In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. A man of great charm, intelligence, ruthlessness, and greed, he was openly frustrated with inheriting the throne of such a small country, and in doing so at a time in history when European kings were rapidly losing power to elected parliaments. Henry Morton Stanley (2011). As he put it, he did not want to miss out on the opportunity of getting a slice of "this magnificent African cake." King . London: George Allen & Unwin. Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. Read about our approach to external linking. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. By that point he had made a huge profit from the territory, conservatively estimated as the equivalent of more than $1.1 billion in early twenty-first century terms. For many years Leopold II was widely known as a leader who defended Belgium's neutrality in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war and commissioned public works fit for a modern nation. During that window of time those who profited were the people In later years, Stanley would write that the most vexing part of his duties was not the work itself, nor negotiating with the natives, but keeping order amongst the ill-assorted collection of white men he had brought with him as overseers, who squabbled constantly over small matters of rank or status. Having established a beachhead on the lower Congo, in 1883 Stanley set out upriver to extend Leopold's domain, employing his usual methods: negotiations with local chiefs buying sovereignty in exchange for bolts of cloth and trinkets; playing one tribe off another; and if need be, simply shooting an obstructive chief and negotiating with his cowed successor instead. The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. [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 II was the second son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Orlans. [6] For the look of things, he held one more meeting the following year, but from that time on, the International African Association was simply a front for Leopold's ambition. The horrors, though, are only one part of the story. In the far south, for example, a chief named Mulume Niama led warriors of the Sanga people in a rebellion that killed one of the king's officers. Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. Although Leopold II established Belgium as a colonial power in Africa, he is best known for the widespread atrocities that were carried out under his rule, as a result of which as many as 10 million people died in the Congo Free State. Morel soon quit his job and in short order turned himself into the greatest British investigative journalist of his time. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Soldiers were also reportedly promised their freedom or given other incentives for killing the most people as proven by supplying the most hands. 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 rebels displayed a courage worthy of a better cause," (Flament et al., 1952, p. 417) acknowledged the army's official historywhich, remarkably, devoted fully one-quarter of its pages to the various campaigns against mutineers within the army's own ranks. 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). Army officers and colonial officials earned bonuses based on the amount of rubber collected in areas under their control. In later years he sometimes referred to himself as the Congo's proprietor. Leopold II established a colony in the Congo to gain natural resources for Belgium and wealth for himself. Ed. Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. However, he added, "since history teaches that colonies are useful, that they play a great part in that which makes up the power and prosperity of states, let us strive to get one in our turn."[4]. BBC World Service: 50 Things That Made the Modern . DR Congo: King Leopold's legacy - DW - 06/29/2020 Leopold was an intelligent and ruthless man who wasn't afraid to lie or kill in order to expand Belgium's power. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. He was the architect of one of history's greatest, if lesser known, crimes against humanity. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. In addition, Leopold's regime faced resistance from within his own conscript army, whose soldiers sometimes found a common cause with the rebel groups they were supposed to pursue. Why did King Leopold colonize the Congo? - Sage-Advices The king's colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. Detachments of his 19,000-man private army, the Force Publique, would march into a village and hold the women hostage, forcing the men to scatter into the rainforest and gather a monthly quota of wild rubber. Several rebellions were mercilessly put down under Leopold's direction. Army officers often demanded of their men a severed hand from each rebel killed in battle. And in 2018, Brussels named a public square in honour of Patrice Lumumba, a hero of African independence movements and the first prime minister of Congo, since renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo. Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. While Leopold II did much to establish Belgium as an economically and militarily stable power in Europe, he is chiefly remembered for the nightmarish practices that were carried out in his name. 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 . 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. The only way to do that was through the use of terror. Ascherson, Neal (1963). In the early years the main commodity Leopold sought was ivory. King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild Plot Summary | LitCharts In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. Throughout the tropics, people rushed to sow rubber trees, but those plants could take many years to reach maturity, and in the meantime there was money to be made wherever rubber grew wild. The vicious fighting and terror of the Congo Free State is better understood as another example of the incredible capacity of people for incomprehensible cruelty. "Everyone is waking up from a sleep, it's a reckoning with the past," explains Debora Kayembe, a Congolese human rights lawyer who has lived in Belgium. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. He was, nevertheless, an extremely minor monarch in the realpolitik of the times, ruling a totally insignificant nation, a nation in fact that had come into existence barely four decades before and lived under the constant threat of losing its precarious independence to the great European powers around it. Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 Standing on the dock, Morel realized that he had uncovered irrefutable proof that a forced labor system was in operation 4,000 miles away. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. "Civilisation" was at the core of Leopold II's pitch to European leaders in 1885 when they sliced up and allocated territories in what became known as the Scramble for Africa. I never imagined this happening in my lifetime," Ms Kayembe adds. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. [7], Stanley, much more familiar with the rigours of the African climate and the complexities of local politics than Leopold Leopold II never set foot in the Congo persuaded his patron that the first step should be the construction of a wagon trail and a series of forts. "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." He died the following year. The results of this rule were very uneven. Although Stanley is best known as the man who found Livingstone, his trip across the Congo basin was the greater feat of exploration and had far more impact on history. As a result of King Leopold actions, thousands of African tribes populations decreased significantly. Starting in the early 1920s, however, the system became considerably less draconian, mainly because colonial officials realized that otherwise they would soon have no labor force left. In the early 1890s, Leopold's private African army, the Force Publique (Public Force), drove the powerful Muslim slave traders out of the Congo. (April 27, 2023). L'histoire du Congo 18761900. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Seeing what profits Leopold was reaping from forced labor, officials in these colonies soon adopted exactly the same systemincluding women hostages, forced male labor, and the chicottewith equally fatal consequences. Why did King Leopold give up the Congo? He wrote three books on the Congo, several dozen pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, making much use of eyewitness testimony from the missionaries. For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. A Bantu people, they had moved south into this region f, King of the Bingo Game by Ralph Ellison, 1944, https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. Du sang sur les lianes. The colony in the Congo - the Congo Free State - was personal property for the Belgian king and there was little oversight over what happened there. Combining gift-giving with a show of military force, he persuaded hundreds of illiterate African chiefs, most of whom had little idea of the terms of the agreement to which they were ostensibly acceding, to sign away their land to the king. )1978 official, Major Charles C. Liebrechts, made the same estimate in 1920. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. With most able-bodied adults prisoners or forced laborers for several weeks out of each month, villages had few people who could plant and harvest food, or go hunting or fishing, and famine soon spread. This article is about the European colonization of the Congo region. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. In the period from 1885 to 1908, many atrocities were perpetrated in the Congo Free State (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) which, at the time, was a state under the absolute rule of King Leopold II of the Belgians.These atrocities were particularly associated with the labour policies used to collect natural rubber for export. George Washington Williams: A Biography. In Peter Forbath's words, Leopold was: A tall, imposing man enjoying a reputation for hedonistic sensuality, cunning intelligence (his father once described him as subtle and sly as a fox), overweening ambition, and personal ruthlessness. The Atrocities of the Congo Free State Rubber Regime - ThoughtCo Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. Equipped with repeating rifles, cannons, and machine guns and fighting against Africans with only spears or antiquated muskets, King Leopold's 19,000-man army (black conscripts under white officers) gradually took control of the vast territory. However, disease of any kind always takes a far greater toll on a traumatized, half-starving population, with many people already in flight as refugees. 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. Forbath, P. The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River, 1991 (Paperback).
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