King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. 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". There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. Interestingly, a longtime high colonial 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. Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. . 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. "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". Killings, famine and disease combined to cause the deaths of perhaps 10 million people, though historians dispute the true number. oliviall Answer: Since the consequences of the scheme in the Congo could too easily be blamed on one man who could comfortably be targeted because he did not serve a great power, a Leopold-focused foreign uproar. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. 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. ThoughtCo. 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). Dark Safari: The Life behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley. Encyclopedia.com. Nzansu, a chief in the region near the great Congo River rapids, led rebels who killed a hated colonial official and pillaged several state posts, although they carefully spared the homes of nearby Swedish missionaries. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. They were the very first royal family of Belgium, because the country was just 5 years old. "It's a good thing that everyone is waking up, looking around and thinking 'is this right?'" The history of Colonialism as a policy or practice go, THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION Hochschild, Adam (1998). No one owned more land like this than King Leopold II, for equatorial rain forest, dotted with wild rubber vines, comprised half of his Congo state. 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. However, Leopold's rule over the Congo Free State is well known for its cruelty. 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. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. Thus was the Belgian Congo created. 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. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. Brussels: Goemaere. 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. Europe was less than keen on the idea: the great European scramble for Africa had not yet begun. 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. In one of them, a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State, he used a phrase that was not commonly heard again until the Nuremberg trials more than fifty years later. In estimating situations without the benefit of complete census data, demographers are more confident speaking of percentages than absolute numbers. Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. Belgium took over the colony in 1908 and it was not until 1960 that the Republic of the Congo was established, after a fight for independence. After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. At the time, his father, Leopold I, was the King of Belgium. 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. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. Company agents were paid large concessions on top of their salaries for the profits they generated, creating personal incentives to force people to work more and harder for little to no pay. "[2]:145. He called it Congo Free State. When the ships turned around and steamed back to Africa, however, they carried no merchandise in exchange. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. I never imagined this happening in my lifetime," Ms Kayembe adds. That pressure finally forced him to relinquish his ownership of the territory, and it became the Belgian Congo in 1908. Leopold II (1835-1909) wanted his country to join the league of European empires, but the Belgian state refused to finance its part in western Europe's expensive scramble for Africa. Tippu Tip had raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and, when Stanley reached his camp, had 2,300 slaves, mostly young women and children, in chains ready to transport halfway across the continent to the markets of Zanzibar. LEOPOLD II (18351909; ruled 18651909), king of Belgium and personal sovereign of the Congo Free State. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. The movement, in fact, eventually forced Leopold to relinquish his private ownership of the Congo to the Belgian state in 1908. Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. Between the time that Leopold started to assume control of the Congo (around 1880) and when the forced labor system became less severe (after 1920), what happened could not, by strict definition, be called genocide, for there was no deliberate attempt to wipe out all members of one particular ethnic group. La Force publique de sa naissance 1914: Participation des militaires l'histoire des premires annes du Congo. A hundred lashes of the chicotte, a not infrequent punishment, could be fatal. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. The New York Review of Books. In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. You cannot download interactives. "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). Dec 14, 2022. "I will dance if it comes down. 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. 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. . The effects were devastating. Stanley was lionised across Europe. For centuries African slave dealers had raided parts of this area, selling their captives to American and European captains who sailed Africa's west coast, and to traders who took slaves to the Arab world from the continent's east coast. 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. They also sometimes eradicatedwhole villages that failed to meet the quotas as a warning to others. Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. 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. "King Leopold II and the Congo Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. ." Male rubber gatherers often died from exhaustion. ThoughtCo, Jun. This was to be his most enduring legacy. In 1876, Leopold II sponsored an international geographical conference in Brussels, inviting delegates from scientific societies all over Europe to discuss philanthropic and scientific matters such as the best way to coordinate map making, to prevent the re-emergence of the west coast slave trade, and to investigate ways of sending medical aid to Africa. George Washington Williams: A Biography. First, the system of exploitation established there became a model for colonial rule in other parts of central Africa. 2023 BBC. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. 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. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. It is false to assume that one group of people is more civilized than another. 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. wives' release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. Flament, F., et al. London, Curzon Press, p.27. 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. Bennett, Norman Robert. Obtaining more precise statistics is difficult, for in 1908 King Leopold ordered the archives of his Congo state burned. Soon after Stanley returned from the Congo, Leopold tried to recruit him. New York: Random House. Within three years, his capacity for hard work, his skill at playing one social group off against another, his ruthless use of modern weaponry to kill opponents, and above all his relentless determination opened the route to the Upper Congo. Henry Morton Stanley (2011). 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. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath. A renewed global focus on racism is highlighting a violent colonial history that generated riches for Belgians but death and misery for Congolese. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. 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. As he headed back to England, Stanley was assiduously courted by King Leopold II of Belgium. Birmingham Protest March Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. Updates? The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central 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 . 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. Pakenham, Thomas (1991). 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). Instead, he found what he called "the Siberia of the African Continent." Borgloon, Belgium: Editions Paula Bellings. 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. For instance, Leopold II was a first cousin of Queen Victoria of Britain. 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.
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