Encyclopedia.com. "It's a good thing that everyone is waking up, looking around and thinking 'is this right?'" Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? 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. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. "[2]:145. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. This was to be his most enduring legacy. Why did King Leopold give up 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. Stanley was lionised across Europe. 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. 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. ThoughtCo. In 1879 Stanley returned to the Congo as Leopold's agent. 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. For five years Stanley traveled up and down the immense waterways of the Congo River basin, setting up trading posts, building roads, and persuading local chiefsalmost all of them illiterateto sign treaties with Leopold. On December 12, 1963, the flag of independent Kenya billowed over the capital city of Nairobi f, Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968 He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. Flament, F., et al. All rights reserved. For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . Some of these soldiers were recruits, while others were enslaved people or orphans brought up to serve the colonial army. 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". However, Leopold's rule over the Congo Free State is well known for its cruelty. 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. Colonial administrators also kidnapped orphaned children from communities and transported them to "child colonies" to work or train as soldiers. L'tat libre du Congo: Paradis perdu. Dark Safari: The Life behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley. Corrections? 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. Baskets of severed hands thus resulted from expeditions against rebels. OF DECOLONIZATION He established his control over the colony through the use of brute force in an attempt to wean the Congolese into submission. The conference was a sham: at its close, Leopold proposed that they set up an international benevolent committee to carry on, and modestly agreed to accept the chairman's role. Brussels: Goemaere. 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. ." 2 volumes. The kings stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. Several rebellions were mercilessly put down under Leopold's direction. [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. 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. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. Leopold spoke of bringing civilization to the Africans and sent a small but heavily armed Belgian force into the Congo. He wrongly justified his actions by saying that the people of the Congo were inferior, and deserved the treatment they received. 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. The children sent to a 'holiday camp' never to come back, Russia launches pre-dawn missile attack on Ukraine, Chaos at port as thousands rush to leave Sudan. Villages throughout the region had been burned and depopulated. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. King Leopold II was the ruler of the Congo Free State, and the King of Belgium. SCLC Formed In estimating situations without the benefit of complete census data, demographers are more confident speaking of percentages than absolute numbers. Since the 15th century, European explorers had sailed into the broad Congo estuary, planning to fight their way up the falls and rapids that begin only 100 miles (160km) inland, and then travel up the river to its unknown source. 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 royal coffers would become a central focus of Leopolds life, and he once grumbled to German Emperor William II while watching a parade in Berlin, There is really nothing left for us kings except money! Leopold soon decided that the best way to acquire wealth would be by establishing an African colony, at a time when the great European Scramble for Africa was under way. View 6.2_Reading_Check.docx from HISTORY 2109320 at Coral Reef Senior High School. Du sang sur les lianes. E. D. Morel contre Lopold II: L'histoire du Congo 19001910. The effects were devastating. London, Curzon Press, p.27. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. You cannot download interactives. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. There seemed no economic sense to investing energy in Africa when the returns from other colonies were likely to be both richer and more immediate. Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Topic 6.2 Reading Check 1. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. POST-1945 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS But for Leopold this posed no problem; he would acquire his own. Franklin, John Hope (1985). L'histoire du Congo 18761900. 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 . Having found the new ruler of the upper Congo, Stanley negotiated an agreement with Tippu Tip to allow him to build his final river station just below Stanley Falls (which prevented vessels sailing further upstream). You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Eventually, the price fell and wild rubber supplies began to run out, but by that time World War I had begun, and large numbers of Africans were forced to become porters, carrying supplies for Belgian military campaigns against Germany's African colonies. He wrote articles, appeared at public meetings, lobbied the rich and powerful tirelessly; and always his theme was the boundless opportunity for commercial exploitation of the lands he had discovered or, in his own words, to "pour the civilisation of Europe into the barbarism of Africa". When Leopold II died in 1909, he was buried to the sound of Belgians booing. Most made no protest, but some were outraged at the brutal forced labor system. He was the architect of one of history's greatest, if lesser known, crimes against humanity. It was down to rubber. Men who did not fulfill their quota were killed or mutilated. He called it tat Indpendant du Congo, the Congo Free State. This army was composed of White officers and African soldiers. Setting out from Zanzibar, Henry Morton Stanley, a British-born American journalist and explorer aimed to find the famous Dr. Livingstone. Virtually no information about the true nature of King Leopold's Congo reached the outside world until the arrival there, in 1890, of an enterprising visitor named George Washington Williams. Apparently finding nothing reprehensible about Leopold's ambitions, Stanley set about his task with a will. 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. [11]:66. 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. 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. A British shipping company had the monopoly on all cargo traffic between the Congo and Belgium, and every few weeks it sent to the port of Antwerp a young junior official, Edmund Dene Morel, to supervise the unloading of a ship arriving from Africa. Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 18901910. 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. 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 for over 20 years he had been agitating for Belgium to take its place among the great colonial powers of Europe. The horrors, though, are only one part of the story. (April 27, 2023). "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). 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. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Brill. 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. 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. Interestingly, a longtime high colonial The Belgian cabinet of the day was not interested in colonies. More than one thousand mass meetings to protest slave labor in the Congo were held, mostly in Britain and the United States, but also in Europe and as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. Former President of Kenya 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. In 1870 more than 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara was under the rule of indigenous chiefs or kings. wives' release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. Early and Personal Life. 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. 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. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. Montgomery Bus Boycott Unfortunately, for the Congo, it was one of the only places in the world to have a large supply of wild rubber, and the government and its affiliated trading companies quickly shifted their focus to extracting the suddenly lucrative commodity. 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. For all his social shortcomings in European society, he was undoubtedly the right man for the job. June 11th, 2020. In DR Congo itself, no-one has really noticed the Belgian protests, says Jules Mulamba, a lawyer in the south-eastern city of Lubambashi. Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities. Hochschild, Adam (1998). p.20. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. Omissions? BBC World Service: 50 Things That Made the Modern . Bulletin Officiel du Congo Belge (1920). In articles in church magazines and in speeches throughout the United States and Europe on visits home, they described what they saw: Africans whipped to death, rivers full of corpses, and piles of severed handsa detail that quickly seared itself on the world's imagination. The history of Colonialism as a policy or practice go, THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. Dec 14, 2022. As he put it, he did not want to miss out on the opportunity of getting a slice of "this magnificent African cake." King . (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Last year a UN working group called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities committed during the colonial era. Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. 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. In order to enforce the near impossible rubber quotas imposed on villages, agents and officials called on the Free States army, the Force Publique. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. Amidst all of this, some of the best of people was also seen, in the bravery and resilience of ordinary Congolese men and women who resisted in small and large ways, and the passionate efforts of several American and European missionaries and activists to bring about reform. 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. But new rubber trees often require fifteen years of growth before they can be tapped. Read about our approach to external linking. Although he played a significant role in the development of the modern Belgian state, he was also responsible for widespread atrocities committed under his rule against his colonial subjects. How did King Leopold gain control of the Congo? 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 II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. [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. He had no power to decide policy. It would be "really significant for Congolese people, especially those whose families perished," she explains. The king then embarked on an ultimately successful effort to make a vast fortune from his new possession. When the ships turned around and steamed back to Africa, however, they carried no merchandise in exchange. 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. Nor was there a strong humanitarian interest in the continent now that the American slave trade had been extinguished. 06/29/2020. He became duke of Brabant in 1846 and served in the Belgian army. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. Benedetto, Robert, ed. Leopold (18351909) had ascended to the throne in 1865. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. 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. (1996). Many more suffered from disease and torture. On Friday the younger brother of Belgium's King Philippe, Prince Laurent, defended his ancestor saying Leopold II was not responsible for atrocities in the colony "because he never went to. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. The only way to do that was through the use of terror. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. Ed. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. The army become known for its brutality, with the officers and soldiers being accused ofdestroying villages, taking hostages, raping, torturing, and extorting the people. 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 royal palace is yet to give its own response. First, the system of exploitation established there became a model for colonial rule in other parts of central Africa. 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. Why did Leopold want the Congo? 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. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. 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 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. To secure their Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Africans also died in two decades' worth of unsuccessful uprisings against the king's regime. E. V. Sjblom of Sweden was one of the first and most outspoken missionaries in the Congo. 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. "In the Heart of Darkness". Thompsell, Angela. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. In his novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, who spent six months in the Congo in 1890 as a steamboat officer, gives a searing picture of the brutal and voracious European quest for Congo ivory. 2 volumes. 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. 657, 660, 662). https://www.thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731 (accessed May 1, 2023). Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. Retrieved September 22, 2017. Ewans, Martin (2002). It had only been through Tippu Tip's help that Stanley had found Livingstone (who himself had survived years on the Lualaba by virtue of Tippu Tip's friendship). La question sociale au Congo: Rapport au comit du congrs colonial national. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Among those who weren't killed, many were punished by having a hand and/or foot amputated. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo, "King Leopold II and the Congo Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Why did King Leopold II own the Belgian Congo colony To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. 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. It is false to assume that one group of people is more civilized than another. Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town". He was, nevertheless, an extremely minor monarch in the realpolitik of the times, ruling a totally insignificant nation, a nation in fact that had come into existence barely four decades before and lived under the constant threat of losing its precarious independence to the great European powers around it. [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. The iconic images to emerge from this terror, though, were the baskets full of smoked hands and the Congolese children who survived having a hand cut off. For activists the holy grail is the giant statue of Leopold II on horseback at the gates of the Royal Palace in Brussels. If the estimates from varied sources of a 50 percent toll in King Leopold's Congo are correct, how many people does this mean? One lucrative source of wild rubber was the Landolphia vines in the great Central African rainforest, and no one owned more of that area than Leopold. 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. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. In the early 1890s, Leopold's private African army, the Force Publique (Public Force), drove the powerful Muslim slave traders out of the Congo. There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. I Have a Dream William Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. Morel, E. D. (1919). (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) 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. It is clearly understood that in this project there is no question of granting the slightest political power to the negros. Stanley was applauded, admired, decoratedand ignored. For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. Thus was the Belgian Congo created. Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century East Central Africa. Army officers often demanded of their men a severed hand from each rebel killed in battle. Borgloon, Belgium: Editions Paula Bellings. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. The movement, in fact, eventually forced Leopold to relinquish his private ownership of the Congo to the Belgian state in 1908. "I will dance if it comes down. The New York Review of Books. He wrote three books on the Congo, several dozen pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, making much use of eyewitness testimony from the missionaries. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. In May 1885, Leopold took possession of his colony and named it the Congo Free State. 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. Leopold acquired the Congo through unethical means and thus took the people's chances away at self-rule. Obtaining more precise statistics is difficult, for in 1908 King Leopold ordered the archives of his Congo state burned. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. "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". A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, Democratic Republic of Congo country profile, called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities, apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Banana artwork in Seoul museum eaten by visitor, NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, Trevelyan relative 'would consider' famine payment, Ding becomes China's first male world chess champion, Indian 'killer' elephant relocated to tiger reserve.
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