27 Apr. 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". Franklin, John Hope (1985). 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. The propensity for violence is . SCLC Formed Montgomery Bus Boycott The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. Many women hostages were raped and a significant number starved to death. The royal palace is yet to give its own response. OF DECOLONIZATION Flament, F., et al. Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Why did King Leopold colonize the Congo? For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. Belgian King Leopold II ruthlessly seized control of the African continent on February 5, 1885, establishing the Congo Free State as a . He wrote three books on the Congo, several dozen pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, making much use of eyewitness testimony from the missionaries. 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. 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. He died the following year. ADAM HOCHSCHILD. Shaloff, Stanley (1970). Almost the only early visitor to interview Africans about their experience of the regime, he took extensive notes, and, a thousand miles up the Congo River, wrote one of the greatest documents in human rights literature, an open letter to King Leopold that is one of the important landmarks in human rights literature. Several years later he hired the explorer Henry Morton Stanley to be his man in Africa. Although the domestic affairs of his reign were dominated by a growing conflict between the Liberal and Catholic parties over suffrage and education issues, Leopold concentrated on developing the countrys defenses. He made further progress toward realizing his objective at a diplomatic conference in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 that the major European powers attended. 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. Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past 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. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. 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. ThoughtCo, Jun. Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. "[2]:145. Many people wonder why these soldiers were willing to do this to their own people, but there was no sense of being Congolese. Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. One visitor to the Africa Museum, where an outdoor statue was defaced last week, disagreed with the idea of removing them - "they're part of history," he explained. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. Omissions? 13(May 15). The results of this rule were very uneven. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. He called it Congo Free State. King Leopold's Rule in Africa. [3], As a constitutional monarch, Leopold was charged with the usual constitutional duties of opening parliaments, greeting diplomats, and attending state funerals. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. 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. Repeated attempts to travel overland were repulsed with heavy casualties, accidents, conflicts with natives, and, above all, disease saw large and well-equipped expeditions got no further than 40 miles (64km) or so past the westernmost rapid, the legendary Cauldron of Hell. The army become known for its brutality, with the officers and soldiers being accused ofdestroying villages, taking hostages, raping, torturing, and extorting the people. Why did Leopold want the Congo? - JOUNIMARTIKAINEN 24 February 2004. [12] At the end of his physical resources, Stanley returned home, to be replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Francis de Winton, formerly a British Army officer. 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. He called it tat Indpendant du Congo, the Congo Free State. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. The people being colonized are robbed of their land, resources, and freedom.) No one will ever know the precise figures, but, from all these causes, demographers estimate that between 1880 and 1920 the population of the Congo may have been slashed by up to 50 percent, from perhaps 20 million people at the beginning of that period to an estimated 10 million at the end. The Hidden Holocaust: How King Leopold II - The African Exponent 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. [11]:66. 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. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. A Lasting Legacy Of The Builder King In Brussels - Culture Trip In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. Army officers often demanded of their men a severed hand from each rebel killed in battle. Retrieved September 22, 2017. King Leopold II and the Congo The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." He had long wanted a colonial empire, and in Stanley he saw someone who could secure it for him. Although Belgiums government felt that colonies would be an extravagance for a small country with no navy or merchant marine, that situation suited Leopold perfectly. It is false to assume that one group of people is more civilized than another. "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). One particularly notorious practice grew out of the suppression of those rebellions. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). To secure their Some of these soldiers were recruits, while others were enslaved people or orphans brought up to serve the colonial army. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. [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. "King Leopold II and the Congo Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. In May 1885, Leopold took possession of his colony and named it the Congo Free State. "It's a good thing that everyone is waking up, looking around and thinking 'is this right?'" 2 volumes. 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. Borgloon, Belgium: Editions Paula Bellings. 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. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. They were a newly independent country . 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. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. Stanley made his way back to Europe with a sheaf of signed treaties in 1884. Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 18901910. 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. For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers.
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