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Reception of loads of rubber in the Mayombe region, Congo Free State
Unknown photographer
c. 1900, postcard, hand-colored collotype
Published by Nels, Brussels, Series 14, no. 80
Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives
National Museum of African Art
Smithsonian Institution
CG 35-32

Rubber became the most important export commodity in the Congo Free State. Its harvest and transportation to collecting points were labor intensive and led to the abuses of the African population that characterized King Léopold's regime.