EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? ThoughtCo, Jun. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Oasis Kodila Tedika et Francklin Kyayima Muteba, The sources of growth in DRC before independence. He wrongly justified his actions by saying that the people of the Congo were inferior, and deserved the treatment they received. Leopold II became the next King of Belgium in 1865 and reigned until his death on December 17th, 1909. 2023 . There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. Therefore, King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his Read More Thesis Critique Of King Leopold's Ghost He made further progress toward realizing his objective at a diplomatic conference in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 that the major European powers attended. Imperialism in Africa Assignment and Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet The Belgian cabinet of the day was not interested in colonies. Read about our approach to external linking. The country of Belgium itself was only about five years old at the birth of Leopold II, who became the eldest surviving son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Louise-Marie of Orlans. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. Montgomery Bus Boycott In 1924 the first territory-wide census, when adjusted for undercounting, placed the number of colony inhabitants at some ten million. 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. Stanley was applauded, admired, decoratedand ignored. 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. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. 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. Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). When did George Washington Williams visit the Congo? Demonstrations and protests demanded that Leopold end human rights abuses in the Congo Free State. Estimates suggest more than 50% died there. [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. 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. Leopold spoke of bringing civilization to the Africans and sent a small but heavily armed Belgian force into the Congo. 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. 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. 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. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century East Central Africa. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Brussels: Goemaere. 13(May 15). After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. At the time, his father, Leopold I, was the King of Belgium. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. For all his social shortcomings in European society, he was undoubtedly the right man for the job. ." On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. (1996). States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. A renewed global focus on racism is highlighting a violent colonial history that generated riches for Belgians but death and misery for Congolese. Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. Apparently finding nothing reprehensible about Leopold's ambitions, Stanley set about his task with a will. 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. He had long wanted a colonial empire, and in Stanley he saw someone who could secure it for him. Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past At a Glance Why did Leopold want the Congo? 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. The relentless pursuit of profits in the Congo by King Leopold II resulted in one of the worst levels of moral decadence for mankind. Because of his actions King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his exploration and abuse to the Congo land and people. 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. 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. 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. E. D. Morel contre Lopold II: L'histoire du Congo 19001910. He had no power to decide policy. Benedetto, Robert, ed. It was the world's only major colony owned by one man. King Leopold II committed heinous . Inside the palatial walls of Belgium's Africa Museum stand statues of Leopold II - each one a monument to the king whose rule killed as many as 10 million Africans. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. He established his control over the colony through the use of brute force in an attempt to wean the Congolese into submission. . Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. 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. The royal palace is yet to give its own response. While Leopold portrayed this as a great humanitarian act, his real purpose was to gain control of the upper Congo River and to acquire more workers. "King Leopold II and the Congo After Morel orchestrated a protest resolution by the British Parliament, the government, in response, asked its representative in the Congo to investigate his charges. The great population movements caused by the colonial regime brought these illnesses into areas where people had not built up an immunity to them, and many would have died even under a government far less brutal than Leopold's. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo, "King Leopold II and the Congo But the slashing of the territory's populationthrough a combination of disease, famine, slave labor, suppression of rebellions, and diminished birthrateindisputably occurred on a genocidal scale. Some of these soldiers were recruits, while others were enslaved people or orphans brought up to serve the colonial army. Stanley was lionised across Europe. Villages throughout the region had been burned and depopulated. The Congo Free State was founded by Belgian King Leopold II on February 5, 1885, after he violently annexed the African continent. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. Ascherson, Neal (1963). 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. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. 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. . Marchal, Jules (1996). King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. 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. 2 volumes. She does not believe it will not be quick or easy. It was down to rubber. The results of this rule were very uneven. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. The movement, in fact, eventually forced Leopold to relinquish his private ownership of the Congo to the Belgian state in 1908. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Africans also died in two decades' worth of unsuccessful uprisings against the king's regime. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. In 1885 he proclaimed the existence of the misnamed tat Indpendant du Congo, or, as it was known in English, the Congo Free State, with himself the King-Sovereign. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. King Leopold II and the Congo | Encyclopedia.com The people being colonized are robbed of their land, resources, and freedom.) Bierman, John (1990). King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. "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). King Leopold II was the ruler of the Congo Free State, and the King of Belgium. Leopold II established a colony in the Congo to gain natural resources for Belgium and wealth for himself. 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. p.20. 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. 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. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were put to work as porters to carry the white men's goods, as cutters of the wood needed to fire steamboat boilers, and as laborers of all kinds. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. Leopold continued his action, even after the Belgium Parliament refused to annex the Congo. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. As the price of rubber soared, the quotas increased, and as vines near a village were drained dry, men desperate to free their wives and daughters would have to walk days or weeks to find new vines to tap. Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 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. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The Atrocities of the Congo Free State Rubber Regime - ThoughtCo Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Leopold noted, "Our frontiers can never be extended into Europe." 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. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. 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. How did King Leopold gain control of the Congo? Bulletin Officiel du Congo Belge (1920). One particularly notorious practice grew out of the suppression of those rebellions. "I will dance if it comes down. Dark Safari: The Life behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. 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. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Birmingham Protest March The couple's first son, Louis Philippe, died in infancy prior to Leopold II's birth. From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. 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. Several rebellions were mercilessly put down under Leopold's direction. 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. He built outposts and a road around the river's rapids and, using small steamboats, he traveled up and down the great river and its tributaries. "Leopold II certainly does not deserve a statue in the public domain," agrees Bambi Ceuppens, scientific commissioner at the Africa Museum. GENEALOGY OF THE TERM DECOLONIZATION "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). 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. The forced-labour system for gathering rubber was swiftly copied by French, German, and Portuguese colonial officials with equally fatal results. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Reform in Leopold's Congo. The New York Review of Books. 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. Dec 14, 2022. Furthermore, as in any society where men and women are separated, traumatized, or in flight as refugees, the birth rate dropped precipitously. Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. (April 27, 2023). E. V. Sjblom of Sweden was one of the first and most outspoken missionaries in the Congo. Standing on the dock, Morel realized that he had uncovered irrefutable proof that a forced labor system was in operation 4,000 miles away. Encyclopedia.com. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Tippu Tip, the most powerful of the Zanzibari slave traders of the 19th century, was well known to Stanley, as was the social chaos and devastation that slave-hunting brought. Leopold, however, made the Belgian government pay him for his prized possession. Leopolds reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. 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. A cointegration analysis, CRE Working paper, n02/10, juin 2010, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colonization_of_the_Congo_Basin&oldid=1117806574, The fever-ridden mangroves of the lower Niger by the brothers, This page was last edited on 23 October 2022, at 17:53. 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. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. He was the architect of one of history's greatest, if lesser known, crimes against humanity. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. 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. But other scholars use even higher numbers. As a result of King Leopold actions, thousands of African tribes populations decreased significantly. Belgium's Heart of Darkness | History Today Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. 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. Its report that year to the Belgian king mostly focused on disease, but stressed that forced labor for rubber and other products "subjects the natives to conditions of life which are an obstacle to their increase" and warned that this situation, plus "a lack of concern about devastating plagues ancient and modern, an absolute ignorance of people's normal lives [and] a license and immorality detrimental to the development of the race," had reached "the point of threatening even the existence of certain Congolese peoples" and could completely depopulate the entire region (Bulletin Officiel, 1920, pp. (Colonizing other peoples, regardless of the justification, is wrong. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. Presbyterian Reformers in Central Africa: A Documentary Account of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission and the Human Rights Struggle in the Congo, 18901918. ." 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.

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