page_title: Lubumbashi
section_title: Élisabethville under Belgian rule
hierarchical_section_title: Lubumbashi / History / Élisabethville under Belgian rule
caption_attribution_description: English: The Belgian Quarter in Lubumbashi
context_page_description: Lubumbashi is a city in the southeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is the second-largest in the country, the largest being the capital, Kinshasa. Lubumbashi is the mining capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, acting as a hub for many of the country's biggest mining companies. The copper-mining city serves as the capital of the relatively prosperous Haut-Katanga Province and is near the border with Zambia. Population estimates vary widely but average around 1.5 million.
context_section_description: The Belgian government established the modern-day government in the city of Élisabethville (sometimes Elizabethville, both in French, or Elisabethstad in Dutch) in 1910, named in honour of their queen Elisabeth, wife to king Albert I. By that time, the government had taken over the colony from King Leopold II, and renamed it as the Belgian Congo. This site was chosen by Vice-Governor-General Emile Wangermée because of its proximity to the copper mine of Etoile du Congo and the copper ore smelting oven installed by Union Minière du Haut Katanga on the nearby Lubumbashi river.
  The Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK), a semi-private concessionary company set up in 1906, had its headquarters in Elisabethville throughout the colonial era. It enjoyed major privileges, mainly in terms of land and mining concessions, in the Katanga province.
  The city prospered with the development of a regional copper mining industry. Huge investments in the 1920s, both in the mining industry and in transport infrastructure (railline Elisabethville-Port Francqui and Elisabethville-Dilolo), developed the Katanga province into one of the world's major copper ore producers. The population of the city grew apace from approx. 30,000 in 1930, to 50,000 in 1943 and 180,000 in 1957. It was the second city of the Belgian Congo, after Léopoldville.
  As was customary in sub-Saharan colonies, the city centre of Elisabethville was reserved for the white (European) population. This consisted mainly of Belgian nationals, but the city also attracted important British and Italian communities, as well as Jewish Greeks. Congolese were allowed in the white city only during the day, except for the house servants ("boys") who often lived in shanty dwellings ("boyeries") located in the backyards of the European city houses.
  Many men in the black population were labour immigrants from neighbouring regions in the Belgian Congo (Northern Katanga, Maniema, Kasaï), from Belgian Rwanda and Burundi, and from British Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). The black population lived initially in a so-called cité indigène called quartier Albert (now: Kamalondo), south of the city centre and separated from the white city by a 700-metres-wide neutral zone. With population growth, new indigenous quarters were created. These still form the main suburbs of present-day Lubumbashi: Kenia, Katuba, Ruashi. The work and businesses related to the mines made Elisabethville the most prosperous region of the Congo during the final decade of Belgian rule. In 1954 there were 8,000 black home owners in the city while thousands more were skilled workers. It was estimated that black Africans living in Elisabethville had a higher standard of living than anywhere else on the continent at that time.
  Miners in Élisabethville conducted a strike in December 1941 to protest the increasingly severe forced-labor regime that the Belgians imposed on the population because of the "war efforts". A rally in the Union Minière football stadium got out of hand. Police opened fire and numerous protesters were killed. In early 1944, the city was again in the grip of severe tensions and fear of violent protests, following a mutiny of the Force Publique (army) in Luluabourg.
  Starting in 1933, the Belgian colonial authorities experimented with a limited form of self-governance by establishing the cité indigène of Elisabethville as a so-called "centre extra-coutumier" (a centre not subject to customary law). It was administered by an indigenous council and presided over by an indigenous chief. But, due to constant interference from the Belgian authorities, the experiment soon proved a failure. The first indigenous chief – Albert Kabongo – appointed in 1937, was dismissed in 1943 and not replaced.
  In 1957 Elisabethville was established as a fully autonomous city; it held the first free municipal elections in which the Congolese could vote. The people of Élisabethville gave a vast majority to the nationalist Alliance des Bakongo, which demanded immediate independence from Belgium.
  Elisabethville functioned as the administrative capital 
caption: The Belgian Quarter in Lubumbashi
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