Leopold II | Biography, Facts, & Legacy | Britannica 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. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. 24 February 2004. Leopold, however, made the Belgian government pay him for his prized possession. [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. In 1879 Stanley returned to the Congo as Leopold's agent. The Congo Free State was founded by Belgian King Leopold II on February 5, 1885, after he violently annexed the African continent. A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. As he headed back to England, Stanley was assiduously courted by King Leopold II of Belgium. To secure their ." Leopold's reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. Although he played a significant role in the development of the modern Belgian state, he was also responsible for widespread atrocities committed under his rule against his colonial subjects. Why did King Leopold give up the Congo? In May 1885, Leopold took possession of his colony and named it the Congo Free State. Votin, Herero Why did Leopold want the Congo? Among those who weren't killed, many were punished by having a hand and/or foot amputated. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. "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. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. 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. With most able-bodied adults prisoners or forced laborers for several weeks out of each month, villages had few people who could plant and harvest food, or go hunting or fishing, and famine soon spread. "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." 6.2 Reading Check.docx - Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 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. Meanwhile, Leopold had already begun the job of persuading first the United Henry Morton Stanley (2011). However, Leopold's rule over the Congo Free State is well known for its cruelty. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. The Atrocities of the Congo Free State Rubber Regime - ThoughtCo For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. 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. 657, 660, 662). 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. Leopold's most formidable enemy surfaced in Europe. There seemed no economic sense to investing energy in Africa when the returns from other colonies were likely to be both richer and more immediate. 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. 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. Morel, E. D. (1968). The movement, in fact, eventually forced Leopold to relinquish his private ownership of the Congo to the Belgian state in 1908. However, as he approached Stanley Falls at the junction between the Congo proper and the Lualaba (close to the general vicinity of Central Africa where he had found Livingstone six years before), it soon became clear that Stanley's men were not the only intruders. 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. 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". 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. King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. 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. Civil rights leader 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. The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. 2 volumes. 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. But new rubber trees often require fifteen years of growth before they can be tapped. 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. Harper & Row. These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder. Leopold II became the next King of Belgium in 1865 and reigned until his death on December 17th, 1909. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. . Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 18901910. All rights reserved. The couple's first son, Louis Philippe, died in infancy prior to Leopold II's birth. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. King Leopold II was the ruler of the Congo Free State, and the King of Belgium. Imperialism in Africa Assignment and Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet Angela Thompsell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of British and African History at SUNY Brockport. New and revised edition. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. DR Congo: King Leopold's legacy - DW - 06/29/2020 It was too lucrative, for the price of rubber was still high. ThoughtCo, Jun. The only way to do that was through the use of terror. He was interested in the Congo river basin because there were many natural resources such as rubber, minerals, ivory, diamonds, and gold. 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. 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. For centuries African slave dealers had raided parts of this area, selling their captives to American and European captains who sailed Africa's west coast, and to traders who took slaves to the Arab world from the continent's east coast. 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. 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. It is false to assume that one group of people is more civilized than another. 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. Standing on the dock, Morel realized that he had uncovered irrefutable proof that a forced labor system was in operation 4,000 miles away. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In 1908, international pressure forced the king to turn the Congo Free State over to the country of Belgium. 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. When the ships turned around and steamed back to Africa, however, they carried no merchandise in exchange. However, he added, "since history teaches that colonies are useful, that they play a great part in that which makes up the power and prosperity of states, let us strive to get one in our turn."[4]. Some writers, almost entirely in Belgium, claim that such estimates are exaggerated. King Leopold II and the Congo The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. 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. 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. They were the very first royal family of Belgium, because the country was just 5 years old. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." Army officers and colonial officials earned bonuses based on the amount of rubber collected in areas under their control. 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. The horrors, though, are only one part of the story. Leopold II was born in 1835 to King Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orleans. In DR Congo itself, no-one has really noticed the Belgian protests, says Jules Mulamba, a lawyer in the south-eastern city of Lubambashi. In estimating situations without the benefit of complete census data, demographers are more confident speaking of percentages than absolute numbers. He made further progress toward realizing his objective at a diplomatic conference in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 that the major European powers attended. Millions of Congolese then found themselves suffering near-famine, which made them vulnerable to diseases they otherwise might have survived. Obtaining more precise statistics is difficult, for in 1908 King Leopold ordered the archives of his Congo state burned. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath. Why did King Leopold want to take over areas of Africa? 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. 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. 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. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. Using a wide variety of local and church sources, Jan Vansina, professor emeritus of history and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin and the leading ethnographer of Congo basin peoples, calculates that the Congo's population dropped by some 50 percent during this period, an estimate with which other modern scholars concur. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. 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. Belgium's Heart of Darkness | History Today there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, Democratic Republic of Congo country profile, called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities, apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Banana artwork in Seoul museum eaten by visitor, NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, Trevelyan relative 'would consider' famine payment, Ding becomes China's first male world chess champion, Indian 'killer' elephant relocated to tiger reserve. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. Corrections? 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. But why was Leopold's Congo so horrific? Thompsell, Angela. He provided for no education or vocational training, which would stunt future Congolese leaders from making sound economic and political policies. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Oasis Kodila Tedika et Francklin Kyayima Muteba, The sources of growth in DRC before independence. The New York Review of Books. 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. Villages throughout the region had been burned and depopulated. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. 2023 . Forbath, P. The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River, 1991 (Paperback). The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. 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. 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. "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). Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. Turkey Baster Dollar Tree, Florida First Responder Bonus 2022, How Much Weight Can A Cruise Ship Carry?, Articles W
">

Rating: 4.0/5