Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. [1]:333, "There are 40,000,000 naked people" on the other side of the rapids, Stanley wrote, "and the cotton-spinners of Manchester are waiting to clothe them Birmingham's factories are glowing with the red metal that shall presently be made into ironwork in every fashion and shape for them and the ministers of Christ are zealous to bring them, the poor benighted heathen, into the Christian fold. Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. . Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. Killings, famine and disease combined to cause the deaths of perhaps 10 million people, though historians dispute the true number. He became duke of Brabant in 1846 and served in the Belgian army. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. State troops pursued them, trapping Mulume Niama and his soldiers in a large cave. 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. POST-1945 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. 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. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. Forty years later virtually all of it had been transformed into European colonies, protectorates, or territories ruled by white settlers. 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. The newly named Belgian Congo remained a colony until the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960. The king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. [3], As a constitutional monarch, Leopold was charged with the usual constitutional duties of opening parliaments, greeting diplomats, and attending state funerals. These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder. Bierman, John (1990). Instead, he found what he called "the Siberia of the African Continent." "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. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Leopold (18351909) had ascended to the throne in 1865. 24 February 2004. She does not believe it will not be quick or easy. King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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. Benedetto, Robert, ed. . Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Africans also died in two decades' worth of unsuccessful uprisings against the king's regime. BBC World Service: 50 Things That Made the Modern . who owned land where rubber grew wild. Early and Personal Life. By 1908, Leopold II's rule was deemed so cruel that European leaders, themselves violently exploiting Africa, condemned it and the Belgian parliament forced him to relinquish control of his fiefdom. Statues of Leopold II should now be housed in museums to teach Belgian history, suggests Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, director of anti-racism NGO Bamko Cran. Last year a UN working group called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities committed during the colonial era. "It's a good thing that everyone is waking up, looking around and thinking 'is this right?'" Furthermore, huge, uncounted numbers of Congolese fled the forced labor regime, but the only refuge to which they could escape was the depths of the rain forest, where there was little food and no shelter; travelers would discover their bones years later. 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). The Congo Free State was founded by Belgian King Leopold II on February 5, 1885, after he violently annexed the African continent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. Sadly, Williams, only forty-one years old, died of tuberculosis on his way home from Africa, but not before writing several additional denunciations of what he had seen in the Congo. In the early years the main commodity Leopold sought was ivory. But why was Leopold's Congo so horrific? June 11th, 2020. Forbath, P. The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River, 1991 (Paperback). 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. But taking the monument away does not solve the problem of racism, she believes, while creating one museum devoted to the statues would not be useful either. 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. Leopold II was the second son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Orlans. Belgium's education minister announced this week that secondary schools would teach colonial history from next year. From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. If that figure is accurate and it represents 50 percent of what the population had been in 1880, this would suggest a loss of 10 million people. 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. ThoughtCo. [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. . Most made no protest, but some were outraged at the brutal forced labor system. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. Thompsell, Angela. Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. Meanwhile, Leopold had already begun the job of persuading first the United The movement, in fact, eventually forced Leopold to relinquish his private ownership of the Congo to the Belgian state in 1908. 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. In return European leaders, gathered at the Berlin Conference, granted him 2m sq km (770,000 sq miles) to forge a personal colony where he was free to do as he liked. This article is about the European colonization of the Congo region. But in the chaos of the early 20th Century when World War One threatened to destroy Belgium, Leopold II's nephew King Albert I erected statues to remember the successes of years gone by. Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. Harper & Row. Standing on the dock, Morel realized that he had uncovered irrefutable proof that a forced labor system was in operation 4,000 miles away. The people being colonized are robbed of their land, resources, and freedom.) Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. 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. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. Charles Michel, prime minister at the time, declined. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. 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. 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. As he put it, he did not want to miss out on the opportunity of getting a slice of "this magnificent African cake." King . 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. 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. 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. For a dozen years, from 1901 to 1913, working sometimes fourteen to sixteen hours a day, he devoted his formidable energy and skill to putting the story of forced labor in King Leopold's Congo on the world's front pages. Is climate change killing Australian wine? If the estimates from varied sources of a 50 percent toll in King Leopold's Congo are correct, how many people does this mean? He died the following year. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. "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). Estimates suggest more than 50% died there. Thompsell, Angela. To avoid discovery, materials and workers were shipped in by various roundabout routes, and communications between Stanley and Leopold were entrusted to Colonel Maximilien Strauch. An even greater toll was taken by disease: various lung and intestinal diseases, tuberculosis, smallpox, and, above all, sleeping sickness. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. Discipline was harsh; reluctant military conscripts, disobedient porters, and villagers who failed to gather enough rubber all fell victim to the notorious chicotte, a whip made of sun-dried hippopotamus hide with razor-sharp edges. As he headed back to England, Stanley was assiduously courted by King Leopold II of Belgium. "In the Heart of Darkness". That would be absurd."[9]. Because of his actions King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his exploration and abuse to the Congo land and people. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. Leopolds reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. 06/29/2020. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. In 1908, international pressure forced the king to turn the Congo Free State over to the country of Belgium. Birmingham Protest March 2023 . Presenting himself as a philanthropist eager to bring the benefits of Christianity, Western civilization, and commerce to African nativesa guise that he perpetuated for many yearsLeopold hosted an international conference of explorers and geographers at the royal palace in Brussels in 1876. Colonial administrators also kidnapped orphaned children from communities and transported them to "child colonies" to work or train as soldiers. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? (2022, June 2). Morel soon quit his job and in short order turned himself into the greatest British investigative journalist of his time. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. Europeans were interested in Africa for its abundance of natural resources (ivory, rubber, gold, etc.) 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. Leopold II, it seemed, was the only European willing to finance Stanley's dream: the building of a railway over the Crystal Mountains from the sea to Stanley Pool, from which river steamers could reach 1,000 miles (1,600km) into the heart of Africa. A renewed global focus on racism is highlighting a violent colonial history that generated riches for Belgians but death and misery for Congolese. Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge. Vangroenweghe, Daniel (1986). Many women hostages were raped and a significant number starved to death. This was to be his most enduring legacy. 2 volumes. In two ways the Congo's rubber boom had lasting impact beyond the territory itself. 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. 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. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. 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. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Wearing one of his many hats, that of a journalist, Williams expected to see the paradise of enlightened rule that Leopold had described to him in Brussels. [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. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. 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. Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 18901910. Initially he was most interested in ivory, a material that was greatly valued in the days before plastics because it could be carved into a great variety of shapesstatuettes, jewelry, piano keys, false teeth, and more. In DR Congo itself, no-one has really noticed the Belgian protests, says Jules Mulamba, a lawyer in the south-eastern city of Lubambashi. 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. Beyond removal of statues, far more work is required to dismantle racism, protesters and black communities argue. Read about our approach to external linking. Belgian officers were afraid that the rank and file of the Force Publique would waste bullets, so they demanded a human hand for each bullet their soldiers used as proof that the killings had been done. Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. Many of the surrounding colonies also had rain forests rich in wild rubberPortuguese-controlled northern Angola, the Cameroons under the Germans, and the French Congo, part of French Equatorial Africa, across the Congo River. Encyclopedia.com. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. The rapids and falls, had they known it, extended for 220 miles (350km) inland, and the terrain close by the river was impassable, and remains so to this day. But other scholars use even higher numbers. William Morrison, a white man, and William Sheppard, the first black missionary in the Congo, were Presbyterians from Virginia whose acts of witness so infuriated Congo colonial authorities that they put the men on trial for libel. 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. They were a newly independent country . The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. All rights reserved. The results of this rule were very uneven. London: George Allen & Unwin. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. ADAM HOCHSCHILD. He promised a humanitarian and philanthropic mission that would improve the lives of Africans. 13(May 15). 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. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. ." They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. It was the worlds only private colony, and Leopold referred to himself as its proprietor.. 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. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. The only way to do that was through the use of terror. Millions of Congolese then found themselves suffering near-famine, which made them vulnerable to diseases they otherwise might have survived. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. p.20. Morel, E. D. (1968). 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. The forced-labour system for gathering rubber was swiftly copied by French, German, and Portuguese colonial officials with equally fatal results. Leopold II may never have set foot there, but he poured the profits into Belgium and into his pockets. Many people wonder why these soldiers were willing to do this to their own people, but there was no sense of being Congolese. For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. 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". Thompsell, Angela. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. In Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, Leopold II's statues were moved to the National Museum. 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. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. The results of this rule were very uneven. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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 . official, Major Charles C. Liebrechts, made the same estimate in 1920. Leopold agreed and in deepest secrecy, Stanley signed a five-year contract at a salary of 1,000 a year, and set off to Zanzibar under an assumed name. Several years later he hired the explorer Henry Morton Stanley to be his man in Africa. Soon after Stanley returned from the Congo, Leopold tried to recruit him. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. The Force Publique, no doubt, also attracted men who, for whatever reason, felt little compunction about wielding such violence, but this was true of the White officers as well. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. He was interested in the Congo river basin because there were many natural resources such as rubber, minerals, ivory, diamonds, and gold. Unlike previous European nations that spread their influence over In 2010, former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel and the father of future prime minister Charles Michel, called Leopold "a hero with ambitions for a small country like Belgium". The New York Review of Books. States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). Because the system's 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. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Therefore, King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his Read More Thesis Critique Of King Leopold's Ghost London: Heinemann. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. Leopold spoke of bringing civilization to the Africans and sent a small but heavily armed Belgian force into the Congo. The couple's first son, Louis Philippe, died in infancy prior to Leopold II's birth. (1996). "When I walk in a city that in every corner glorifies racism and colonialism, it tells me that me and my history are not valid," she explains from the capital. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Encyclopedia.com. Civil rights leader Ed. ." Then, rather than perish in the impenetrable country of the cascades, Stanley took a wide detour overland to come within striking distance of the European trading station at Boma on the Congo estuary. That pressure finally forced him to relinquish his ownership of the territory, and it became the Belgian Congo in 1908.

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