Rubber In The Congo Research Paper

Admitted in the Memoir of Ndansi Kumalo, “Well, the white men have brought us some good things. For a start, they brought us European implements - plows; we can buy European clothes, which are an advance. The government has arranged for education and through that, when our children grow up, they may rise in status.” The Europeans admittedly brought many great things to the Natives of the countries they conquered; better technology, education, and overall help were given to the natives. In the beginning, Europeans tried as much as they could to prop up the natives to a better, civilised stature. However, as their power and grasp on the region increased, as did their greed. According to Richard Harding Davis in Leopold, The Janitor from the Congo and the Coasts of Africa, “The Charges brought against Leopold II, as King of the Congo, are three: (1) That he has made slaves of the twenty million blacks he promised to protect. (2) That, in spite of his promise to keep the Congo open to trade, he has closed it to all nations. (3) That the revenues of the country and all of its trade has retained to himself.” Such imperialism allowed far away kings to exploit their populaces of Native Africans as if they were just toys to the crown. Leaders would force their powerless and technologically underdeveloped subjects into fruitless

Vern Cleary, “King Leopold and the conquest of the Congo”, modern world history, accessed february 16, 2017, https://webs.dcp.org/sites/cleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/imperialism/section_6/kingleopold.html

During the late 19th to early 20th century, King Leopold II impacted the African Continent and the larger International community more than any other European monarch. Firstly, King Leopold II sinisterly orchestrated a colonization operation that is comparative to a genocidal regime. Secondly, King Leopold II’s actions in the Congo led unified condemnation across oceans from a broad range of socioeconomic statues. Lastly, the opposition forces against King Leopold II’s colonization of Congo helped pave the way for future justice on the continent as well as internationally. Ultimately, this Europe created the competitive environment that promoted King Leopold II’s quest for colonization.

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

Riches in central Africa. In what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, there was and still is a plethora of natural resources. Rubber, gold, copper, diamonds and more. That natural wealth has definitely hurt Congo in the past rather than helped. Its resources could have made it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But yet, this future did not hold true for the Congo. At the turn of the 20th century, King Leopold II began to take notice of the central African country. (National Black United Front). King Leopold II communicated all his ideas and intentions through a speech to European missionaries. (Africa Global Network). In it, his words held the key to all things terrible. Soon, Belgium took over the Congo and began one of the

Soon, with the invention of the tire, rubber became a hot commodity. Fortunately for King Leopold, the Congo Free State had an abundance of rubber as well, and thus Leopold even further invested in Africa, creating roads and railways to transport goods past the treacherous African landscape (CITATION).

Notably medicine and education was advanced saving many lives by making healthcare more accessible and educating thousands of children when the Belgians took the control of the Congo, after Leopold’s rule. Many of the ancestors of the health professional and nuns that came to the Congo believe “Belgium did nothing but good in Africa” (Roxburgh). On the contrary, this statement by many, is very false because of the many human rights abuses and squandering of the resources and the destruction of the prior political system in the Congo. It is noted that during reign of King Leopold and the rest of Belgium rule over the Congo, 10 million people died because of supposed disobedience or rebellion . This group that killed the Congolese was called the Force Publique, a group that also “control the slave laborers” (Macmillan). Also the Force Publique, would target anyone of any age and would punish people if they did not produce enough rubber or gold, by burning down village and mutilating peoples bodies. This was done to ensure the production of rubber and maintain control of the Congo to give Belgium more money to use to bring progress in their own nation and build up their

The definition of Economic Liberalism is the idea of approaching the market with private property, limited government intervention and the encouragement that a free market will be driven by supply and demand fueled by citizens that desire to succeed…. This is the complete opposite approach Leopold took in the Congo. In a free market, there is the notion that it will succeed because the people want to work for their own success. In the Congo, Stanley, Leopold’s consultant doing the groundwork, refers to the locals as lazy and needing guidance while he promotes “the gospel of enterprise,” (68) known today as free enterprise. Almost as if going along with Modernization Theory, he continues to say that they are too idle and the issue is Africans themselves, they are barbaric and clothesless. In a treaty created between the Belgians and the locals through Stanley, they decide the payment for the forced

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.

The Belgians imperialized Congo to exploit their natural resources to make a profit. King Leopold II of Belgium imperialized Congo with his army, known as the “The Forced Publique” in 1885, despite Leopold having never gone to the Congo himself. Belgian’s imperialism was set with the goal in mind of exploiting Congo’s enormous supply of ivory. By the 1890’s King Leopold controlled the vast majority of Belgium. Over time, “the world did not lose its desire for ivory, but by the late 1890’s wild rubber had far surpassed it as the main source of revenue from the Congo.”(159). Leopold did not care about the Congolese or their land, and in fact was so aggressive with using Congo’s rubber plants, and free labor that Alexandre Delcommune, a Congolese business man, predicted that in ten years if Leopold was still in power, “[people]

“To Europeans, Africans were inferior beings: Lazy, uncivilized, little better than animals... In any system of terror, the functionaries must first of all see the victims as less than human, and Victorian ideals about race provided such a foundation” (Hochschild 121). The society in which King Leopold II lived shaped his view that the people of Africa were inferior, that their lives were significant, and this idea began to spread to most of Europe. This allowed the Belgian king to focus on his main purpose of colonizing the Congo: money. Despite his portrayal that his main motivation for colonizing the Congo was not profit, King Leopold was definitely motivated by money, and and because of this motivation he turned a blind eye to what was happening in

As well, the effects of European Imperialism on Africa and Asia was socially negative because the European treated the people unfairly. Before the Imperialism in Congo, Congo people had a lot of land. Once King Leopold II took over Congo in the late 1800’s, he took over their natural resources, including, jungles and the Congo river. King Leopold II imperialized Congo because of it manufacture goods, that includes rubber and iron. However, rubber was the most important product.

With several overtly expressed themes, one can clearly see the consequences of imperialism, racism, and capitalism which explicitly addressed in the book. In this paper, I’d like to draw attention to an underlying theme which played many pivotal roles throughout the course of the conquest of the Congo: technology. Technology was a key component in both constructing King Leopold’s empire in the Congo and in dismantling it through the efforts of the international human rights movement led by E.D Morel and Roger Casement. Different technological instruments make their appearance subtly throughout the book but three specific innovations had major impacts on the development and disintegration of the Belgian Congo: river steamers, the telegraph, and photography. Without these inventions, Leopold’s detailed orchestration of the Congo conquest would’ve been an impossible venture. These instruments brought about improvements in exploration and communication which made Leopold’s covert manipulation and Stanley’s navigation through the Congo feasible.

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

Imperialism was a distorted inhumane way of the ruling of a country to transport goods and other needs. The African tribes were put through the most barbaric conditions known to man. And due to these conditions, the African society was changed forever. One of the many jobs the people of the Congo had to complete was extracting rubber from trees and bringing it back to the Europeans to sell it because many people around the world wanted to build products