Why did King Leopold want the Congo ? - Brainly.com 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. Many people wonder why these soldiers were willing to do this to their own people, but there was no sense of being Congolese. 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. "King Leopold II and the Congo On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. Nzansu's men fought on sporadically for five years more, and no record of his fate exists. From 1874 through 1877 the British explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley (18411904) crossed Africa from east to west. Belgium's education minister announced this week that secondary schools would teach colonial history from next year. How did King Leopold gain control of the Congo? Belgian King Establishes Congo Free State - National Geographic Society 6.2 Reading Check.docx - Name Ahmed Kamel Date 2/17/22 Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. I never imagined this happening in my lifetime," Ms Kayembe adds. Early and Personal Life. 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. Leopold II was the second son of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians, and his second wife, Marie-Louise of Orlans. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. . By the early 1890s a new source of riches had appeared. Leopolds reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. 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. 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. Thompsell, Angela. He promised a humanitarian and philanthropic mission that would improve the lives of Africans. who owned land where rubber grew wild. [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. Leopold's eventual response was extraordinary in its hubris and simplicity. Around 20,000 children born to Belgian settlers and local women were forcibly taken to Belgium to be fostered. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. You cannot download interactives. 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. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State as his personal possession. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Oasis Kodila Tedika et Francklin Kyayima Muteba, The sources of growth in DRC before independence. In 1876, Leopold II sponsored an international geographical conference in Brussels, inviting delegates from scientific societies all over Europe to discuss philanthropic and scientific matters such as the best way to coordinate map making, to prevent the re-emergence of the west coast slave trade, and to investigate ways of sending medical aid to Africa. Furthermore, as in any society where men and women are separated, traumatized, or in flight as refugees, the birth rate dropped precipitously. They were a newly independent country . 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. James Andrew Broun Ramsay, marquess and 10th earl of Dalhousie, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium, Leopold II - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Together with epidemic disease, famine, and a falling . Why did Leopold want the Congo? However, the date of retrieval is often important. The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. Charles Michel, prime minister at the time, declined. The effects were devastating. Last year a UN working group called on Belgium to apologise for atrocities committed during the colonial era. Like statues of racist historical figures vandalised or removed in Britain and the US, Leopold II's days on Belgian streets could now be numbered. The newly named Belgian Congo remained a colony until the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960. In Britain he founded the Congo Reform Association, and affiliated groups sprang up in the United States and other countries. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. Some of these soldiers were recruits, while others were enslaved people or orphans brought up to serve the colonial army. 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. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. LEOPOLD II (18351909; ruled 18651909), king of Belgium and personal sovereign of the Congo Free State. Archive pictures from Congo Free State document its violence and brutality. Outside of the Cape of Good Hope and the Mediterranean coast, Europe had no African colonies of any significance. Leopold II, it seemed, was the only European willing to finance Stanley's dream: the building of a railway over the Crystal Mountains from the sea to Stanley Pool, from which river steamers could reach 1,000 miles (1,600km) into the heart of Africa. In one, a man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and small hand. For activists the holy grail is the giant statue of Leopold II on horseback at the gates of the Royal Palace in Brussels. 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. Furthermore, huge, uncounted numbers of Congolese fled the forced labor regime, but the only refuge to which they could escape was the depths of the rain forest, where there was little food and no shelter; travelers would discover their bones years later. 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. The royal coffers would become a central focus of Leopolds life, and he once grumbled to German Emperor William II while watching a parade in Berlin, There is really nothing left for us kings except money! Leopold soon decided that the best way to acquire wealth would be by establishing an African colony, at a time when the great European Scramble for Africa was under way. Although Stanley is best known as the man who found Livingstone, his trip across the Congo basin was the greater feat of exploration and had far more impact on history. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. OF DECOLONIZATION By the end of the 19th century, the Basin had been carved up by European colonial powers, into the Congo Free State, the French Congo and the Portuguese Congo (modern Cabinda Province of Angola). King Leopold II was the ruler of the Congo Free State, and the King of Belgium. E. D. Morel contre Lopold II: L'histoire du Congo 19001910. Why did King Leopold give up the Congo? Reform in Leopold's Congo. He was the architect of one of history's greatest, if lesser known, crimes against humanity. Renting a missionary steamboat, he spent more than three months traveling in the interior. Leopold II, Williams declared, was guilty of "crimes against humanity." Starting in the early 1920s, however, the system became considerably less draconian, mainly because colonial officials realized that otherwise they would soon have no labor force left. After all, destroying the iconography of Adolf Hitler did not mean the history of Nazi Germany was forgotten, she points out. Why did the Belgian Congo happen? - Sage-Answer The propensity for violence is . On December 12, 1963, the flag of independent Kenya billowed over the capital city of Nairobi f, Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968 A British shipping company had the monopoly on all cargo traffic between the Congo and Belgium, and every few weeks it sent to the port of Antwerp a young junior official, Edmund Dene Morel, to supervise the unloading of a ship arriving from Africa. 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 of his actions King Leopold should be condemned as a criminal for his exploration and abuse to the Congo land and people. Stanley, still hopeful for British backing, brushed him off. In the newly christened Belgian Congo, however, the forced labor system did not immediately end. Bulletin Officiel du Congo Belge (1920). Leopold acquired the Congo through unethical means and thus took the people's chances away at self-rule. The only way to do that was through the use of terror. 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. Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. Leopold II became the next King of Belgium in 1865 and reigned until his death on December 17th, 1909. It was the last part of the continent to be colonized. Flament, F., et al. The bloodiest single episode in Africa's colonization took place in the center of the continent in the large territory, known as the Congo. Exhausted, Stanley returned to Europe, only to be sent straight back by Leopold, who promised him an outstanding assistant: Charles 'Chinese' Gordon (who did not in fact take up Leopold's offer but chose instead to go to meet his fate at Khartoum). Because the system's 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. Standing on the dock, Morel realized that he had uncovered irrefutable proof that a forced labor system was in operation 4,000 miles away. Under his reign, the Congolese people were terrorized with forced labor and harsh treatment. Belgium's Heart of Darkness | History Today King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. A detachment of soldiers would march into an African village and seize the women as hostages. 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. Thus was the Belgian Congo created. Many of the surrounding colonies also had rain forests rich in wild rubberPortuguese-controlled northern Angola, the Cameroons under the Germans, and the French Congo, part of French Equatorial Africa, across the Congo River. This was to be his most enduring legacy. 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). First, the system of exploitation established there became a model for colonial rule in other parts of central Africa. Then, as they would be into the 21st century, most of the royal families of Europe were related.