Soldiers were also reportedly promised their freedom or given other incentives for killing the most people as proven by supplying the most hands. Many classrooms still have Herg's famous cartoon book Tintin in the Congo, with its depictions of black people now commonly accepted as extremely racist. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 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). Leopold II's reign as King of Belgium coincided with the time period of the Scramble for Africa, during which the European powers of the day raced for control of different regions . Male rubber gatherers often died from exhaustion. Yet, in the most astonishing and improbable way imaginable, he managed virtually single-handedly to upset the balance of power in Africa and usher in the terrible age of European colonialism on the black continent. 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 information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. 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. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. Aware that Belgian neutrality, maintained during the Franco-German War (187071), was imperilled by the increasing strength of France and Germany, he persuaded parliament in 1887 to finance the fortification of Lige and Namur. 13(May 15). Read about our approach to external linking. The instructions were direct and to the point: "It is a question of creating a new State, as big as possible, and of running it. These men were generally from other parts of the Congo or other colonies entirely, and the orphans and enslaved people had often been brutalized themselves. Bennett, Norman Robert. Like statues of racist historical figures vandalised or removed in Britain and the US, Leopold II's days on Belgian streets could now be numbered. For instance, Leopold II was a first cousin of Queen Victoria of Britain. Men who did not fulfill their quota were killed or mutilated. If a soldier fired at someone and missed, or used a bullet to shoot game, he then sometimes cut off the hand of a living victim to be able to show it to his officer. Omissions? Last year a UN working group called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities committed during the colonial era. "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). As the vines near a village were often drained dry, the men would sometimes have to walk for days to find areas where they could gather their monthly quota of rubber. They were the very first royal family of Belgium, because the country was just 5 years old. His most important legacy, however, remains the human catastrophe that the rubber forced-labour system brought to the Congoa heritage that continued to echo in that region more than a century after Leopolds death. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Interestingly, a longtime high colonial 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. Most of the monarchs in western Europe had been forced to largely yield political power to the electorate by the late 19th century, so Belgiums parliament and cabinet were the real locus of power, but Leopold used the prestige of the monarchy to lobby for pet projects. Some writers, almost entirely in Belgium, claim that such estimates are exaggerated. Retrieved September 22, 2017. ThoughtCo, Jun. It was down to rubber. [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. Shaloff, Stanley (1970). 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. Ewans, Martin (2002). "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. Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. The royal coffers would become a central focus of Leopolds life, and he once grumbled to German Emperor William II while watching a parade in Berlin, There is really nothing left for us kings except money! Leopold soon decided that the best way to acquire wealth would be by establishing an African colony, at a time when the great European Scramble for Africa was under way. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. Jolle Sambi Nzeba, a Belgian-Congolese poet and spokesperson for the Belgian Network for Black Lives, says the statues tell her she is "less than a regular Belgian". Forced labor remained a major part of the Congo's economy for many years after the war. But for over 20 years he had been agitating for Belgium to take its place among the great colonial powers of Europe. Humankind will never know even the approximate toll with any certainty, but beyond any doubt what happened in the Congo was one of the great catastrophes of modern times. It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. London: Heinemann. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. They also sometimes eradicatedwhole villages that failed to meet the quotas as a warning to others. More than one thousand mass meetings to protest slave labor in the Congo were held, mostly in Britain and the United States, but also in Europe and as far away as Australia and New Zealand. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. https://www.thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731 (accessed May 1, 2023). "It is indispensable", instructed Leopold, "that you should purchase for the Comit d'tudes[fr] (i.e., Leopold himself) as much land as you can obtain". Millions of Congolese then found themselves suffering near-famine, which made them vulnerable to diseases they otherwise might have survived. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. 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. Eventually, the strain forced him to relinquish his control of the territory, and in 1908 it became the Belgian Congo. 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. Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Topic 6.2 Reading Check 1. Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. 60 years after independence, traces of the system of exploitation and violence that Leopold II and colonial-era Belgium created still remain in DR Congo. In 1879 Stanley returned to the Congo as Leopold's agent. The newly named Belgian Congo remained a colony until the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960. "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. 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 Province of Angola). Biography of Ernesto Che Guevara, Revolutionary Leader, Top Ten Villains of Latin American History, War of the First Coalition in 1790s France, 10 Facts About the Independence of Texas From Mexico, Events Leading to the Scramble for Africa, A Photo Gallery of the Mexican Revolution, Biography of Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolutionary, Ph.D., History, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, M.A., History, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, B.A./B.S, History and Zoology, University of Florida. Stanley made his way back to Europe with a sheaf of signed treaties in 1884. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. He produced an excoriating, detailed report, complete with sworn testimony from witnesses, which is in many ways a model for the reports produced by contemporary organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 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]. Meanwhile, Leopold had already begun the job of persuading first the United This brutal practice was a catastrophe for the population of the Congo, and Leopold was eventually forced to give up his hold on the colony. 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. However, the date of retrieval is often important. He is remembered in Belgium for some of what he built with his Congo wealth, such as the monumental Arcade du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and for his advocacy of strong fortifications in the eastern part of the country, which slowed the advance of German troops in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. 1996 - 2023 National Geographic Society. To secure their June 11th, 2020. In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. 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. Forbath, P. The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River, 1991 (Paperback). Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. He did however apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children, known as mtis, from Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda in the 1940s and 1950s. wives' release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. 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. Regions that were hard to access or lacked profitable resources escaped much of the violence that was to follow, but for those areas directly under the rule of the Free State or the companies it leased land to, the results were devastating. So they outsourced the task to Leopold, who used personal diplomacy to convince the European powers to grant him control of a large portion of the Congo basin. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Europeans were interested in Africa for its abundance of natural resources (ivory, rubber, gold, etc.) King Leopold II and the Congo The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. SCLC Formed Vangroenweghe, Daniel (1986). The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Therefore, King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his Read More Thesis Critique Of King Leopold's Ghost King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. After leaving Livingstone, Stanley sailed for 1,000 miles (1,600km) down the Lualaba (Upper Congo) to the large lake he named Stanley Pool (now called Pool Malebo). In his novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, who spent six months in the Congo in 1890 as a steamboat officer, gives a searing picture of the brutal and voracious European quest for Congo ivory. 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. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town". Benedetto, Robert, ed. POST-1945 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS Leopold (18351909) had ascended to the throne in 1865. They were a newly independent country . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. The New York Review of Books. They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Virtually no information about the true nature of King Leopold's Congo reached the outside world until the arrival there, in 1890, of an enterprising visitor named George Washington Williams. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. You cannot download interactives. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off. 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. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. "Almost all of them", he wrote, "clamoured for expenses of all kinds, which included wine, tobacco, cigars, clothes, shoes, board and lodging, and certain nameless extravagances"[10]:71 (by which he meant attractive slaves to warm their beds). The king also faced enemies of another sort. 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. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. The focus of the great powers was still firmly on the lands that had made Europe's fortune: the Americas, the East Indies, India, China, and Australasia. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. But for Leopold this posed no problem; he would acquire his own. He promised a humanitarian and philanthropic mission that would improve the lives of Africans. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. Leopold spoke of bringing civilization to the Africans and sent a small but heavily armed Belgian force into the Congo. For much of the journey he floated down the river, mapping its course for the first time and noting the many tributaries that, it turned out, comprised a network of navigable waterways more than 7,000 miles long. Ascherson, Neal (1963). On Friday the younger brother of Belgium's King Philippe, Prince Laurent, defended his ancestor saying Leopold II was not responsible for atrocities in the colony "because he never went to. Stanley was lionised across Europe. 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. As a result of King Leopold actions, thousands of African tribes populations decreased significantly. One lucrative source of wild rubber was the Landolphia vines in the great Central African rainforest, and no one owned more of that area than Leopold. The results of this rule were very uneven. Some of these soldiers were recruits, while others were enslaved people or orphans brought up to serve the colonial army. In articles in church magazines and in speeches throughout the United States and Europe on visits home, they described what they saw: Africans whipped to death, rivers full of corpses, and piles of severed handsa detail that quickly seared itself on the world's imagination. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) In a TV debate this week, a former president of the Free University of Brussels, Herv Hasquin, argued there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, listing the health system, infrastructure, and primary education he said Belgium brought to Central Africa. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. Keen on establishing Belgium as an imperial power, he led the first European efforts to develop the Congo River basin, making possible the formation in 1885 of the Congo Free State, annexed in 1908 as the Belgian Congo and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 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 Herero were traditional occupants of the temperate high plains of central Namibia. Instead, he found what he called "the Siberia of the African Continent." Shocked by recent local census statistics that showed less than one child per woman, the official Commission Institue pour la Protection des Indignes made a similar reckoning in 1919. Many more suffered from disease and torture. At various times, he launched unsuccessful schemes to buy an Argentine province, to buy Borneo from the Dutch, rent the Philippines from Spain, or establish colonies in China, Vietnam, Japan, or the Pacific islands. In later years he sometimes referred to himself as the Congo's proprietor. All rights reserved. But other scholars use even higher numbers. However, as he approached Stanley Falls at the junction between the Congo proper and the Lualaba (close to the general vicinity of Central Africa where he had found Livingstone six years before), it soon became clear that Stanley's men were not the only intruders.
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