Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. How did King Leopold gain control of the Congo? When the Belgian King Leopold II acquired the Congo Free State during the Scramble for Africa in 1885, he claimed he was establishing the colony for humanitarian and scientific purposes, but in reality, its sole aim was profit, as much as possible, as fast as possible. OF DECOLONIZATION Morel, E. D. (1919). Four years before, the Zanzibaris had thought the Congo deadly and impassable, and warned Stanley not to attempt to go there, but when Tippu Tip learned in Zanzibar that Stanley had survived, he was quick to act. Brussels: Goemaere. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. Leopold II ruled Belgium from 1865-1909 - activists want this statue in Brussels removed due to his brutal regime in Congo Free State, Before a renovation in 2018, Belgium's Africa Museum was known as the world's "last colonial museum", Thousands marched in Black Lives Matter protests in Belgium, This TV image shows a statue of Leopold defaced and damaged by fire being removed in Antwerp, Colonial officials amputated and mutilated Congolese people, including children, as punishment, A now infamous photo capturing atrocities committed in Congo Free State, Congolese people were forced to be human exhibits in a "zoo" in Belgium in 1897, Missionaries documented amputations while investigating abuses committed in Congo Free State, Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba is commemorated in a Brussels square, This bust of Leopold II was removed on Friday in Auderghem, near Brussels, Colony built on forced labour and brutality, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. "We run the risk of someday seeing our native population collapse and disappear," declared the permanent committee of the National Colonial Congress of Belgium in 1924, "so that we will find ourselves confronted with a kind of desert" (Hoornaert and Louwers, 1924, p. 101). Borgloon, Belgium: Editions Paula Bellings. King Leopold II committed heinous . He was a figure who, one might have had every reason to expect, would devote himself to maintaining his country's strict neutrality, avoiding giving offence to any of his powerful neighbours, and indulging his keenly developed tastes for the pleasures of the flesh, rather than one who would make a profound impact on history. He persuaded first the United States and then all the major nations of western Europe to recognize a huge swath of Central Africaroughly the same territory as the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congoas his personal property. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. George Washington Williams: A Biography. He was the architect of one of history's greatest, if lesser known, crimes against humanity. [8], It was only at this point that Stanley was informed of the magnitude of Leopold's ambition: Stanley was not merely to construct a series of trading stations, he was to secretly carve out an entire nation. Leopold's eventual response was extraordinary in its hubris and simplicity. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. He built outposts and a road around the river's rapids and, using small steamboats, he traveled up and down the great river and its tributaries. It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. Writing in the same year, R. P. Van Wing, a Belgian Jesuit missionary, estimated that the population of the Bakongo people, one of the territory's largest ethnic groups, had been reduced by two-thirds. He was a veteran of the American Civil War, a historian, a Baptist minister, a lawyer, and the first black member of the Ohio state legislature. Some of these soldiers were recruits, while others were enslaved people or orphans brought up to serve the colonial army. You cannot download interactives. Joseph Conrad, who spent six months in the Congo in 1890, draws a memorable portrait of this rapacious trade in his novel Heart of Darkness. By the end of the 19th century, the Basin had been carved up by European colonial powers, into the Congo Free State, the French Congo and the Portuguese Congo (modern Cabinda . Leopold's reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. 6.2 Reading Check.docx - Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Congolese fled their villages to avoid being impressed as forced labourers, and they sought refuge deep in the forest, where there was little food and shelter. Because the systems effects in the Congo could so easily be blamed on one man, who could safely be attacked because he did not represent a great power, an international outcry focused on Leopold. Marchal, Jules (1996). Reform in Leopold's Congo. Because of his actions King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his exploration and abuse to the Congo land and people. It was not until 1867 that the Congo was explored by Europeans, and even then it was not from the sea, but from the other side of the African continent. State troops pursued them, trapping Mulume Niama and his soldiers in a large cave. Europe was less than keen on the idea: the great European scramble for Africa had not yet begun. Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. Standing on the dock, Morel realized that he had uncovered irrefutable proof that a forced labor system was in operation 4,000 miles away. Men who did not fulfill their quota were killed or mutilated. Leopold II's rule in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo was so bloody it was eventually condemned by other European colonialists in 1908 - but it has taken far longer to come under scrutiny at home. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Many women hostages were raped and a significant number starved to death. For instance, Leopold II was a first cousin of Queen Victoria of Britain. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. But numerous surviving records from the rubber-bearing land in the adjoining French Congo, which closely followed the model of the Leopoldian forced labor system, also suggest a population loss there of around 50 percent. Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. Morel, in his mid-twenties at the time, noticed that when his company's ships arrived from the Congo, they were filled to the hatch with enormously valuable cargoes of rubber and ivory. Nor was there a strong humanitarian interest in the continent now that the American slave trade had been extinguished. Manchester, U.K.: National Labour Press. Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities. It was the worlds only private colony, and Leopold referred to himself as its proprietor.. Leopold II of Belgium - Wikipedia Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. "King Leopold II and the Congo EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? At the time, his father, Leopold I, was the King of Belgium. He wrote three books on the Congo, several dozen pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, making much use of eyewitness testimony from the missionaries. Du sang sur les lianes. A worldwide rubber boom was under way, kicked off by the invention of the inflatable bicycle tire and spurred on by the rise of the automobile and the use of rubber in industrial belts and gaskets, as well as in coating for telephone and telegraph wires. Stanley made his way back to Europe with a sheaf of signed treaties in 1884. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. A renewed global focus on racism is highlighting a violent colonial history that generated riches for Belgians but death and misery for Congolese. He built the Africa Museum in the grounds of his palace at Tervuren, with a "human zoo" in the grounds featuring 267 Congolese people as exhibits. 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. Many more suffered from disease and torture. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath. In the newly christened Belgian Congo, however, the forced labor system did not immediately end. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Although neither figure is well-documented, Hannah Arendt's seminal The Origins of Totalitarianism cites an estimated minimum population loss of 11.5 million, and a Congolese historian writing in 1998, Isidore Ndaywel Nziem, estimates the loss at roughly 13 million. The conference was a sham: at its close, Leopold proposed that they set up an international benevolent committee to carry on, and modestly agreed to accept the chairman's role. He spoke contemptuously of Belgiums small size, could not speak proper Dutch, the native language of more than half of its citizens, spent long winters in luxurious quarters on the French Riviera, and was estranged from two of his three daughters. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. The horrific consequences of rubber's toxic past - BBC News Moreover, he had a well-known penchant for teenaged girls, and, when he was age 65, he began a liaison with a teenaged former prostitute who bore him two additional children. E. D. Morel contre Lopold II: L'histoire du Congo 19001910. When Stanley returned to Europe in 1878, he had not only found Dr. Livingstone (an event remembered to this day), resolved the last great mystery of African exploration, and ruined his health: he had also opened the heart of tropical Africa up to the outside world. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. James Andrew Broun Ramsay, marquess and 10th earl of Dalhousie, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium, Leopold II - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Europeans were interested in Africa for its abundance of natural resources (ivory, rubber, gold, etc.) They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. He traveled throughout Britain speaking to large audiences and was adept at recruiting bishops, well-known writers, and other luminaries to join him on the lecture platform. Updates? Amidst all of this, some of the best of people was also seen, in the bravery and resilience of ordinary Congolese men and women who resisted in small and large ways, and the passionate efforts of several American and European missionaries and activists to bring about reform. 657, 660, 662). But heat, tropical diseases, and the huge rapids near the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic had long kept the Congo's interior a mystery to Europeans. In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. When the ships turned around and steamed back to Africa, however, they carried no merchandise in exchange. The king of Belgium wanted the Congo for the vast amounts of wild rubber it held, and to establish a colony as he thought kings were supposed to do. Belgian Congo | History & Facts | Britannica The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Demonstrations and protests demanded that Leopold end human rights abuses in the Congo Free State. Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Africans also died in two decades' worth of unsuccessful uprisings against the king's regime.
What Is Phillip Watson Doing Now,
Queenwood Golf Charity Auction,
Victoria Inmate Search,
Scott Mckay Tipping Point Rumble,
Defenders Mc Presidents Page,
Articles W