In 1884 the natives of Boma granted a protectorate of their country to the International Association of the Congo.
The public buildings, which are large and handsome, include the government and customs offices on the quay opposite the spot where the mail boats anchor, the governor's house, state hospital, post office, and the Boma or barracks.
The scanty resources at the disposal of the state imposed a policy of restraint on the officers who were brought into relations with 1 The formal proclamation of sovereignty was made at Boma on the 1st of July 1885.
This despatch failed to evoke any response from the powers, with the single exception of Turkey, but the public agitation against the Congo State regime continued to grow in force, being greatly strengthened by the publication in February 1904 of a report by Mr Roger Casement, then British consul at Boma, on a journey which he had made through the middle Congo region in 1903 (described as the "Upper" Congo in the report).
Thesiger, consul at Boma, who in a memorandum on the application of the labour tax, after detailing various abuses, added," The system which gave rise to these abuses still continues unchanged, and so long as it is unaltered the condition of the natives must remain one of veiled slavery."Eight days later (on the 5th of March) an additional act was signed in Brussels annulling the clauses in the treaty of cession concerning the Fondation, which was to cease to exist on the day Belgium assumed the sovereignty of the Congo and its property to be absorbed in the state domains.