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. (1996). [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. Borgloon, Belgium: Editions Paula Bellings. Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century East Central Africa. Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. The king of Belgium wanted the Congo for the vast amounts of wild rubber it held, and to establish a colony as he thought kings were supposed to do. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. In January 1959, riots broke out in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) after a rally was held calling for the independence of the Congo. 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". EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? It is clearly understood that in this project there is no question of granting the slightest political power to the negros. 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. 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. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. 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. 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. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? 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. 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. ThoughtCo. The kings stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. Encyclopedia.com. 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. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. 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. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo, "King Leopold II and the Congo 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. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. Because of his actions King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his exploration and abuse to the Congo land and people. Leopold noted, "Our frontiers can never be extended into Europe." "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". Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. You cannot download interactives. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath. 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. 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. Leopold II | Biography, Facts, & Legacy | Britannica Learn how and when to remove this template message, Oasis Kodila Tedika et Francklin Kyayima Muteba, The sources of growth in DRC before independence. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Stanley was lionised across Europe. This army was composed of White officers and African soldiers. Marchal, Jules (1996). This makeover of Leopold's image produced an amnesia that persisted for decades. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, US black man George Floyd in police custody, statues of racist historical figures vandalised or removed, "rape, mutilation and genocide of millions of Congolese". Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 06/29/2020. In Peter Forbath's words, Leopold was: A tall, imposing man enjoying a reputation for hedonistic sensuality, cunning intelligence (his father once described him as subtle and sly as a fox), overweening ambition, and personal ruthlessness. Many more suffered from disease and torture. Europe was less than keen on the idea: the great European scramble for Africa had not yet begun. Army officers and colonial officials earned bonuses based on the amount of rubber collected in areas under their control. Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town". Why did Leopold want the Congo? 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. Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. 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. The Belgian cabinet of the day was not interested in colonies. King Leopold II Biography: The Monster of the Congo On Monday the University of Mons removed a bust of the late king, following the circulation of a student-led petition saying it represented the "rape, mutilation and genocide of millions of Congolese". Belgian King Establishes Congo Free State - National Geographic Society He called it tat Indpendant du Congo, the Congo Free State. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. 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). "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. Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. 2023 . Morel, E. D. (1919). The forced-labour system for gathering rubber was swiftly copied by French, German, and Portuguese colonial officials with equally fatal results. 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 only way to do that was through the use of terror. 24 February 2004. The bloodiest single episode in Africa's colonization took place in the center of the continent in the large territory, known as the Congo. Thompsell, Angela. Furthermore, as in any society where men and women are separated, traumatized, or in flight as refugees, the birth rate dropped precipitously. 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. A detachment of soldiers would march into an African village and seize the women as hostages. At the time, his father, Leopold I, was the King of Belgium. Vocabulary On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession.