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King Leopold’s Ghost Rate: 54321 Font size: | Category: History | Posted By: admin | Rating:

King Leopold the Second of Belgium is responsible for the formation of the Congo Free State, its official date of establishment being early 1885. This “kingdom” contained what is now know as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was privately owned by Leopold, who began paving the way for his control around ten years earlier. Leopold made arrangements with those who had already begun exploring Africa, including a few governments of European countries. The International African Association was founded hereafter, its purpose being to further explore and colonize the vast continent of Africa. As others saw the benefits that Leopold was reaping from the Congo soil, from rubber extraction to the ivory industry, European interest in colonizing the continent increased, as did the competition for the reward. This rise in interest and competition led to exploitation and an almost complete disregard for the well being of the area’s indigenous inhabitants. The inhabitants of the Congo Free State were not seen as humans in the eyes of Leopold but rather a free source of labor, far less valuable than the rubber and ivory they in turn produced for his benefit. The large numbers of the population surely would have run out had Leopold been left to his own devices, but their seemingly endless supply only made matters worse for the natives. Such large numbers allowed for quick and easy replacement, should a death or maiming be needed to send a message. A countless number of innocent people were killed at the hand of Leopold, his extreme violence and ruthlessness wreaking havoc without being questioned. Due to its remote location, news of the situation’s reality did not reach Europe of the U.S until about 1900, and it was an additional eight years until Leopold’s maniacal reign was put to an end. After being annexed as a colony of Belgium, the violence and terror had finally ended. It is estimated that upwards of thirty million Congolese inhabitants were killed during the course of King Leopold’s reign, but the true number of deaths that occurred at his hand remain in question to this day. Depending on the source, numbers range from a low of three million to a high of thirty, a staggering difference. The secrecy that Leopold was able to uphold is truly astonishing, over ten years passing before any questions were raised from the outside. Threats, violence, and pure disbelief are what allowed the murdering to continue, the blood of the indigenous people spilling like rain as Leopold’s wealth continued growing. Leopold claimed that the violence and casualties were at the hands of the natives, that his purpose there was “the work of moral and material regeneration, and we must do this among a population whose degeneration in its inherited conditions it is difficult to measure. The many horrors and atrocities which disgrace humanity give way little by little before our intervention”. Though the true horrors and atrocities were yet to come. Those employed by Leopold did not travel to the continent in order to be ruthless murderers, but this fact was soon put behind them, as killing became their living. An army known as the “Force Publique” was perhaps the most brutal group of all. Their purpose was to ensure that specific quotas were met, quotas set for ivory and rubber that soon included human lives. If a quota was not met, human hands became a sort of currency to make up for the deficit, to show that it was not in vain. The officers themselves were “white agents of the State,” but also included black soldiers, many of whom “were cannibals from the most fierce tribes from upper Congo. Others had been kidnapped during the raids on villages in their childhood and brought to Catholic missions, when they received a military training in conditions close to slavery”. Those who worked for Leopold either did not ask questions or were threatened if they did so. The one person who did ask questions was a man named Edmund Dene Morel, a part-time journalist and shipping clerk, hardly a Sherlock Holmes. With his pushing, the British House of Commons passed a resolution that “called on the British government to conduct an in inquiry into alleged violations of the Berlin Agreement”. With this move, the public eye became fiercely trained on Leopold and his every move. Morel’s first move was to call attention to the Congo situation using his journalistic abilities, first publishing articles and later books detailing what little was known. The Congo Reform Association was formed and gained support as far away as the United States. Eventually success was achieved, the accusations against Leopold discovered to be true, at which point the Congo was annexed to Belgium with the Belgium Parliament holding sovereignty. Morel had been one of the few to really take an interest in the situation and the people of the Congo, his efforts being a large reason why things ended sooner rather than later. The end of Leopold and the Congo Free State can be attributed to several factors. Morel’s investigative reporting played a very important hand in spreading public awareness of the situation’s reality, without which it is unknown how long things would have continued the way they were. Economic factors also played a role, the success that Leopold had in the rubber industry sparked outside interest, and competition from rival British firms in countries such as Latin America and Southeast Asia began to challenge the Congo’s monopoly. This in turn increased exploitative measures, but the “increasingly unsustainable harvesting methods” , caused further problems. In the end, it is impossible to think that Leopold could have continued his ways, between the magnitude of the crimes he was committing and the forces he was competing against, things were bound to snap. The reality that this even happened at all is a statement of the horrors that man can get away with. While this is not the only instance in which countless of innocent lives were taken for an unjustifiable reason, it is astonishing how much has been ignored. The Holocaust is another event that springs instantly to mind, but it is no secret what happened here, while history textbooks go into great detail about Auschwitz and the maniacal acts of Hitler, Leopold is barely glossed over. This injustice should not be stood for, the power and corruption that men like Leopold and Hitler got away with should not be forgotten, less it happen again. It is impossible to name outright why the genocide of the Congo has not been as widely discussed as that of the Jews, they are no less worthy of remembering than one another. As Hochschild wrote, “the Congo offers a striking example of the politics of forgetting. Leopold and the Belgian colonial officials who followed him went to extraordinary lengths to try to erase potentially incriminating evidence from the historical records”. There were no documents to account for the number of deaths that occurred, and no documents to record the number of people alive before Leopold came to terrorize the area. A census of the population was not taken until 1924, but those who were witness to the events do not deny the magnitude of what happened, and neither should we now. Bibliography “King Leopold II of Belgium.” More or Less: Heroes and Killers of the 20th Century. Page created on 19 August 2003. Updated 20 September 2003. Accessed 10 December 2006. < http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/leopold.html#backg > Robinson, B.A.“Mass Crimes Against Humanity and Genocides: The Congo Free state Genocide: circ 1895 to 1912.” Religious Tolerance.org. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Originally written: 31 May 2005. Accessed 10 December 2006. < http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocong.htm> Hochchild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

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