Leopold Ii as a King-Sovereign of the Congo Free State – a Great Diplomat, Businessman or a Man Who Caused a Genocide?
Leopold II as a King-Sovereign of the Congo Free State
– a great diplomat, businessman or a man who caused a genocide?
Mgr. Lucie Tamášová
Index
Index 1
The beginning of the Congo Free State 3
Desire for colonies 3
Founding of the International African Association 4
Leopold’s Beginnings in Congo with Morton Stanley 5
Stanley in Congo 7
International Association of the Congo and the Berlin Conference 9
Terror and profit in Colonial Congo 12
The first critic of Leopold’s administration in Congo 12
What was taking place in Congo in this time 14
Chicotte Beating 17
The Force Publique 18
What was it like to be captured and enslaved by the Congo’s white conquerors? 19
Invention of the rubber tires and its influence on Congo 22
Forced Labor for harvesting the rubber 23
The severed hands as a prove 24
The painful end of Leopold’s Congo 26
How many people had to die? 26
The annexation of Congo by Belgian Parliament 28
Conclusion 30
Bibliography 32
We think that communism and fascism represented something new in history because they caused tens of millions of deaths and had totalitarian ideologies that censored all dissent. We forget that tens of millions of Africans had already died under colonial rule. Colonialism could also be a totalitarian – what, after all, was more so than a forced labor system? Censorship was tight: an African in the Belgian Congo had no more chance of advocating freedom in the local press than a dissident in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Colonialism was also justified by an elaborate ideology, embodied in everything from Kipling’s poetry and Stanley’s lectures to sermons and books about the shapes of skulls, lazy natives, and the genius of European civilization. And to speak, as Leopold’s officials did, of forced laborers as libertés, or “liberated men”, was to use language as perverted as that above the gate at Auschwitz,
– a great diplomat, businessman or a man who caused a genocide?
Mgr. Lucie Tamášová
Index
Index 1
The beginning of the Congo Free State 3
Desire for colonies 3
Founding of the International African Association 4
Leopold’s Beginnings in Congo with Morton Stanley 5
Stanley in Congo 7
International Association of the Congo and the Berlin Conference 9
Terror and profit in Colonial Congo 12
The first critic of Leopold’s administration in Congo 12
What was taking place in Congo in this time 14
Chicotte Beating 17
The Force Publique 18
What was it like to be captured and enslaved by the Congo’s white conquerors? 19
Invention of the rubber tires and its influence on Congo 22
Forced Labor for harvesting the rubber 23
The severed hands as a prove 24
The painful end of Leopold’s Congo 26
How many people had to die? 26
The annexation of Congo by Belgian Parliament 28
Conclusion 30
Bibliography 32
We think that communism and fascism represented something new in history because they caused tens of millions of deaths and had totalitarian ideologies that censored all dissent. We forget that tens of millions of Africans had already died under colonial rule. Colonialism could also be a totalitarian – what, after all, was more so than a forced labor system? Censorship was tight: an African in the Belgian Congo had no more chance of advocating freedom in the local press than a dissident in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Colonialism was also justified by an elaborate ideology, embodied in everything from Kipling’s poetry and Stanley’s lectures to sermons and books about the shapes of skulls, lazy natives, and the genius of European civilization. And to speak, as Leopold’s officials did, of forced laborers as libertés, or “liberated men”, was to use language as perverted as that above the gate at Auschwitz,
Bibliography: Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg. 161 Bourne, Henry Richard Fox (1903) Forbath, Peter (1977). The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration and Exploitation of the World 's Most Dramatic Rivers. Harper & Row. [4] John Reader; Africa, A Biography of the Continent; Penguin Books; 1998; pg. 523 [5] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg [6] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg. 48 [7] Emerson Barbara; Leopold II of the Belgians – King of Colonialism; Weidenfeld&Nicolson; 1979; pg.85 [8] http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/leopold.html [9] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg [14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#cite_note-RPJ-2 [15] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg [16] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg. 110, 111 [17] http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocong.htm [18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State [19] Samarin William; The Black Man’s Burden: African Colonial Labor on the Congo and Ubangi Rivers, 1880 – 1900; Boulder, CO: Westview Press ; 1989; pg.118 [24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Publique [25] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg [30] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg. 161 [31] Adam Hochschild; King Leopold’s ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa; Mariner Books, 1999; pg [32] Bourne, Henry Richard Fox (1903). Civilisation in Congoland: A Story of International Wrong-doing. London: P. S. King & Son, pg.253. [33] Forbath, Peter (1977). The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration and Exploitation of the World 's Most Dramatic Rivers. Harper & Row, 374.