyle served as a cultural escape for Congolese youth from harsh economic realities and political instability.
The stories the outside world hears about Congo include Ebola, War in the Congolese Rift and Rare minerals fought over by the mightiest world powers.
Sister Henriette in the convent chapel.
What will be Lusambo’s story and the story of Congo? and who will be the storyteller able to engage a distracted world.
