Katanga’s native population proved insufficient to meet the labor requirements of UMHK’s fast-growing mining operations, so the company recruited thousands of workers and purchased slaves to work in the mines. African laborers were crammed into ramshackle barracks and exploited in a forced labor regime reminiscent of some of the harshest systems of African slavery. Profits soared, especially after the start of World War I, during which time millions of bullets fired by British and American forces were made with Katangan copper.5
