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Exploration
of Africa |
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| Between 1885 and 1895, as an agent of the English trading
firm Tomlinson & Co., Steckelmann traded in rubber and other ivory commodities
along the Congo River area and the Loango coast, which extended from present-day
Gabon to Luanda of modern-day Angola. During his ten years in the region,
Steckelmann collected more than 1,425 objects, a number of them now recognized
as important works of African art. He was said to have been noted as a
gorilla hunter and, “although foreign-born, [he] was proud of his
adopted State” [United States] to the extent of “display[ing]
the stars and stripes…over his canoe.” (Indiannapolis Journal
1985: 1) |
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Steckelmann’s commercial activity along the Loango
Coast coincided with a period of European commercial exploitation of the
African continent that peaked in central Africa during the Belgian colonization
of the Congo by King Leopold II (1835-1909). King Leopold II, who succeeded
his father Leopold I in 1865, amassed a large personal fortune by controlling
trade in the Congo and leasing concessions to others. He was responsible
for the widespread abuse of the local inhabitants, including brutal forced
labor. While there is no evidence that Steckelmann was directly involved
in the horrendous exploitation of Africans practiced at that time, especially
in the rubber industry, he was certainly aware of these abuses and the
extent to which both human beings and natural resources were tragically
exploited for the benefit of Belgian interests. |
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