Why did Leopold want the Congo? Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. The Belgian cabinet of the day was not interested in colonies. Brill. 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. 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). Soldiers were also reportedly promised their freedom or given other incentives for killing the most people as proven by supplying the most hands. 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. I Have a Dream 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. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. At a Glance 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. Leopold's most formidable enemy surfaced in Europe. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. Leopold II was the second son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Orlans. "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." An even greater toll was taken by disease: various lung and intestinal diseases, tuberculosis, smallpox, and, above all, sleeping sickness. They also sometimes eradicatedwhole villages that failed to meet the quotas as a warning to others. For some years ivory was a principal source of the great wealth that Leopold and his associates drew from the new colony. The bloodiest single episode in Africa's colonization took place in the center of the continent in the large territory, known as the Congo. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. 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. wives' release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. Colonial administrators also kidnapped orphaned children from communities and transported them to "child colonies" to work or train as soldiers. In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. Franklin, John Hope (1985). 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. 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. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. 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. The king also faced enemies of another sort. I never imagined this happening in my lifetime," Ms Kayembe adds. Around the BBC. The kings stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. 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. 2023 BBC. 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. "Civilisation" was at the core of Leopold II's pitch to European leaders in 1885 when they sliced up and allocated territories in what became known as the Scramble for Africa. 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. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. 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. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. 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 . It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. 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. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. Army officers often demanded of their men a severed hand from each rebel killed in battle. ADAM HOCHSCHILD. 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. Leopold II ruled Belgium from 1865-1909 - activists want this statue in Brussels removed due to his brutal regime in Congo Free State, Before a renovation in 2018, Belgium's Africa Museum was known as the world's "last colonial museum", Thousands marched in Black Lives Matter protests in Belgium, This TV image shows a statue of Leopold defaced and damaged by fire being removed in Antwerp, Colonial officials amputated and mutilated Congolese people, including children, as punishment, A now infamous photo capturing atrocities committed in Congo Free State, Congolese people were forced to be human exhibits in a "zoo" in Belgium in 1897, Missionaries documented amputations while investigating abuses committed in Congo Free State, Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba is commemorated in a Brussels square, This bust of Leopold II was removed on Friday in Auderghem, near Brussels, Colony built on forced labour and brutality, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. He was interested in the Congo river basin because there were many natural resources such as rubber, minerals, ivory, diamonds, and gold. Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. Around 20,000 children born to Belgian settlers and local women were forcibly taken to Belgium to be fostered. Leopold II, it seemed, was the only European willing to finance Stanley's dream: the building of a railway over the Crystal Mountains from the sea to Stanley Pool, from which river steamers could reach 1,000 miles (1,600km) into the heart of Africa. Forced labor remained a major part of the Congo's economy for many years after the war. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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. Demonstrations and protests demanded that Leopold end human rights abuses in the Congo Free State. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo, "King Leopold II and 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 was born in 1835 to King Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orleans. [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. Birmingham Protest March As he put it, he did not want to miss out on the opportunity of getting a slice of "this magnificent African cake." King . In 1924 the first territory-wide census, when adjusted for undercounting, placed the number of colony inhabitants at some ten million. In the early years the main commodity Leopold sought was ivory. To secure their Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. All rights reserved. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. 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. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. 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. He called it tat Indpendant du Congo, the Congo Free State. 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. This article is about the European colonization of the Congo region. Europe was less than keen on the idea: the great European scramble for Africa had not yet begun. 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. 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. The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. Leopold spoke of bringing civilization to the Africans and sent a small but heavily armed Belgian force into the Congo. "Leopold II certainly does not deserve a statue in the public domain," agrees Bambi Ceuppens, scientific commissioner at the Africa Museum. Dec 14, 2022. Montgomery Bus Boycott Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. 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. LEOPOLD II (18351909; ruled 18651909), king of Belgium and personal sovereign of the Congo Free State. The Herero were traditional occupants of the temperate high plains of central Namibia. Unlike previous European nations that spread their influence over Thompsell, Angela. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Leopold continued his action, even after the Belgium Parliament refused to annex the Congo. A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. The couple's first son, Louis Philippe, died in infancy prior to Leopold II's birth. Stanley was lionised across Europe. Thompsell, Angela. The Congo Free State was founded by Belgian King Leopold II on February 5, 1885, after he violently annexed the African continent. Several rebellions were mercilessly put down under Leopold's direction. Leopold then used the treaties to convince other Western colonial powers that he had legal right to the Congo River basin, an area more than fifty times the size of Belgium. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. p.20. But rumours of abuse began to circulate and missionaries and British journalist Edmund Dene Morel exposed the regime. William Morrison, a white man, and William Sheppard, the first black missionary in the Congo, were Presbyterians from Virginia whose acts of witness so infuriated Congo colonial authorities that they put the men on trial for libel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 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. Obtaining more precise statistics is difficult, for in 1908 King Leopold ordered the archives of his Congo state burned. The forced-labour system for gathering rubber was swiftly copied by French, German, and Portuguese colonial officials with equally fatal results. In order to enforce the near impossible rubber quotas imposed on villages, agents and officials called on the Free States army, the Force Publique. "King Leopold II and the Congo 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. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. In 1870 more than 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara was under the rule of indigenous chiefs or kings. Morel, E. D. (1904). Leopold (18351909) had ascended to the throne in 1865. He promised a humanitarian and philanthropic mission that would improve the lives of Africans. Updates? L'tat libre du Congo: Paradis perdu. 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. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. 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. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off. King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. In estimating situations without the benefit of complete census data, demographers are more confident speaking of percentages than absolute numbers. All failed. Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. Men who did not fulfill their quota were killed or mutilated. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. (1952). When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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 false to assume that one group of people is more civilized than another. 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. Wearing one of his many hats, that of a journalist, Williams expected to see the paradise of enlightened rule that Leopold had described to him in Brussels. Many more suffered from disease and torture. 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. (April 27, 2023). Hochschild, Adam (1998). Belgian officers were afraid that the rank and file of the Force Publique would waste bullets, so they demanded a human hand for each bullet their soldiers used as proof that the killings had been done. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. In Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, Leopold II's statues were moved to the National Museum. 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. The rapids and falls, had they known it, extended for 220 miles (350km) inland, and the terrain close by the river was impassable, and remains so to this day. 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. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. The first nationwide Congolese political party, the Congo National Movement, was launched in 1958 by Patrice Lumumba and other Congolese leaders. 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. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. View 6.2_Reading_Check.docx from HISTORY 2109320 at Coral Reef Senior High School. who owned land where rubber grew wild. Vocabulary On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. Baskets of severed hands thus resulted from expeditions against rebels. ." Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. (Colonizing other peoples, regardless of the justification, is wrong. 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. Bennett, Norman Robert. From 1874 through 1877 the British explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley (18411904) crossed Africa from east to west. She or he will best know the preferred format. In a TV debate this week, a former president of the Free University of Brussels, Herv Hasquin, argued there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, listing the health system, infrastructure, and primary education he said Belgium brought to Central Africa. Among those who weren't killed, many were punished by having a hand and/or foot amputated. 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. New York: Random House. Morel, E. D. (1919). Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. 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. 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. [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. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. It was down to rubber. 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. OF DECOLONIZATION 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. Pakenham, Thomas (1991). Interestingly, a longtime high colonial They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. The king's colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. 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. The only way to do that was through the use of terror. Omissions? 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. Villages throughout the region had been burned and depopulated. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? The army become known for its brutality, with the officers and soldiers being accused ofdestroying villages, taking hostages, raping, torturing, and extorting the people. The newly named Belgian Congo remained a colony until the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960. For instance, Leopold II was a first cousin of Queen Victoria of Britain. 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. "I will dance if it comes down. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. The history of Colonialism as a policy or practice go, THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION King Leopold II committed heinous . [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. Why did King Leopold give up the Congo? The country of Belgium itself was only about five years old at the birth of Leopold II, who became the eldest surviving son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Louise-Marie of Orlans. Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. Army officers and colonial officials earned bonuses based on the amount of rubber collected in areas under their control. Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. The results of this rule were very uneven. EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder. 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. 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. 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. Ewans, Martin (2002). 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 treaties, some of which appear to have been subsequently doctored to Leopolds liking, were then put to use by the Belgian monarch. 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. Therefore, King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his Read More Thesis Critique Of King Leopold's Ghost 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. L'histoire du Congo 18761900. ThoughtCo. "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. 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. Seeing what profits Leopold was reaping from forced labor, officials in these colonies soon adopted exactly the same systemincluding women hostages, forced male labor, and the chicottewith equally fatal consequences. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. Vangroenweghe, Daniel (1986). In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. Forbath, P. The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River, 1991 (Paperback). La question sociale au Congo: Rapport au comit du congrs colonial national. 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. With women as hostages and men forced to tap rubber, few able-bodied adults were left to hunt, fish, and cultivate crops. 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. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. 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. Benedetto, Robert, ed. But new rubber trees often require fifteen years of growth before they can be tapped. It is clearly understood that in this project there is no question of granting the slightest political power to the negros. ThoughtCo, Jun. 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. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. 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. 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. Joseph Conrad, who spent six months in the Congo in 1890, draws a memorable portrait of this rapacious trade in his novel Heart of Darkness. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 18901910. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Having established a beachhead on the lower Congo, in 1883 Stanley set out upriver to extend Leopold's domain, employing his usual methods: negotiations with local chiefs buying sovereignty in exchange for bolts of cloth and trinkets; playing one tribe off another; and if need be, simply shooting an obstructive chief and negotiating with his cowed successor instead. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036.
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