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. 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 king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. The king then embarked on an ultimately successful effort to make a vast fortune from his new possession. Benedetto, Robert, ed. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. Leopold II was the second son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Orlans. 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. 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. To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. 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. 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. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. Marchal, Jules (1996). Votin, Herero 2 volumes. The king's colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. In 1879 Stanley returned to the Congo as Leopold's agent. 13(May 15). 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. 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. Ed. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) It is clearly understood that in this project there is no question of granting the slightest political power to the negros. Bierman, John (1990). Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. Omissions? E. V. Sjblom of Sweden was one of the first and most outspoken missionaries in the Congo. It would be "really significant for Congolese people, especially those whose families perished," she explains. They were the very first royal family of Belgium, because the country was just 5 years old. Is climate change killing Australian wine? Baskets of severed hands thus resulted from expeditions against rebels. Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Topic 6.2 Reading Check 1. While Leopold II did much to establish Belgium as an economically and militarily stable power in Europe, he is chiefly remembered for the nightmarish practices that were carried out in his name. Stanley made his way back to Europe with a sheaf of signed treaties in 1884. 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. (1952). This army was composed of White officers and African soldiers. [11]:66. The treaties, some of which appear to have been subsequently doctored to Leopolds liking, were then put to use by the Belgian monarch. 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. In the early 1890s, Leopold's private African army, the Force Publique (Public Force), drove the powerful Muslim slave traders out of the Congo. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. However, disease of any kind always takes a far greater toll on a traumatized, half-starving population, with many people already in flight as refugees. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. They were a newly independent country . Morel soon quit his job and in short order turned himself into the greatest British investigative journalist of his time. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. 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. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? Then, as they would be into the 21st century, most of the royal families of Europe were related. He provided for no education or vocational training, which would stunt future Congolese leaders from making sound economic and political policies. 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 online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. However, Leopold persisted and eventually Stanley gave in. VideoThe secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, LGBT troops take love for Eurovision to front line, Why an Indian comedian is challenging fake news rules. In later years, Stanley would write that the most vexing part of his duties was not the work itself, nor negotiating with the natives, but keeping order amongst the ill-assorted collection of white men he had brought with him as overseers, who squabbled constantly over small matters of rank or status. The propensity for violence is . Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. Flament, F., et al. 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. "Leopold II certainly does not deserve a statue in the public domain," agrees Bambi Ceuppens, scientific commissioner at the Africa Museum. [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. Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. 2023 . Civil rights leader Aware that Belgian neutrality, maintained during the Franco-German War (187071), was imperilled by the increasing strength of France and Germany, he persuaded parliament in 1887 to finance the fortification of Lige and Namur. King Leopold's Rule in Africa. La Force publique de sa naissance 1914: Participation des militaires l'histoire des premires annes du Congo. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. The focus of the great powers was still firmly on the lands that had made Europe's fortune: the Americas, the East Indies, India, China, and Australasia. 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. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . For all his social shortcomings in European society, he was undoubtedly the right man for the job. Encyclopedia.com. 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 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. [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 kings stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. L'histoire du Congo 18761900. Leopold II's rule in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo was so bloody it was eventually condemned by other European colonialists in 1908 - but it has taken far longer to come under scrutiny at home. Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities. King Leopold II committed heinous . Pakenham, Thomas (1991). If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. 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. Because his only son had predeceased him, Leopolds nephew Albert I succeeded to the throne. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. p.20. 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. You cannot download interactives. The horrors, though, are only one part of the story. In order to enforce the near impossible rubber quotas imposed on villages, agents and officials called on the Free States army, the Force Publique. 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. 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. Among those who weren't killed, many were punished by having a hand and/or foot amputated. 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. 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. https://www.thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731 (accessed May 1, 2023). 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. Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. The effects were devastating. 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. 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). It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. The people being colonized are robbed of their land, resources, and freedom.) Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." Villages throughout the region had been burned and depopulated. In DR Congo itself, no-one has really noticed the Belgian protests, says Jules Mulamba, a lawyer in the south-eastern city of Lubambashi. 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. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. He built the Africa Museum in the grounds of his palace at Tervuren, with a "human zoo" in the grounds featuring 267 Congolese people as exhibits. 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. For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. Morel, E. D. (1904). 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. 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. Interestingly, a longtime high colonial At a Glance Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. 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. 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. On 29 May 1885, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at the Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. "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). 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. 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. The king also faced enemies of another sort. King Leopold II was the ruler of the Congo Free State, and the King of Belgium. 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". George Washington Williams: A Biography. Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. As the vines near a village were often drained dry, the men would sometimes have to walk for days to find areas where they could gather their monthly quota of rubber. 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. . L'tat libre du Congo: Paradis perdu. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Leopold's eventual response was extraordinary in its hubris and simplicity. The royal palace is yet to give its own response. 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. Leopold II was born in 1835 to King Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orleans. Around 20,000 children born to Belgian settlers and local women were forcibly taken to Belgium to be fostered. Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. ThoughtCo. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. 27 Apr. POST-1945 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS 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. 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. Published in many American and European newspapers, it was the first comprehensive, detailed indictment of the regime and its slave labor system. In later years he sometimes referred to himself as the Congo's proprietor. E. D. Morel contre Lopold II: L'histoire du Congo 19001910. (1996). SCLC Formed One by one the other great mysteries had been explored: Though the Congo had been one of the first to be attempted, it remained a mystery. (April 27, 2023). Corrections? 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. Most made no protest, but some were outraged at the brutal forced labor system. 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. Retrieved September 22, 2017. Combining gift-giving with a show of military force, he persuaded hundreds of illiterate African chiefs, most of whom had little idea of the terms of the agreement to which they were ostensibly acceding, to sign away their land to the king. States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. The museum is largely protected by heritage law but, in the streets outside, monuments to a monarch who seized a huge swathe of Central Africa in 1885 have no such security. Morel, E. D. (1968). Meanwhile, Leopold had already begun the job of persuading first the United (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Thompsell, Angela. 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. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Apparently finding nothing reprehensible about Leopold's ambitions, Stanley set about his task with a will. 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. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. Encyclopedia.com. The relentless pursuit of profits in the Congo by King Leopold II resulted in one of the worst levels of moral decadence for mankind. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. 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. New York: Random House. When the 1860s explorers focused attention on Africa, Leopold schemed to colonise Mozambique on the east coast, Senegal on the west coast, and the Congo in the centre. Leopold, however, made the Belgian government pay him for his prized possession. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Dec 14, 2022. Ewans, Martin (2002). It was the world's only major colony owned by one man. Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. Birmingham Protest March His most important legacy, however, remains the human catastrophe that the rubber forced-labour system brought to the Congoa heritage that continued to echo in that region more than a century after Leopolds death. 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". 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. 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. 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. He is remembered in Belgium for some of what he built with his Congo wealth, such as the monumental Arcade du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, and for his advocacy of strong fortifications in the eastern part of the country, which slowed the advance of German troops in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. Presbyterian Reformers in Central Africa: A Documentary Account of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission and the Human Rights Struggle in the Congo, 18901918. He spoke contemptuously of Belgiums small size, could not speak proper Dutch, the native language of more than half of its citizens, spent long winters in luxurious quarters on the French Riviera, and was estranged from two of his three daughters. She does not believe it will not be quick or easy. . He died the following year. She was not unique - chopping off the limbs of enslaved Congolese was a routine form of retribution when Leopold II's quotas were not met. Marchal, Jules (1996). Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. Furthermore, as in any society where men and women are separated, traumatized, or in flight as refugees, the birth rate dropped precipitously. 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. Almost the only early visitor to interview Africans about their experience of the regime, he took extensive notes, and, a thousand miles up the Congo River, wrote one of the greatest documents in human rights literature, an open letter to King Leopold that is one of the important landmarks in human rights literature. 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. When Leopold II died in 1909, he was buried to the sound of Belgians booing. 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. 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. How did King Leopold gain control of the Congo? 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. 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. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. 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. [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. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. 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. He produced an excoriating, detailed report, complete with sworn testimony from witnesses, which is in many ways a model for the reports produced by contemporary organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. ." 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. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Leopold spoke of bringing civilization to the Africans and sent a small but heavily armed Belgian force into the Congo. London, Curzon Press, p.27. Leopold II, French in full Lopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor, Dutch in full Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, (born April 9, 1835, Brussels, Belgiumdied December 17, 1909, Laeken), king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909. 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. Brussels: Didier Hatier. 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. 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. Bennett, Norman Robert. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. . In estimating situations without the benefit of complete census data, demographers are more confident speaking of percentages than absolute numbers. As he headed back to England, Stanley was assiduously courted by King Leopold II of Belgium. Some writers, almost entirely in Belgium, claim that such estimates are exaggerated. 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 . They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. 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. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region.
Big Island Beach Conditions,
Sequoia Surgery Center Visalia Registration,
Articles W
