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. 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. wives' release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. Inside the palatial walls of Belgium's Africa Museum stand statues of Leopold II - each one a monument to the king whose rule killed as many as 10 million Africans. 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. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. The largest mutiny involved three thousand troops and an equal number of auxiliaries and porters, and continued for three years. Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . But why was Leopold's Congo so horrific? Around the BBC. King Leopold II's Colonization Of The Congo | ipl.org Vocabulary On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. For the earlier Bantu colonization, see. During that window of time those who profited were the people Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor, Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor. Morel, in his mid-twenties at the time, noticed that when his company's ships arrived from the Congo, they were filled to the hatch with enormously valuable cargoes of rubber and ivory. Statues of Leopold II should now be housed in museums to teach Belgian history, suggests Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, director of anti-racism NGO Bamko Cran. So they outsourced the task to Leopold, who used personal diplomacy to convince the European powers to grant him control of a large portion of the Congo basin. Why did King Leopold want to take over areas of Africa? Meanwhile, Leopold had already begun the job of persuading first the United To curry diplomatic favor, he allowed several hundred Protestant missionaries into the Congo. In May 1885, Leopold took possession of his colony and named it the Congo Free State. But heat, tropical diseases, and the huge rapids near the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic had long kept the Congo's interior a mystery to Europeans. Hoornaert, Andr and O. Louwers (1924). When the 1860s explorers focused attention on Africa, Leopold schemed to colonise Mozambique on the east coast, Senegal on the west coast, and the Congo in the centre. King Leopold II's rule over the Congo met fierce resistance. The rapids and falls, had they known it, extended for 220 miles (350km) inland, and the terrain close by the river was impassable, and remains so to this day. Biography of Ernesto Che Guevara, Revolutionary Leader, Top Ten Villains of Latin American History, War of the First Coalition in 1790s France, 10 Facts About the Independence of Texas From Mexico, Events Leading to the Scramble for Africa, A Photo Gallery of the Mexican Revolution, Biography of Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolutionary, Ph.D., History, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, M.A., History, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, B.A./B.S, History and Zoology, University of Florida. 657, 660, 662). The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Ascherson, Neal (1963). First, the system of exploitation established there became a model for colonial rule in other parts of central Africa. Brussels: Didier Hatier. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. She does not believe it will not be quick or easy. The current protests are not the first time Belgium's ugly history in Congo has been contested in the streets. 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. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. official, Major Charles C. Liebrechts, made the same estimate in 1920. The treaties, some of which appear to have been subsequently doctored to Leopolds liking, were then put to use by the Belgian monarch. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. For many years Leopold II was widely known as a leader who defended Belgium's neutrality in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war and commissioned public works fit for a modern nation. Male rubber gatherers often died from exhaustion. Many people wonder why these soldiers were willing to do this to their own people, but there was no sense of being Congolese. "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". "[2]:145. He traveled throughout Britain speaking to large audiences and was adept at recruiting bishops, well-known writers, and other luminaries to join him on the lecture platform. La Force publique de sa naissance 1914: Participation des militaires l'histoire des premires annes du Congo. He became duke of Brabant in 1846 and served in the Belgian army. He was the architect of one of history's greatest, if lesser known, crimes against humanity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Belgium took over the colony in 1908 and it was not until 1960 that the Republic of the Congo was established, after a fight for independence. Birmingham Protest March Is climate change killing Australian wine? Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. (1996). 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. New York: Random House. Leopold's most formidable enemy surfaced in Europe. With most able-bodied adults prisoners or forced laborers for several weeks out of each month, villages had few people who could plant and harvest food, or go hunting or fishing, and famine soon spread. A man of great charm, intelligence, ruthlessness, and greed, he was openly frustrated with inheriting the throne of such a small country, and in doing so at a time in history when European kings were rapidly losing power to elected parliaments. ThoughtCo. Brill. Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/congo-free-state-atrocities-rubber-regime-43731. 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. In 2019, the cities of Kortrijk and Dendermonde renamed their Leopold II streets, with Kortrijk council describing the king as a "mass murderer". Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. SCLC Formed [7], Stanley, much more familiar with the rigours of the African climate and the complexities of local politics than Leopold Leopold II never set foot in the Congo persuaded his patron that the first step should be the construction of a wagon trail and a series of forts. Flament, F., et al. Apparently finding nothing reprehensible about Leopold's ambitions, Stanley set about his task with a will. King Leopold's Rule in Africa. Wearing one of his many hats, that of a journalist, Williams expected to see the paradise of enlightened rule that Leopold had described to him in Brussels. The king's stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. Livingstone had not been heard from in several years and was, in fact, exploring the upper reaches of a great navigable inland river called the Lualaba, which Livingstone hoped was connected to the Nile, but which turned out to be the upper Congo. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. GENEALOGY OF THE TERM DECOLONIZATION He wrongly justified his actions by saying that the people of the Congo were inferior, and deserved the treatment they received. Around 20,000 children born to Belgian settlers and local women were forcibly taken to Belgium to be fostered. Belgian King Leopold II ruthlessly seized control of the African continent on February 5, 1885, establishing the Congo Free State as a . Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. Encyclopedia.com. Instead, the ships carried soldiers, and large quantities of firearms and ammunition. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press. By 1908, Leopold II's rule was deemed so cruel that European leaders, themselves violently exploiting Africa, condemned it and the Belgian parliament forced him to relinquish control of his fiefdom. While Leopold portrayed this as a great humanitarian act, his real purpose was to gain control of the upper Congo River and to acquire more workers. In one of them, a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State, he used a phrase that was not commonly heard again until the Nuremberg trials more than fifty years later. Leopold acquired the Congo through unethical means and thus took the people's chances away at self-rule. Demonstrations and protests demanded that Leopold end human rights abuses in the Congo Free State. Leopold, however, made the Belgian government pay him for his prized possession. Retrieved September 22, 2017. It is at this point that Leopold II of Belgium took a part. Published in many American and European newspapers, it was the first comprehensive, detailed indictment of the regime and its slave labor system. The couple's first son, Louis Philippe, died in infancy prior to Leopold II's birth. King Leopold II and the Congo The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. ." On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. "Civilisation" was at the core of Leopold II's pitch to European leaders in 1885 when they sliced up and allocated territories in what became known as the Scramble for Africa. Morel, E. D. (1904). In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? I Have a Dream States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. L'histoire du Congo 18761900. Stanley made his way back to Europe with a sheaf of signed treaties in 1884. He died the following year. Why did King Leopold the II want the Congo? What did his - Brainly "King Leopold II's Exploitation of the Congo From 1885 to 1908 - STARS "Leopold II certainly does not deserve a statue in the public domain," agrees Bambi Ceuppens, scientific commissioner at the Africa Museum. Eventually, the strain forced him to relinquish his control of the territory, and in 1908 it became the Belgian Congo. The Atrocities of the Congo Free State Rubber Regime - ThoughtCo In Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, Leopold II's statues were moved to the National Museum. Nothing was being sent to the Congo to pay for the goods flowing to Europe. Presenting himself as a philanthropist eager to bring the benefits of Christianity, Western civilization, and commerce to African nativesa guise that he perpetuated for many yearsLeopold hosted an international conference of explorers and geographers at the royal palace in Brussels in 1876. 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. Baskets of severed hands thus resulted from expeditions against rebels. For five years Stanley traveled up and down the immense waterways of the Congo River basin, setting up trading posts, building roads, and persuading local chiefsalmost all of them illiterateto sign treaties with Leopold. 6.2 Reading Check.docx - Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Bennett, Norman Robert. Combining gift-giving with a show of military force, he persuaded hundreds of illiterate African chiefs, most of whom had little idea of the terms of the agreement to which they were ostensibly acceding, to sign away their land to the king. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 18901910. Detachments of his 19,000-man private army, the Force Publique, would march into a village and hold the women hostage, forcing the men to scatter into the rainforest and gather a monthly quota of wild rubber. "I will dance if it comes down. "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. Imperialism in Africa Assignment and Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet Europeans were interested in Africa for its abundance of natural resources (ivory, rubber, gold, etc.) (2022, June 2). He had long wanted a colonial empire, and in Stanley he saw someone who could secure it for him. In 1924 the first territory-wide census, when adjusted for undercounting, placed the number of colony inhabitants at some ten million. . 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. Tens of thousands of others were shot down in failed rebellions against the regime. Now, Stanley discovered, Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. It quickly became a brutal, exploitative regime that relied on forced labour to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals. Franklin, John Hope (1985). Belgium's Heart of Darkness | History Today It was the world's only major colony owned by one man. These men were generally from other parts of the Congo or other colonies entirely, and the orphans and enslaved people had often been brutalized themselves. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Moreover, he had a well-known penchant for teenaged girls, and, when he was age 65, he began a liaison with a teenaged former prostitute who bore him two additional children. 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. Since the 15th century, European explorers had sailed into the broad Congo estuary, planning to fight their way up the falls and rapids that begin only 100 miles (160km) inland, and then travel up the river to its unknown source. The people being colonized are robbed of their land, resources, and freedom.) Forced labor remained a major part of the Congo's economy for many years after the war. The results of this rule were very uneven. Leopold II, King of the Belgiansas his coun, c. 1875 there were "positive aspects" to colonisation, Democratic Republic of Congo country profile, called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities, apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Banana artwork in Seoul museum eaten by visitor, NFL player's daughter, aged two, drowns in pool, Trevelyan relative 'would consider' famine payment, Ding becomes China's first male world chess champion, Indian 'killer' elephant relocated to tiger reserve. 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. In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. She or he will best know the preferred format. He wrote three books on the Congo, several dozen pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, making much use of eyewitness testimony from the missionaries. )1978 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. Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities." For thousands of years, that territory had been conquered by nearby Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. ." The effects were devastating. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Almost the only early visitor to interview Africans about their experience of the regime, he took extensive notes, and, a thousand miles up the Congo River, wrote one of the greatest documents in human rights literature, an open letter to King Leopold that is one of the important landmarks in human rights literature. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Discipline was harsh; reluctant military conscripts, disobedient porters, and villagers who failed to gather enough rubber all fell victim to the notorious chicotte, a whip made of sun-dried hippopotamus hide with razor-sharp edges. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. No one will ever know the precise figures, but, from all these causes, demographers estimate that between 1880 and 1920 the population of the Congo may have been slashed by up to 50 percent, from perhaps 20 million people at the beginning of that period to an estimated 10 million at the end. Because the systems effects in the Congo could so easily be blamed on one man, who could safely be attacked because he did not represent a great power, an international outcry focused on Leopold. 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. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. . Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century East Central Africa. Hochschild, Adam (1998). Many women hostages were raped and a significant number starved to death. He did however apologise for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children, known as mtis, from Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda in the 1940s and 1950s. Tippu Tip had raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and, when Stanley reached his camp, had 2,300 slaves, mostly young women and children, in chains ready to transport halfway across the continent to the markets of Zanzibar. "King Leopold II and the Congo Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The king's colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. The Force Publique, no doubt, also attracted men who, for whatever reason, felt little compunction about wielding such violence, but this was true of the White officers as well. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. Thompsell, Angela. Humankind will never know even the approximate toll with any certainty, but beyond any doubt what happened in the Congo was one of the great catastrophes of modern times. Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past . Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. Marchal, Jules (1996). The museum is largely protected by heritage law but, in the streets outside, monuments to a monarch who seized a huge swathe of Central Africa in 1885 have no such security. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. But for over 20 years he had been agitating for Belgium to take its place among the great colonial powers of Europe. In two ways the Congo's rubber boom had lasting impact beyond the territory itself. Stanley was applauded, admired, decoratedand ignored. 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. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. In the early years the main commodity Leopold sought was ivory. 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. The Belgian cabinet of the day was not interested in colonies. 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. Sadly, Williams, only forty-one years old, died of tuberculosis on his way home from Africa, but not before writing several additional denunciations of what he had seen in the Congo. A detachment of soldiers would march into an African village and seize the women as hostages. With women as hostages and men forced to tap rubber, few able-bodied adults were left to hunt, fish, and cultivate crops. Although Belgiums government felt that colonies would be an extravagance for a small country with no navy or merchant marine, that situation suited Leopold perfectly. Virtually no information about the true nature of King Leopold's Congo reached the outside world until the arrival there, in 1890, of an enterprising visitor named George Washington Williams. Throughout the tropics, people rushed to sow rubber trees, but those plants could take many years to reach maturity, and in the meantime there was money to be made wherever rubber grew wild. He was interested in the Congo river basin because there were many natural resources such as rubber, minerals, ivory, diamonds, and gold. When Leopold II died in 1909, he was buried to the sound of Belgians booing. LEOPOLD II (18351909; ruled 18651909), king of Belgium and personal sovereign of the Congo Free State. As he put it, he did not want to miss out on the opportunity of getting a slice of "this magnificent African cake." King . The focus of the great powers was still firmly on the lands that had made Europe's fortune: the Americas, the East Indies, India, China, and Australasia. Manchester, U.K.: National Labour Press. (Colonizing other peoples, regardless of the justification, is wrong. However, he added, "since history teaches that colonies are useful, that they play a great part in that which makes up the power and prosperity of states, let us strive to get one in our turn."[4]. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. Many more suffered from disease and torture. Why did Leopold want the Congo? - JOUNIMARTIKAINEN When did George Washington Williams visit the Congo? Stanley was lionised across Europe. Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Topic 6.2 Reading Check 1. In the far south, for example, a chief named Mulume Niama led warriors of the Sanga people in a rebellion that killed one of the king's officers. Regions that were hard to access or lacked profitable resources escaped much of the violence that was to follow, but for those areas directly under the rule of the Free State or the companies it leased land to, the results were devastating. The Congo Free State was founded by Belgian King Leopold II on February 5, 1885, after he violently annexed the African continent. BBC World Service: 50 Things That Made the Modern . They refused to surrender, and when troops finally entered the cave three months later, they found 178 bodies. Vangroenweghe, Daniel (1986). Last year a UN working group called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities committed during the colonial era.
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