He called it tat Indpendant du Congo, the Congo Free State. On December 12, 1963, the flag of independent Kenya billowed over the capital city of Nairobi f, Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968 And under such circumstances people tended to stop having children, so the birthrate plummeted as a result. 27 Apr. From the start the regime was founded on forced labor. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. For some years ivory was a principal source of the great wealth that Leopold and his associates drew from the new colony. 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. The king then embarked on an ultimately successful effort to make a vast fortune from his new possession. Read about our approach to external linking. In May 1885, Leopold took possession of his colony and named it the Congo Free State. To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. 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. . Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. Du sang sur les lianes. 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. 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. The king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. As a result of King Leopold actions, thousands of African tribes populations decreased significantly. Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. Marchal, Jules (1996). Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. 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. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. Why did Leopold want the Congo? - JOUNIMARTIKAINEN In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. It was the world's only major colony owned by one man. During that window of time those who profited were the people 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. . Hochschild, Adam (October 6, 2005). 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. 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. There are at least 13 statues to Leopold II in Belgium, according to one crowd-sourced map, and numerous parks, squares and street names. 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. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. But rumours of abuse began to circulate and missionaries and British journalist Edmund Dene Morel exposed the regime. After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. Imperialism in Africa Assignment and Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. "It is indispensable", instructed Leopold, "that you should purchase for the Comit d'tudes[fr] (i.e., Leopold himself) as much land as you can obtain". 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). Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. 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. Men who did not fulfill their quota were killed or mutilated. . The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. Belgium's education minister announced this week that secondary schools would teach colonial history from next year. 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. But why was Leopold's Congo so horrific? ADAM HOCHSCHILD. 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. The Belgian cabinet of the day was not interested in colonies. An even greater toll was taken by disease: various lung and intestinal diseases, tuberculosis, smallpox, and, above all, sleeping sickness. Leopold was an intelligent and ruthless man who wasn't afraid to lie or kill in order to expand Belgium's power. 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. 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. Some writers, almost entirely in Belgium, claim that such estimates are exaggerated. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. [5] None of these schemes came anywhere near fruition: the government of Belgium resolutely resisted all Leopold's suggestions, seeing the acquisition of a colony as a good way to spend large amounts of money for little or no return. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) ." 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. 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. New and revised edition. She or he will best know the preferred format. GENEALOGY OF THE TERM DECOLONIZATION In return European leaders, gathered at the Berlin Conference, granted him 2m sq km (770,000 sq miles) to forge a personal colony where he was free to do as he liked. 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. The king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. Read about our approach to external linking. While Leopold II did much to establish Belgium as an economically and militarily stable power in Europe, he is chiefly remembered for the nightmarish practices that were carried out in his name. 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. 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 rebels displayed a courage worthy of a better cause," (Flament et al., 1952, p. 417) acknowledged the army's official historywhich, remarkably, devoted fully one-quarter of its pages to the various campaigns against mutineers within the army's own ranks. Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge. In 1908, international pressure forced the king to turn the Congo Free State over to the country of Belgium. 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. Votin, Herero The first nationwide Congolese political party, the Congo National Movement, was launched in 1958 by Patrice Lumumba and other Congolese leaders. Soon after Stanley returned from the Congo, Leopold tried to recruit him. A petition calling on the city for its removal has reached 74,000 signatures. June 11th, 2020. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." 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. "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. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the early years the main commodity Leopold sought was ivory. It would be "really significant for Congolese people, especially those whose families perished," she explains. 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. "Almost all of them", he wrote, "clamoured for expenses of all kinds, which included wine, tobacco, cigars, clothes, shoes, board and lodging, and certain nameless extravagances"[10]:71 (by which he meant attractive slaves to warm their beds). Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town". New York: Alfred A. Knopf. )1978 States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. 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. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. He wrote three books on the Congo, several dozen pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, making much use of eyewitness testimony from the missionaries. 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. Why did King Leopold colonize the Congo? Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. 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. 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. 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. If that figure is accurate and it represents 50 percent of what the population had been in 1880, this would suggest a loss of 10 million people. In the early 1890s, Leopold's private African army, the Force Publique (Public Force), drove the powerful Muslim slave traders out of the Congo. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off. She does not believe it will not be quick or easy. A short history of colonialism in Congo, 1885-1997 | libcom.org King Leopold II committed heinous . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. 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. For activists the holy grail is the giant statue of Leopold II on horseback at the gates of the Royal Palace in Brussels. He made further progress toward realizing his objective at a diplomatic conference in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 that the major European powers attended. In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. 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. Encyclopedia.com. For all his social shortcomings in European society, he was undoubtedly the right man for the job. The royal palace is yet to give its own response. Stanley was applauded, admired, decoratedand ignored. [3], As a constitutional monarch, Leopold was charged with the usual constitutional duties of opening parliaments, greeting diplomats, and attending state funerals. Europeans were interested in Africa for its abundance of natural resources (ivory, rubber, gold, etc.) Throughout the world's tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. 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. wives' release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. 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 results of this rule were very uneven. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, US black man George Floyd in police custody, statues of racist historical figures vandalised or removed, "rape, mutilation and genocide of millions of Congolese". Leopold's most formidable enemy surfaced in Europe. Morel, E. D. (1919). Leopold II | Biography, Facts, & Legacy | Britannica Estimates suggest more than 50% died there. Leopold II established a colony in the Congo to gain natural resources for Belgium and wealth for himself. 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. (2022, June 2). Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. In 1924 the first territory-wide census, when adjusted for undercounting, placed the number of colony inhabitants at some ten million. Vangroenweghe, Daniel (1986). https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/king-leopold-ii-and-congo, "King Leopold II and the Congo Forty years later virtually all of it had been transformed into European colonies, protectorates, or territories ruled by white settlers. Beyond removal of statues, far more work is required to dismantle racism, protesters and black communities argue. 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. In 2010, former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel and the father of future prime minister Charles Michel, called Leopold "a hero with ambitions for a small country like Belgium". 2, 2022, thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. t. e. Colonization of the Congo Basin refers to the European colonization of the Congo Basin of tropical Africa. The forced-labour system for gathering rubber was swiftly copied by French, German, and Portuguese colonial officials with equally fatal results. 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. 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". Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). In 1870 more than 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara was under the rule of indigenous chiefs or kings. Leopold II and the Congo Free State - HISTORY CRUNCH OF DECOLONIZATION official, Major Charles C. Liebrechts, made the same estimate in 1920. 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. And in 2018, Brussels named a public square in honour of Patrice Lumumba, a hero of African independence movements and the first prime minister of Congo, since renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo. Charles Michel, prime minister at the time, declined.