(April 27, 2023). From 1874 through 1877 the British explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley (18411904) crossed Africa from east to west. Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. When the ships turned around and steamed back to Africa, however, they carried no merchandise in exchange. He persuaded first the United States and then all the major nations of western Europe to recognize a huge swath of Central Africaroughly the same territory as the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congoas his personal property. BBC World Service: 50 Things That Made the Modern . 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. La Force publique de sa naissance 1914: Participation des militaires l'histoire des premires annes du Congo. Thompsell, Angela. 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. When did George Washington Williams visit the Congo? For all his social shortcomings in European society, he was undoubtedly the right man for the job. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. The history of Colonialism as a policy or practice go, THE CAUSE OF DECOLONIZATION 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). King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild Plot Summary | LitCharts "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. [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. Jolle Sambi Nzeba, a Belgian-Congolese poet and spokesperson for the Belgian Network for Black Lives, says the statues tell her she is "less than a regular Belgian". European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath. Why did Leopold want the Congo? After Morel orchestrated a protest resolution by the British Parliament, the government, in response, asked its representative in the Congo to investigate his charges. 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. The treaties, some of which appear to have been subsequently doctored to Leopolds liking, were then put to use by the Belgian monarch. Discipline was harsh; reluctant military conscripts, disobedient porters, and villagers who failed to gather enough rubber all fell victim to the notorious chicotte, a whip made of sun-dried hippopotamus hide with razor-sharp edges. Like statues of racist historical figures vandalised or removed in Britain and the US, Leopold II's days on Belgian streets could now be numbered. Morel, E. D. (1904). Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century East Central Africa. 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. Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 By the end of the 19th century, the Basin had been carved up by European colonial powers, into the Congo Free State, the French Congo and the Portuguese Congo (modern Cabinda Province of Angola). I Have a Dream Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. King Leopold's Rule in Africa. In the early 1890s, Leopold's private African army, the Force Publique (Public Force), drove the powerful Muslim slave traders out of the Congo. For instance, Leopold II was a first cousin of Queen Victoria of Britain. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Beyond removal of statues, far more work is required to dismantle racism, protesters and black communities argue. What Did King Leopold Of Belgium Do In The Congo? - Caniry It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. 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. 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. All rights reserved. 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. 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. In January 1959, riots broke out in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) after a rally was held calling for the independence of the Congo. 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. 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. 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. 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. Last week thousands in the country of 11 million joined solidarity protests about the killing of US black man George Floyd in police custody. The events in King Leopold's Congo also rippled beyond its borders in a more positive way: They gave birth to the twentieth century's first great international human rights movement (see sidebar). 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. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. London: Heinemann. 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. Colonization of the Congo Basin - Wikipedia Montgomery Bus Boycott In two ways the Congo's rubber boom had lasting impact beyond the territory itself. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) 2 volumes. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. 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. At various times, he launched unsuccessful schemes to buy an Argentine province, to buy Borneo from the Dutch, rent the Philippines from Spain, or establish colonies in China, Vietnam, Japan, or the Pacific islands. King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. One particularly notorious practice grew out of the suppression of those rebellions. Most made no protest, but some were outraged at the brutal forced labor system. Belgian Congo | History & Facts | Britannica 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. A short history of colonialism in Congo, 1885-1997 | libcom.org Many women hostages were raped and a significant number starved to death. . Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). 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. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. 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 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. He died the following year. From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. Many of the surrounding colonies also had rain forests rich in wild rubberPortuguese-controlled northern Angola, the Cameroons under the Germans, and the French Congo, part of French Equatorial Africa, across the Congo River. The great population movements caused by the colonial regime brought these illnesses into areas where people had not built up an immunity to them, and many would have died even under a government far less brutal than Leopold's. 27 Apr. 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. But other scholars use even higher numbers. 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. Ewans, Martin (2002). 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. Presbyterian Reformers in Central Africa: A Documentary Account of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission and the Human Rights Struggle in the Congo, 18901918. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. 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. Ascherson, Neal (1963). To secure their [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. Estimates suggest more than 50% died there. States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. 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 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. 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. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. 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. An even greater toll was taken by disease: various lung and intestinal diseases, tuberculosis, smallpox, and, above all, sleeping sickness. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. 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. 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. . He made further progress toward realizing his objective at a diplomatic conference in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 that the major European powers attended. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). "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. For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. He was a figure who, one might have had every reason to expect, would devote himself to maintaining his country's strict neutrality, avoiding giving offence to any of his powerful neighbours, and indulging his keenly developed tastes for the pleasures of the flesh, rather than one who would make a profound impact on history. ADAM HOCHSCHILD. The British consul, an Irishman named Roger Casement, later famous as an Irish patriot, took the assignment seriously. This army was composed of White officers and African soldiers. "I will dance if it comes down. 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. Then, rather than perish in the impenetrable country of the cascades, Stanley took a wide detour overland to come within striking distance of the European trading station at Boma on the Congo estuary. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Equipped with repeating rifles, cannons, and machine guns and fighting against Africans with only spears or antiquated muskets, King Leopold's 19,000-man army (black conscripts under white officers) gradually took control of the vast territory. 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. A Bantu people, they had moved south into this region f, King of the Bingo Game by Ralph Ellison, 1944, https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo. 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. A hundred lashes of the chicotte, a not infrequent punishment, could be fatal. The couple's first son, Louis Philippe, died in infancy prior to Leopold II's birth. 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. Leopold's eventual response was extraordinary in its hubris and simplicity. 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. 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. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. Corrections? [12] At the end of his physical resources, Stanley returned home, to be replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Francis de Winton, formerly a British Army officer. Leopold was an intelligent and ruthless man who wasn't afraid to lie or kill in order to expand Belgium's power. That pressure finally forced him to relinquish his ownership of the territory, and it became the Belgian Congo in 1908. EUROPEAN EFFORTS TO REINVENT OVERSEA, Kenyatta, Jomo 1891(? 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. Demonstrations and protests demanded that Leopold end human rights abuses in the Congo Free State. Brussels: Goemaere. 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. William Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. For some years ivory was a principal source of the great wealth that Leopold and his associates drew from the new colony. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. In 1908, international pressure forced the king to turn the Congo Free State over to the country of Belgium. Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. Why did King Leopold the II want the Congo? What did his - Brainly New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986. Furthermore, as in any society where men and women are separated, traumatized, or in flight as refugees, the birth rate dropped precipitously. [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. 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. Reform in Leopold's Congo. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. King Leopold II and the Congo The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. 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. Furthermore, huge, uncounted numbers of Congolese fled the forced labor regime, but the only refuge to which they could escape was the depths of the rain forest, where there was little food and no shelter; travelers would discover their bones years later. Read about our approach to external linking. But for over 20 years he had been agitating for Belgium to take its place among the great colonial powers of Europe. Leopold bought half of the Congo as his own private possession after convincing the European community that his actions would be humanitarian and philanthropic. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. 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. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press. 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. 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. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. The horrors, though, are only one part of the story. 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. With women as hostages and men forced to tap rubber, few able-bodied adults were left to hunt, fish, and cultivate crops. 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 is clearly understood that in this project there is no question of granting the slightest political power to the negros. Thompsell, Angela. [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. They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off. 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. As the realities and suffering within the Congo Free State became more widely known, many European people spoke out against these abuses. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Hochschild, Adam (October 6, 2005). 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. [11]:66. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. He promised a humanitarian and philanthropic mission that would improve the lives of Africans.
Called Up Share Capital Not Paid Uk Dormant Company,
Nca Officer Salary Uk,
Blue Air Contact Number London,
Wreck On 360 In Arlington, Tx Today,
Articles W