The Congo Free State Essay

Unlike the slave traders who came before him, King Leopold managed to take possession of and exploit the indigenous people of Congo, their land, and their resources on an unprecedented scale. He obtained a network of valuable raw materials and millions free laborers to extract them. At the hands of King Leopold II’s workers, the people of Congo suffered horrific travesties. Not only did they suffer the loss of their land, the people of Congo were the victims of a hostile militant take over, who’s main purpose was to become a profitable service to the King’s ever-growing greed. His beloved pet project would later prove to be an efficient murder machine. In order to gather resources and labor for the King’s projects, workers acted mercilessly. They swindled land from local Congo tribes, held women hostage, and forced children into work.(109)(111)”(119). George Washington Williams best penned King Leopold II’s cruelty in his detailed documentation. His account contrasted the lies that King Leopold fed the public while simultaneously addressing the barbaric methods employed such as chain gangs, capturing women, forced laborers, and shooting for sport. (Pages 110-111) The result of this barbaric approach to harvest raw materials was the loss of people estimating to be half of the total population of Congo(page 233 )

Formerly known as Zaire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC) is located in the center of Africa bordered by nine different countries and one territory. (Lerner, 10) The bordering countries are Central African Republic and Sudan at the northern boarder, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Burundi on the eastern boarder, Zambia and Angola directly South of DROC and Congo on the Western boarder.

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 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.

What KIng Leopold II was trying to do with the Imperialism was get to the many resources that the Congo had to offer. After the Congo gained its independence back they are still striving to make the Congo a completely free country. They are still on of the least developed countries due to their lack or quality of life, resources, imports and exports, and education. Violence has also become a problem since the Rwandan Genocide that caused many wars. Statistics say the Congo has great potential to be in a good place again, financially and economically. The imperialism, however, sent them into years of a spiral decline that they are rigorously trying to get back up

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.

Between the 1880s and 1908, King Leopold II controlled the Congo Free State, using it mainly as a corporate venture rather than a colonial one. However, in 1908, a global outcry condemned his reign after reports erupted of widespread torture and death taking place in the territory’s rubber plantations by his agents. It was reported that those atrocities left millions of the Congolese dead or injured, and so, in 1908, Belgium annexed the territory into its own jurisdiction, creating the colony of the Belgian Congo. The colony hosted hundreds of Christian missionaries in hopes to westernize the Congolese. Nevertheless, the scars from Leopold’s control were far from erased, both physically and mentally, and in the late 1950s, the independence

Meanwhile, Leopold was able to develop his own economic system, which he leased areas in Congo to different European companies, which he made 50 percent of the wealth gained. “In setting up this structure, Leopold was like the manager of a venture capital syndicate today. He had essentially found a way to attract other people's capital to his investment schemes while he retained half the proceeds.” (Hochschild 117). Most women and children were raped and sometimes treated and hunted like animals for entertainment purposes. Most of the Congolese slaves were tortured and whip by chicotte. Belgium soldiers cut of the hand and leg of the Congolese slaves especially if they don't meet their required it was a way for them to have fun, some even had a skull of slave as part of decorations in front of their house. “For each cartridge issued to their soldiers they demanded proof that the bullet had

The story unfolds around the turn of the twentieth century when European powers began to explore and colonize Sub-Saharan Africa. Belgian king Leopold II laid individual claim to the enormous chunk of land surrounding the Congo River and proceeded to strip the land of its resources, including, but not limited to, rubber, ivory, and people using a deadly system of forced labor. Under the ironic and spurious guise of humanitarianism, Leopold built himself an empire in central Africa, lining his pockets and satisfying his egotism, becoming the largest individual landowner in the world, while the brutality of his reign slashed the Congolese population by 10 million people, or approximately in half (Hochschild, 233). The narrative is uplifting at points as it also tells the story of the courageous few Africans, Europeans, and Americans that stood up to Leopold in what, in hindsight, was the first major humanitarian effort of the twentieth century (Straus).

During the colonization of the Congo, during King Leopold the 2nd reign, the Congo was exploited, king Leopold took rubber, ivory, cobalt, diamonds, gold, copper, and oil. To get all of these resources from the Congo, he went into Congolese villages and captured all the children and women, he then forced the men to work all day and night collecting resources, and they thought that if they worked hard enough they would get their family back, if any of the people in the village tried to oppose king Leopold and his wrath, he would amputate their hands.

The Congolese had no control over their lives since it was all occupied for serving the Belgians. Belgians needed resources, the Congolese had to work. Belgians believed better productivity led to more efficient growth in the economy. As stated before, rubber was a very common resource in the Congo. The Belgians, of course, took this chance to harvest it and ship it, but they forced the Congolese to harvest for them since it requires physical strength the Belgians don’t want to sacrifice.

There is an account from a Congolese refugee who witnessed the atrocities of the Force Publique - Leopold’s army, made up of European soldiers and forced Congolese. He recounted that, “Women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens… we could get no more rubber.” TFP gave Congolese men an ultimatum of collecting a certain amount of rubber, or else they could be beaten, get their hands cut off live, or even shot. All of those caused more poverty to befall the people of Congo in the long run, as the already-low wages could not be collected while the person was recovering from their abuse. Furthermore, according to the World Bank, “the poverty rate remains high in the DRC. The country is among the poorest countries in the world and was ranked 176 out of 187 countries on the Human Development in 2015.” To express this differently, over half a century later, Congo is still an acutely poor nation. This is a direct result of the over-harvesting of rubber, charcoal, and farms that Leopold ordered under his dictatorship. If the natural resources were allowed to be collected at a healthy rate, they would still be available for Congo to trade with other countries. That would, without a doubt, cause the economy to be raised significantly higher. Thus, the end result of poverty in modern-day Congo in is fully a consequence of Leopold’s relentless exhausting of the land decades

From 1908-1960 it was “Belgian Congo”, the world’s first privately owned colony owned by King Leopold II of Belgium. He made money from harvesting rubber. To do this he developed a system of forced labor in which his army would take captive women and force men to harvest the rubber in the rain forest. Many women hostages starved, the men were worked to death, there was no one in the village to plant crops, or hunt or fish which led to famine, which in turn led to disease. Many people were shot by soldiers during rebellions while others fled to avoid conscription and died in the rain forests. Estimates are that this cut the Congo’s population in half. After the Kings death, it became Belgian Congo and the government realized this was not a sustainable system and if they were to have an economically stable work force they had to put an infrastructure in place to support them. In Belgium, the colonial period in the Congo was largely whitewashed. The Royal Museum for Central Africa which is the world’s largest african focused museum, and until the 1990s it mentioned nothing of the millions who died due to the forced labor system. The government also whitewashed that history through the Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences, formerly Royal Academy of Colonial Sciences, in which a biographical encyclopaedia was developed devoted to those working in the Congo during the colonial period and historical

Between 1885 and 1908, Belgium’s Leopold II ruled Congo, a region in central Africa, as his personal colony, exploiting the resources and inhabitants for his own gain. Leopold allowed and encouraged Europeans and other Westerners to enter Congo and set up companies whose primary purpose was to gather rubber, which was abundant but difficult to get to in the Congo, using the Congolese as the laborers for the Europeans. Rubber gathering in Congo brutally exploited the inhabitants of the Congo, while at the same time robbed Congo of wealth, as the rubber was “sold” to the Europeans at prices far below what the rubber was actually worth. Only when others, specifically the British and the Americans, revealed the horrible conditions of the

This editorial tells the reader that the worldwide public opinion on African imperialism in 1960 was negative. The United Nations represented the global opinion and they stated they thought of this interaction as bad. Before Congo was granted their independence, the Belgians treated the Natives brutally. They would enslave the women and children of the tribes and force the men to work collecting rubber all day. If the job was not completed satisfactorily, the worker would have their hands chopped off. The tribes women were subjected to rape, violence, and the tribe itself experienced much torture. It is therefore understandable that the people of the Congo were not hospitable to any Belgian they came across after being forced to abide to their