Dutch Entrepreneurs in the Compagnie du Kasaï, 1885–1910

This chapter deepens the analysis presented in Chap. 5 by delving into the involvement of the NAHV in one specific concession company: the Compagnie du Kasaï, established 1901, in the Congo Free State. The NAHV had operated in the Kasaï, in the south of the Congo Free State, since the late 1880s, and the region had been one of the few large free trading zones in the Congo Free State after 1892. By the late nineteenth century, Leopold II tried to enclose this region as well, pressuring the private firms to cooperate in the Compagnie du Kasaï, which was eventually established and was owned for 50% by private shareholders and for 50% by the Congo Free State. The NAHV, alongside a Belgian firm, was the largest private shareholder. The chapter adopts a wide lens and tells the story of Africans, missionaries and the Dutch entrepreneurs in the Compagnie du Kasaï, drawing on the rich sources on the Company as well as the published memoirs of Alfons Vermeulen, an NAHV agent seconded to the Compagnie du Kasaï. The chapter shows the complicated entrepreneurial decisions of the NAHV in the Congo Free State and in the Compagnie du Kasaï, demonstrating how the NAHV made a profit from its participation but got caught up in the so-called ‘red rubber scandals’ in the Congo Free State, diminishing its reputation at the time.