This poster was produced by the Belgian Tourist Office in the mid-1930s to promote travel to locations in its main African colony, then known as the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). This region was ruled by Belgium between 1908 and 1960, when it achieved independence. While these areas are advertised as idyllic natural tourist spots, featuring remarkable creatures like the orangutan that dominates the image here, indigenous people worked in them for the Belgian regime as forced and indentured labor in mines, on plantations and livestock farms, and built the country’s railways and industrial infrastructure.