why did king leopold want the congo

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why did king leopold want the congo

The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. To secure their In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. Several rebellions were mercilessly put down under Leopold's direction. For a dozen years, from 1901 to 1913, working sometimes fourteen to sixteen hours a day, he devoted his formidable energy and skill to putting the story of forced labor in King Leopold's Congo on the world's front pages. 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 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. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. With women as hostages and men forced to tap rubber, few able-bodied adults were left to hunt, fish, and cultivate crops. Brill. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. In addition, Leopold's regime faced resistance from within his own conscript army, whose soldiers sometimes found a common cause with the rebel groups they were supposed to pursue. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Around the BBC. The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. What Did King Leopold Of Belgium Do In The Congo? - Caniry 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. Bennett, Norman Robert. To prove that he had not wasted bulletsor, worse yet, saved them for use in a mutinyfor each bullet expended, a Congolese soldier of the Force Publique had to present to his white officer the severed hand of a rebel killed. And under such circumstances people tended to stop having children, so the birthrate plummeted as a result. . Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. It was down to rubber. 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. 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. London, Curzon Press, p.27. CONGO.docx - Why did the King of Belgium Leopold II want But heat, tropical diseases, and the huge rapids near the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic had long kept the Congo's interior a mystery to Europeans. 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. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. Updates? Nor was there a strong humanitarian interest in the continent now that the American slave trade had been extinguished. 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. Male rubber gatherers often died from exhaustion. These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. Why did King Leopold want to take over areas of Africa? Thompsell, Angela. Many women hostages were raped and a significant number starved to death. 2023 BBC. 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). For some years ivory was a principal source of the great wealth that Leopold and his associates drew from the new colony. Statues of Leopold II should now be housed in museums to teach Belgian history, suggests Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, director of anti-racism NGO Bamko Cran. The king's colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. (1996). 13(May 15). Most made no protest, but some were outraged at the brutal forced labor system. Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. Furthermore, as in any society where men and women are separated, traumatized, or in flight as refugees, the birth rate dropped precipitously. The Atrocities of the Congo Free State Rubber Regime - ThoughtCo The horrors, though, are only one part of the story. The army become known for its brutality, with the officers and soldiers being accused ofdestroying villages, taking hostages, raping, torturing, and extorting the people. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. The Herero were traditional occupants of the temperate high plains of central Namibia. Men who did not fulfill their quota were killed or mutilated. Morel, E. D. (1919). In 2019, the cities of Kortrijk and Dendermonde renamed their Leopold II streets, with Kortrijk council describing the king as a "mass murderer". Leopold's eventual response was extraordinary in its hubris and simplicity. (April 27, 2023). Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." Apparently finding nothing reprehensible about Leopold's ambitions, Stanley set about his task with a will. Humankind will never know even the approximate toll with any certainty, but beyond any doubt what happened in the Congo was one of the great catastrophes of modern times. Retrieved September 22, 2017. Because the systems 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. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1879 Stanley returned to the Congo as Leopold's agent. King Leopold II and the Congo The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. 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. Livingstone had not been heard from in several years and was, in fact, exploring the upper reaches of a great navigable inland river called the Lualaba, which Livingstone hoped was connected to the Nile, but which turned out to be the upper Congo. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo, "King Leopold II and the Congo ." A renewed global focus on racism is highlighting a violent colonial history that generated riches for Belgians but death and misery for Congolese. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 24 February 2004. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. 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. La question sociale au Congo: Rapport au comit du congrs colonial national. For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. 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 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. A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. All rights reserved. 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". Read about our approach to external linking. 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. 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. 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. The British consul, an Irishman named Roger Casement, later famous as an Irish patriot, took the assignment seriously. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The movement, in fact, eventually forced Leopold to relinquish his private ownership of the Congo to the Belgian state in 1908. Morel soon quit his job and in short order turned himself into the greatest British investigative journalist of his time. King Leopold II committed heinous . 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. One particularly notorious practice grew out of the suppression of those rebellions. [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. 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. 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. 27 Apr. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. I never imagined this happening in my lifetime," Ms Kayembe adds. She or he will best know the preferred format. By the end of his life, Leopold was unpopular with his people, but, ironically, that had much less to do with his actions in Africa than with his conduct of his personal life. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. Instead, he found what he called "the Siberia of the African Continent." Hochschild, Adam (1998). 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. In 1924 the first territory-wide census, when adjusted for undercounting, placed the number of colony inhabitants at some ten million. OF DECOLONIZATION . 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. 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. Although neither figure is well-documented, Hannah Arendt's seminal The Origins of Totalitarianism cites an estimated minimum population loss of 11.5 million, and a Congolese historian writing in 1998, Isidore Ndaywel Nziem, estimates the loss at roughly 13 million. Forced labor remained a major part of the Congo's economy for many years after the war. Bulletin Officiel du Congo Belge (1920). After Morel orchestrated a protest resolution by the British Parliament, the government, in response, asked its representative in the Congo to investigate his charges. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press. Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. The horrific consequences of rubber's toxic past - BBC News 2 volumes. London: George Allen & Unwin. 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 may never have set foot there, but he poured the profits into Belgium and into his pockets. King Leopold II was the ruler of the Congo Free State, and the King of Belgium. Benedetto, Robert, ed. E. V. Sjblom of Sweden was one of the first and most outspoken missionaries in the Congo. 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. He became duke of Brabant in 1846 and served in the Belgian army. Thompsell, Angela. Meanwhile, Leopold had already begun the job of persuading first the United Army officers often demanded of their men a severed hand from each rebel killed in battle. Votin, Herero In 1853 he married Marie-Henriette, daughter of the Austrian archduke Joseph, palatine of Hungary, and became king of the Belgians on his fathers death in December 1865. Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 A Lasting Legacy Of The Builder King In Brussels - Culture Trip 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. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. 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. 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 estimating situations without the benefit of complete census data, demographers are more confident speaking of percentages than absolute numbers. Why did King Leopold II own the Belgian Congo colony First, the system of exploitation established there became a model for colonial rule in other parts of central Africa. This makeover of Leopold's image produced an amnesia that persisted for decades. They were the very first royal family of Belgium, because the country was just 5 years old. 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. 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". 2023 . The Force Publique, no doubt, also attracted men who, for whatever reason, felt little compunction about wielding such violence, but this was true of the White officers as well. Leopold II was the second son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Orlans. Published in many American and European newspapers, it was the first comprehensive, detailed indictment of the regime and its slave labor system. It was the world's only major colony owned by one man. 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. 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. 8 Disturbing Facts About King Leopold II, the Butcher of Congo After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. Several years later he hired the explorer Henry Morton Stanley to be his man in Africa. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. 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. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. [3], As a constitutional monarch, Leopold was charged with the usual constitutional duties of opening parliaments, greeting diplomats, and attending state funerals. 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). In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Soon after Stanley returned from the Congo, Leopold tried to recruit him. Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). They were a newly independent country . Exhausted, Stanley returned to Europe, only to be sent straight back by Leopold, who promised him an outstanding assistant: Charles 'Chinese' Gordon (who did not in fact take up Leopold's offer but chose instead to go to meet his fate at Khartoum). View 6.2_Reading_Check.docx from HISTORY 2109320 at Coral Reef Senior High School. The effects were devastating. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. Many classrooms still have Herg's famous cartoon book Tintin in the Congo, with its depictions of black people now commonly accepted as extremely racist. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. Atrocities in the Congo Free State - Wikipedia He was interested in the Congo river basin because there were many natural resources such as rubber, minerals, ivory, diamonds, and gold. [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. It would be "really significant for Congolese people, especially those whose families perished," she explains. The newly named Belgian Congo remained a colony until the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960. Leopold II's reign as King of Belgium coincided with the time period of the Scramble for Africa, during which the European powers of the day raced for control of different regions . To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. Vangroenweghe, Daniel (1986). Ascherson, Neal (1963). For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. Leopold acquired the Congo through unethical means and thus took the people's chances away at self-rule. Among those who weren't killed, many were punished by having a hand and/or foot amputated. Why did King Leopold colonize the Congo? - Sage-Advices When the Belgian King Leopold II acquired the Congo Free State during the Scramble for Africa in 1885, he claimed he was establishing the colony for humanitarian and scientific purposes, but in reality, its sole aim was profit, as much as possible, as fast as possible. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. Franklin, John Hope (1985). At a Glance A hundred lashes of the chicotte, a not infrequent punishment, could be fatal. 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. ." For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. Pakenham, Thomas (1991). King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. Europeans were interested in Africa for its abundance of natural resources (ivory, rubber, gold, etc.) Belgium's education minister announced this week that secondary schools would teach colonial history from next year. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off. As the realities and suffering within the Congo Free State became more widely known, many European people spoke out against these abuses. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Interestingly, a longtime high colonial Because his only son had predeceased him, Leopolds nephew Albert I succeeded to the throne. 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. 60 years after independence, traces of the system of exploitation and violence that Leopold II and colonial-era Belgium created still remain in DR Congo. A worldwide rubber boom was under way, kicked off by the invention of the inflatable bicycle tire and spurred on by the rise of the automobile and the use of rubber in industrial belts and gaskets, as well as in coating for telephone and telegraph wires. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. ADAM HOCHSCHILD. Many people wonder why these soldiers were willing to do this to their own people, but there was no sense of being Congolese. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. 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. He created a baffling series of subsidiary shell organisations, culminating in the cunningly named International African Association (French: Association internationale africaine), which had a single shareholder: Leopold himself. Congo Free State - Wikipedia But other scholars use even higher numbers. SCLC Formed Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Omissions? 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. Leopold II and the Congo Free State - HISTORY CRUNCH 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). Moreover, he had a well-known penchant for teenaged girls, and, when he was age 65, he began a liaison with a teenaged former prostitute who bore him two additional children. However, Leopold's rule over the Congo Free State is well known for its cruelty. 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 Province of Angola). Belgium's Heart of Darkness | History Today [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. Marchal, Jules (1996). 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. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. All failed. 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. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. He called it tat Indpendant du Congo, the Congo Free State. There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. 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. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. 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. 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. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. 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. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. This was to be his most enduring legacy. ThoughtCo, Jun. States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. Belgian Congo | History & Facts | Britannica Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. Dec 14, 2022. 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. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. It is false to assume that one group of people is more civilized than another. EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? William Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. The history of Colonialism as a policy or practice go, THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION 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. 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. This article is about the European colonization of the Congo region. 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. The king then embarked on an ultimately successful effort to make a vast fortune from his new possession.

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why did king leopold want the congo

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why did king leopold want the congo

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why did king leopold want the congo

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