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Updated: June 12, 2025
This was not necessary for, thanks to the Forminiere organization, which always has hundreds of native porters at Kabambaie, I was able to organize a caravan in a few hours. After lunch we departed with a complete outfit of tents, bedding, and servants. The black personnel was thirty porters and a picked squad of thirty-five teapoy boys to carry Moody and myself.
I was greatly relieved, therefore, when we came in sight of the post to see two unmistakable American figures standing on the bank. What cheered me further were two American motor cars nearby. The two Americans proved to be G. D. Moody and J. E. Robison. The former is Assistant Chief Engineer of the Forminiere in the field and the latter is in charge of the motor transport.
It was the final chance for huge grants and the result was that the Forminiere received the mining and mineral rights to more than 7,000,000 acres, and other concessions for agriculture aggregating 2,500,000 acres in addition. The original capital was only 3,000,000 francs but this has been increased from time to time until it is now more than 10,000,000 francs.
I am certain that if Ryan had gone into the Congo earlier and had not been engrossed in his American interests, he would probably have done for the whole of Central Africa what Rhodes did for South Africa. We can now get at the beginnings of the Forminiere. Most large corporations radiate from a lawyer's office. With the Forminiere it was otherwise.
On account of the lack of certain communication save by runner in this part of Africa the traveller can always beat a wireless message I was unable to send any word of my coming and I wondered whom and what I would find there. I had the strongest possible letters to all the Forminiere officials but these pieces of paper could not get me on to Tshikapa. I needed something that moved on wheels.
Although Francqui is a director in the Société Generale, he is also what we would call Chairman of the Board of Banque d'Outremer. This shows that the well-known institution of "community of interests" is not confined to the United States. With Jadot he represents the Société in the Forminiere Board. I have used these two men to illustrate the type represented by the Belgian financial kings.
As recently as 1915 one of the Forminiere prospectors, E. G. Decker, was killed by the fierce Batshoks, the most belligerent of the Upper Kasai tribes. The Ball-Mohun group, which was the first of many expeditions, remained in the field more than two years and covered a wide area.
I observed that the families in the Upper Kasai were much more numerous than elsewhere in the Congo. A Bangala or Batetela woman usually has one child and then goes out of the baby business. In the region dominated by the Forminiere it is no infrequent thing to see three or four children in a household.
The automobile is a novelty in these parts and when the Forminiere employed the first ones the natives actually thought it was an animal that would finally get tired and quit. Mine stopped without getting tired! For six hours Moody laboured under the car while I sat in the glaring sun alongside the road and cursed fate. Nelson spent his time eating all the available food in sight.
Clearly to understand the scope and purpose of the Forminiere you must know that it is one of the three companies that have helped to shape the destiny of the Congo. I encountered the first the Union Miniere the moment I entered the Katanga. The second is the Huileries du Congo Belge, the palm-oil producers whose bailiwick abuts upon the Congo and Kwilu Rivers.
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