As well as a collection center for wild rubber, the French encouraged the collection gold sifted from streams and dug by local small scale mines.
12.
The Belgian king carved out a " Congo Free State " in 1885 and made a fortune using forced labor to extract wild rubber and ivory.
13.
In the Congo Free State, forced labour, amounting to virtual slavery, was widely used on public works and to compel Africans to gather ivory or wild rubber.
14.
Because of a temporary rise in rubber prices due to the World War ( 1914 18 ), C�rdova was able to find work locating wild rubber trees for tapping.
15.
By 1895, even while fighting with Samori continued, the French had set up a school to train local workers to identify, collect, and prepare wild rubber for French industrial purposes.
16.
In many regions, the forest has been cleared for soya bean plantations and ranching ( the most extensive non-forest use of the land ); some of the inhabitants harvest wild rubber latex, and Brazil nuts.
17.
A boom in demand for natural rubber in the 1890s, however, ended these problems as the colonial state was able to force Congolese males to work as forced labour collecting wild rubber which could then be exported to Europe and North America.
