Born to Italian nobility in Brazil, Brazza joined the French navy and explored present-day Gabon from 1875 to 1878. Racing his British-American counterpart Henry Morton Stanley, Brazza explored the Congo River region, where he founded the French Congo and Brazzaville—now capital of the Republic of the Congo. He added some 200,000 square miles (500,000 sq km) to the French colonial empire and was the French Congo’s commissioner general from 1886 to 1898. Why was he sent back to the Congo in 1905? Discuss