Summary: Adventures In Public History

During the 18th and early 19th centuries the Belgian took control over the Congo and colonized the area as their property. Near the same time the British wanted a location to colonize and make money eventually they took over India and began to colonize the majority of the area. Both the Belgian and British colonial practices similar in their methods that they used to control the area , but different in the treatment towards native people.

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

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild explains the lead up to and the establishment of the Congo Free State under Belgium. Hochschild does so through many accounts of the life going on inside the Congo during the exploration of the Africa and the beginning of an established government in the Congo. The death toll during Leopold’s reign could have reached over 10 million before the Belgium government would take the Congo away from the out of control Leopold. This could make the Leopold’s Congo one of the worst genocides in human history. Unfortunately there was no basis for recording the murders by Leopold’s officers, so we will never know the exact figure of the death toll.

The study of history and the teaching of history has come under intense public debate in the United States in the last few decades. The “culture-wars” began with the call to add more works by non-Caucasians and women and has bled into the study of history. Not only in the study of history or literature, this debate has spread into American culture like wildfire.

Public history is performed outside of the traditional research-based college campuses, whether it be in a museum, archive, National Park Service, and more. Public history should be focused around a shared authority - history is for everyone, not only for discussion by academics and public historians should be the intermediary between history and the public. No one owns

1909, over one hundred years ago, was the death of King Leopold of Belgium the sole owner of the Congo. Even years after he has left this earth and is no longer in the reign, the long-lasting effects he has had on the people and the land has forever changed the Congo. The memories left behind from the atrocities that occurred and the diminished resources due to extreme exploitation has prompted the author Adam Hochschild to write the novel, King Leopold’s Ghost. Using an Afrocentric point of view Hochschild describes how the events that took place under Leopold’s orders were acts of true terror and inhumanity.

The term slave is defined as a person held in servitude as the chattel of another, or one that is completely passive to a dominating influence. The most well-known cases of slavery occurred during the settling of the United States of America. From 1619 until July 1st 1928 slavery was allowed within our country. Slavery abolitionists attempted to end slavery, which at some point; they were successful at doing so. In a quote by Fredrick Douglas, “A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.” Throughout history many things have happened that were by many thought to be unconscionable. Yet, the people who were putting their mark of unacceptance upon those committing these crimes, who thought them to be deplorable acts, were unaware of the actual situations, and in many cases, committing the same acts themselves.

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

King Leopold II ruled the Congo from 1885 to 1908. “He ruled the Congo less as a colony but more as his own personal priority. He treated the native Congolese nearly as slaves and used the wealth of the Congo to grow his own personal wealth.” (http://drcimperialism.weebly.com/life-under-imperialist-power.html). Under his rule the people of the Congo were treated horribly. The Congolese experienced a humanitarian disaster consisting of enslavement, exploitation, and even extermination. Moreover, by the end of this era it was estimated that the population was cut in half. “Eventually international outrage forced Leopold to turn over his personal colony to the Belgian government.” (Esler 572) Nonetheless, during the years of Leopold’s rule imperialism thrived.

The debate around British abolition movement centers on how what could possibly motivate an empire, with one of the largest slave economies in the world, to end an institution they had heavily relied on for centuries in the span of fifty years. This question has plagued historians for nearly two hundred years, as they attempt to identify what caused public opinion to shift from a view of indifference towards slavery to a massive, full-fledged push for abolition. Despite the debate capturing the interests of scholars across a wide-range of specialties, the conversation seems to focus on three major elements and the extent to which they led to the success of the abolition movement. The first, humanitarianism, focuses on the influence of religious

Digital media was slow to infiltrate the history field, not surprising considering the field’s traditional nature. However, students are quick to pick-up this new technology and teachers have to be able to adapt and teach their students the basics of historical writing and thinking in light of digital sources. As Cohen pointed out, “many of my sophomores cannot distinguish between a legitimate Web site that has legitimate primary documents or reprinted articles and pop history sites and chat rooms where the wildest conspiracies are transformed into reality.” In order for students to realize the credibility of digital sources, the teacher has to be able to adeptly use that same technology and overcome the historians ‘phobia’ of digital media. However, unlike Guldi and Armitage’s argument, the embracement of digital technology will not alone preserve the historical field, nor will pushing for increased longue-duree in light of the vast amount of information that can be electronically scanned and sorted on considerable scale. Historians and teachers will have to change their approach to analysis and information in general, however a radical change which would disrupt the traditional means of communication and research between professionals would be more

Denise Meringolo’s work Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History tells a very concise story of what we have come to call “public history.” Public history and other associated efforts such as ecological preservation, categorization, scientific research have in the course of the second half of the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth to become associated with the ambit of the state and how such information could be used to advance certain initiatives which were associated with an ever more activist or involved federal government in the aftermath of the Civil War and during reconstruction.

Strange, unusual, obtuse. Frequently I feel like I do not belong, that I am often

This is a tale of horror and tragedy in the Congo, beginning with the brutal and exploitative regime of King Leopold II of Belgium, and culminating with the downfall of one of Africa’s most influential figures, Patrice Lumumba. The Congo is but one example of the greater phenomenon of European occupation of Africa. The legacy of this period gives rise to persistent problems in the Congo and throughout Africa. Understanding the roots and causes of this event, as focused through the lense of the Congo, is the subject of this paper.

In the British Parliament, antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave system in the Caribbean could not recover.