King Leopold's Ghost Essay

The film “The Ghost of King Leopold” portrays the struggles of native people in the Congo as King Leopold of Belgium drained the region of natural resources and exploited the native population. Leopold imperializes the Congo very easily because, the rest of the world took his word, when he said he was bettering the Congo region, in reality he was filling his own pockets. Leopold reigned from 1885-1908; he enslaved the native people of the Congo and used the whole region as his own personal plantation. Leopold took many things from the Congo; his largest profit margin was from the natural resources.

The rule of King Leopold II instilled disturbing methods of ruling. He enslaved the people of The democratic republic of Congo (Congolese) to gather him resources that would only benefit him. He was willing to do whatever it took to gain resources, even if it meant enslaving the people. “ King Leopold II nearly enslaved many of the Congolese people in order to gain wealth, and to bring power” (Citation) imperialism had a negative impact on the country, it had a long lasting impacts on the country because he depleted them of their resources which means they don't have much to export as a country now. King Leopold II used the people as slaves to gather their resources due to the danger of the work, which resulted in many casualties and injuries. He wanted to rule the country as he wanted rather than what was right for the people. He lied to the Belgian government in order to gain power of the country, by saying that his

Throughout this novel we see Leopold’s secrecy as he convinces hundreds of people of his pure intentions to create an area of free trade and prosperity of the African people. He did this by holding conferences such as the Geographical Conference. There he explained his fictitious aspiration for the abolishment of the slave trade and for peace in Africa. This colonial

Adam Hochschild’s “King Leopold’s Ghost” is an account of a man’s rise of power who was very cruel and did unimaginable things. When I began reading, I wasn’t sure where the novel was going, but I soon caught on to what Hochschild was revealing. As the story begins to unfold he tells a story of King Leopold II of Belgium who managed to seize land next to the Congo River in Africa. King Leopold used political manipulation and lies to get what he wanted. King Leopold had everyone fooled that he was a humanitarian and he was in the Congo for the greater good, but that was not the case. He claimed that civilizing the Congo would keep out “Arab slave- traders” to gain support of people, but Leopold wanted something else. Leopold was very

“The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse; we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever.” In King Leopold’s Ghost talks about Leopold II ruling over the Belgium Congo territory. He forced the enslaved individuals to do horrific and exhausting tasks, and people who disagreed with him made it known of his horrible acts. Several countries began to disagree with Leopold’s dictatorship. He was a tyrant. King Leopold’s Ghost is a phenomenal book because of the way individuals can make a difference in others lives. The theme of this book is something that relates to our lives everyday. Our actions can impacts individuals tremendously.

The late 1800’s marked the peak of imperialism throughout Europe, primarily Africa. As a new century began to evolve, many European powers aggressively decide to surmount their power in many parts of Africa. More specifically, King Leopold’s journey to conquer the Congo and exploit the lucrative rubber/ivory market accurately describes the forced efforts of tyranny. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild explains the propaganda remunerated by people in favor and opposition of King Leopold’s conquest. It also features the contributions of journalists and writers in relation to Leopold colonizing the Congo through means of propaganda, missionaries, use of other countries, and other various other methods to end his rule and change the common perceptions of imperialism. The main goal, however, of writers in the Congo, was to let the world know of Leopold’s actions and to end his selfish ruling.

Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International

“Belgian colonialism had deliberately kept the African population untrained and uneducated, reduced to the status of beasts of burden...On the eve of independence, the Congo, a territory larger than Western Europe, was seriously underdeveloped. ” (Vann)

In conclusion, Belgian colonial administration had two distinct types of ruling periods: the direct company rules (Congolese Free State) and the direct colonial rule (Belgian Congo). With a staggering number of natives killed, per the reports, 10 millions of human losses of life. Human rights were violated at every level. Bodied were mutilated, capital punishments were also in place. This period was called “King Leopold II’s Genocide.” The local people were forced to pay taxes and subjected to forced labor. There are lots of similarities between Leopold II’s Congo in 1885 to 1908, Belgian Congo in 1908 to 1960 and the modern Congo, since Democratic Congo, the vast central African state has seldom know political stability. The soldiers have

According to a report from the World Bank in 2015, the Congo is “among the poorest countries in the world.” In contrast, a Congolese refugee of the Casement Report released in 1904 informed of the brutality their family were subject to by Belgian soldiers. They recounted that “We had to go further and further into the forest… without food… we starved….leopards killed some of us… and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation… soldiers said: ‘Go! You are only beasts yourselves.’” Additionally, another refugee from the same report disclosed that troops would “often kill the Congolese for the sake of rubber. Once, a soldier, pointing to a basket, said… ‘look, only two hands! That’s nothing… I brought the white man 160 hands.” The hands the soldier was referring to were those of the Congolese workers who labored in dangerous forests to find rubber. Indigenous people were denied sustenance, had their hands cut off for amusement, or were shot, at the whims of Belgian soldiers. The meager wages paid to the Congolese could not be collected while the worker was recovering from injury, which forced greater poverty to befall the people of Congo in the long run. When the injury was permanent, such as a severed limb, families lost the little income they had. As a result, many starved to death. This poverty was then handed down to further generations, creating a ripple effect that can still be felt today. Over half a century later, Congo is an acutely poor nation. This is the culmination of violence the Congolese faced during colonization. Without the cruelness of the Belgian colonists, families would have enough money to buy proper nutrition for themselves, and many more people would survive. Therefore, the end result of poverty in modern-day Congo is a direct consequence of the savagery inflicted upon the indigenous people during

The colonization of the Congo strongly affected the social life of the Congolese. First Leopold had people enslaved who would collect rubber. Other were forced to be soldiers. The force publique, the name given to these soldiers, killed many of their own people. “When the soldiers were sent to make us cut rubber there were so many killed we got tiered of burying” –A Congolese person reviewed by casement. This quote shows not only how the people of Congo were forced to work, but also how the force publique soldiers were forced to kill fellow natives. Enslavement like that has people think they are not socially acceptable. The people of the Congo would have viewed themselves as less then human.

During the 1930s, Congo was controlled by the Belgians and King Leopold and was considered a Free State. The Belgians used indirect rule in Congo where Congolese groups could govern their own cities while being looked over by Belgium. According to “The Congolese and Self-Determination”, from April 30, 1885 to April 1958 when the article was written, the Congo Free State experienced paternalism within their political activity (p105). Throughout the article, the author uses evidence to write about the factors that influenced the people of the Congo to express their desire for emancipation. Therefore, the article “The Congolese and Self-Determination” uses an objective style of writing to portray the attmept of the Congolese to become

In 1908, Leopold II, King of the Belgians handed over the Free State of Congo, acquired in 1889, to Belgium. In 1960, the Congo became an independent Republic. Fifty-five years after the independence of the Congo, the traces of its colonisation can still be found everywhere in Belgium; from the imposing monuments and buildings scattered around the country built with the money Leopold gained from the extraction of the Congo’s natural resources, to the African artefacts and collection of butterflies found in many ex-colonisers’ houses, to this expression of the common language: “Tout ça ne nous rendra pas le Congo”. Although this Congolese past is clearly ‘physically’ present in Belgium, it is interesting to see how it is remembered and understood

Although promising he would advance his private property to improve the lives of the native Africans, he immediately seized any vacant land in which no European was living on and deemed it the state’s property. His servants working under him were then encouraged to exploit this land for the benefit of their own with little regard to the native’s own lives. Under King Leopold II’s administration, the Congo Free State was divided into two economic zones: the

The first step of action Lumumba needed to take as a leader of a postcolonial, which also happened to end up being one of his greatest difficulties, was to build the Congo into an official state in order to create a greater sense of stability. One of the most important pieces of building this ‘state’ was to create a viable economy for the country, however, this was much