why did king leopold want the congo

On December 12, 1963, the flag of independent Kenya billowed over the capital city of Nairobi f, Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968 If the government of Belgium would not take a colony, then he would simply do it himself, acting in his private capacity as an ordinary citizen. Congo Free State - Wikipedia New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. 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. Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. 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. Leopold continued his action, even after the Belgium Parliament refused to annex the Congo. Read about our approach to external linking. This was to be his most enduring legacy. In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. The Hidden Holocaust: How King Leopold II - The African Exponent If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. 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. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Because of his actions King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his exploration and abuse to the Congo land and people. But new rubber trees often require fifteen years of growth before they can be tapped. All failed. Stanley was applauded, admired, decoratedand ignored. Shocked by recent local census statistics that showed less than one child per woman, the official Commission Institue pour la Protection des Indignes made a similar reckoning in 1919. 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). 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. Unlike previous European nations that spread their influence over 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. London, Curzon Press, p.27. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. To secure their The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. 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. . Millions of Congolese then found themselves suffering near-famine, which made them vulnerable to diseases they otherwise might have survived. Brussels: Didier Hatier. In 1908, international pressure forced the king to turn the Congo Free State over to the country of Belgium. 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. William Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. They were the very first royal family of Belgium, because the country was just 5 years old. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. Leopold's reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. In the early years the main commodity Leopold sought was ivory. Because his only son had predeceased him, Leopolds nephew Albert I succeeded to the throne. Leopold (18351909) had ascended to the throne in 1865. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. But why was Leopold's Congo so horrific? 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). 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. Presbyterian Reformers in Central Africa: A Documentary Account of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission and the Human Rights Struggle in the Congo, 18901918. Bulletin Officiel du Congo Belge (1920). Dark Safari: The Life behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley. 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). 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. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. official, Major Charles C. Liebrechts, made the same estimate in 1920. 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. Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. Colonial administrators also kidnapped orphaned children from communities and transported them to "child colonies" to work or train as soldiers. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." The horrific consequences of rubber's toxic past - BBC News For some years ivory was a principal source of the great wealth that Leopold and his associates drew from the new colony. Leopold II and the Congo Free State - HISTORY CRUNCH 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. Encyclopedia.com. Read about our approach to external linking. In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. GENEALOGY OF THE TERM DECOLONIZATION 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. Killings, famine and disease combined to cause the deaths of perhaps 10 million people, though historians dispute the true number. King Leopold II and the Congo | Encyclopedia.com For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. If the estimates from varied sources of a 50 percent toll in King Leopold's Congo are correct, how many people does this mean? Thompsell, Angela. ." 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. 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. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. In the far south, for example, a chief named Mulume Niama led warriors of the Sanga people in a rebellion that killed one of the king's officers. Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Africans also died in two decades' worth of unsuccessful uprisings against the king's regime. The kings stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. 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. Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Topic 6.2 Reading Check 1. 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. 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. Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. Interestingly, a longtime high colonial National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. 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. This makeover of Leopold's image produced an amnesia that persisted for decades. Estimates suggest more than 50% died there. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. The Herero were traditional occupants of the temperate high plains of central Namibia. Early and Personal Life. 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. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Oasis Kodila Tedika et Francklin Kyayima Muteba, The sources of growth in DRC before independence. A hundred lashes of the chicotte, a not infrequent punishment, could be fatal. The king then embarked on an ultimately successful effort to make a vast fortune from his new possession. For activists the holy grail is the giant statue of Leopold II on horseback at the gates of the Royal Palace in Brussels. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. 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 Congo". It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. La question sociale au Congo: Rapport au comit du congrs colonial national. (1996). He died the following year. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. 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. The king's colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. Why did King Leopold colonize the Congo? 06/29/2020. Leopold II of Belgium - Wikipedia In 1870 more than 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara was under the rule of indigenous chiefs or kings. 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. 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. "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. Leopold was an intelligent and ruthless man who wasn't afraid to lie or kill in order to expand Belgium's power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) One particularly notorious practice grew out of the suppression of those rebellions. 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). "Everyone is waking up from a sleep, it's a reckoning with the past," explains Debora Kayembe, a Congolese human rights lawyer who has lived in Belgium. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. 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. 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 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. 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. It was the worlds only private colony, and Leopold referred to himself as its proprietor.. The history of Colonialism as a policy or practice go, THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. 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. Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. 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. King Leopold II's Colonization Of The Congo | ipl.org Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. In 2019, the cities of Kortrijk and Dendermonde renamed their Leopold II streets, with Kortrijk council describing the king as a "mass murderer". Votin, Herero It was down to rubber. This army was composed of White officers and African soldiers. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. The king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. . Why did the Belgian Congo happen? - Sage-Answer As the realities and suffering within the Congo Free State became more widely known, many European people spoke out against these abuses. The British consul, an Irishman named Roger Casement, later famous as an Irish patriot, took the assignment seriously. Soldiers were also reportedly promised their freedom or given other incentives for killing the most people as proven by supplying the most hands. 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. They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. First, the system of exploitation established there became a model for colonial rule in other parts of central Africa. 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. That would be absurd."[9]. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Some writers, almost entirely in Belgium, claim that such estimates are exaggerated. 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. 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. 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. It was the world's only major colony owned by one man. 2 volumes. 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. 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. 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. Why did King Leopold colonize the Congo? - Sage-Advices Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. He established his control over the colony through the use of brute force in an attempt to wean the Congolese into submission. 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. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. Marchal, Jules (1996). Leopold II was born in 1835 to King Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orleans. 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 army become known for its brutality, with the officers and soldiers being accused ofdestroying villages, taking hostages, raping, torturing, and extorting the people. 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. 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. That pressure finally forced him to relinquish his ownership of the territory, and it became the Belgian Congo in 1908. 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. All rights reserved. Company agents were paid large concessions on top of their salaries for the profits they generated, creating personal incentives to force people to work more and harder for little to no pay. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. Belgian King Establishes Congo Free State - National Geographic Society How did King Leopold gain control of the Congo? In 1879 Stanley returned to the Congo as Leopold's agent. . He called it Congo Free State. "King Leopold II's Exploitation of the Congo From 1885 to 1908 - STARS Forbath, P. The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River, 1991 (Paperback). Imperialism in Africa Assignment and Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet (April 27, 2023). Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. Marchal, Jules (1996). 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. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. 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. Leopolds reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. 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 quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge. For decades, colonial history has been barely taught in Belgium. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press. Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. 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. 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. An even greater toll was taken by disease: various lung and intestinal diseases, tuberculosis, smallpox, and, above all, sleeping sickness. Morel soon quit his job and in short order turned himself into the greatest British investigative journalist of his time. Belgium's education minister announced this week that secondary schools would teach colonial history from next year. 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. 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. Many more suffered from disease and torture. Shaloff, Stanley (1970). Leopold acquired the Congo through unethical means and thus took the people's chances away at self-rule. The royal palace is yet to give its own response. 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. 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. Setting out from Zanzibar, Henry Morton Stanley, a British-born American journalist and explorer aimed to find the famous Dr. Livingstone. 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. He became duke of Brabant in 1846 and served in the Belgian army. 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. For many years Leopold II was widely known as a leader who defended Belgium's neutrality in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war and commissioned public works fit for a modern nation. 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. Stanley was lionised across Europe. L'tat libre du Congo: Paradis perdu. Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. 1996 - 2023 National Geographic Society. 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. Retrieved September 22, 2017. Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Dec 14, 2022. 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. 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. 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. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. [3], As a constitutional monarch, Leopold was charged with the usual constitutional duties of opening parliaments, greeting diplomats, and attending state funerals. "King Leopold II and the Congo 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. Warning: This piece contains graphic pictures. 27 Apr. 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.
Does Dasani Dehydrate You, Cb East Daily Announcements, Nsw Food Authority Name And Shame 2020, Articles W