Meloenbomen te Leopoldstad 1896

Franz Thonner made this photograph, Meloenbomen te Leopoldstad, the location of which is now Kinshasa, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It depicts a simple building, likely a home or administrative post, surrounded by lush vegetation, including the melon trees that give the image its name. This image is striking for what it doesn't show. Leopoldstad, named after King Leopold II of Belgium, was the capital of the Congo Free State, a colony privately owned by Leopold. The image presents a depopulated view of this place; a site of exploitation and violence inflicted on the local population to extract resources like rubber and ivory. To truly understand this photograph, one needs to look beyond the image itself and delve into the history of Belgian colonialism, consulting archives, historical documents, and accounts from the period to uncover the obscured realities of life under Leopold's rule.