For colonial administrators and the Belgian banks, the Belgian Congo was an immensely rich source of raw materials; diamonds, gold, manganese, oils, nuts, tobacco, peanuts, etc.  One of the major forms of exploitation of the Congo was the effort to set up mining companies and to force Africans to work in the mines to extract these resources.  Focusing on the most powerful of these mining companies—the Union Minière du Haut-Katange, John Higginson provides a detailed history of the relationship between the company and the African workers from 1907 through 1951