The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was set up to be the poorest sickest nation in the world by mainly one man. King Leopold the second drove the DRC into having high levels of poverty and low life expectancy to help pretty much only him. He stripped them of their ivory and rubber using black slaves, and nobody cared because of racism. Leopold used scams, slaves, and racism to help his own country, he didn’t care about the country he was destroying. While using these things he ruined families, destroyed towns, and was ultimately responsible for tens of millions of deaths. King Leopold did all this because he believed that overseas colonies were the key to another country’s success. The DRC is the poorest …show more content…
and sickest country in the world because of obstruction of resources, racism, and Leopold’s instability and greediness. King Leopold the second of Belgium had control of DRC for forty-four years.
Since he believed oversea colonies were a key to a country’s success, Leopold began to work tirelessly to obtain Belgium their own personal colony. King Leopold eventually began a project to extract rubber and ivory from his own personal colony, the DRC; to make this happen he relied on slavery. Leopold’s real reign of terror started when nobody not even the very important asset to this project the government in Belgium was interested in what he had done. Since nobody liked it he began, in his own private capacity as an ordinary citizen tried acquiring a colony. Then after many times of failing at many different schemes, he made a fake association. It was in disguise to be a scientific association but was really the Association Interationale Africane built in 1876. King Leopold the second then hired a con artist, Henry Morton in 1879.He hired Morton to trick the natives into selling their land. It worked and he became sole ruler of a country 76 times larger than Belgium, DRC. Leopold was sole leader of the DRC with no constitution, no oversight, or stepping foot in DRC. Now that he had all power over the Democratic republic of Congo all he needed were the
resources. King Leopold the second stripped their main resources from them, ivory and rubber. To get these he went to extremes he used slavery, racism, scams, tortured, killed, and maimed many people. To extract the resources he used black slaves and blackmail. For the natives they had to provide set quotas of rubber and ivory and if they didn’t Leopold had his army find you. He had an army of white generals and kidnapped black soldiers they were called the Force Publique (FP). Their job was to enforce the rules, quotas, and terrorize the population. If you didn’t provide your quota the FP would cut off their hand, like prizes to show how loyal they were. They routinely took and tortured hostage, and flogged and raped natives. The FP also burned villages and working together they took down the DRC. Why did people just 100 years ago, because there was mainly black in DRC and racism was a huge thing back then.
This only happened about one hundred years ago. Africa is mostly black people and they had no oversight because no one cared. King Leopold the second chose Africa because of that reason. He could do anything he wanted to help himself and country and not the DRC which he was destroying because of racism.
Which let this sick, sick man be able to flog, rape, strip resources, maim, torture, set fire to cities, and kill innocent people and not get caught.If you think about it, if there would have been news, media, no racism, if other people and countries cared. If all these things were and weren’t there then Leopold he wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Leopold wouldn’t have killed tens of millions of people, stripped them from their resources, take advantage of them, and leave them to be the poorest and sickest country in the world. All this was able happen because of one simple thing, not a huge thing like the DRC coming trying to destroy the world. All this was able to be done because of one little tiny thing racism.
The DRC is the poorest and sickest nation in the world because of obstruction of resources, racism, and Leopold’s greediness and instability.
The exact definition of imperialism is the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power of dominion. Imperialism has been a strong force in history for the past few centuries. Carving up whole continents and obliterating entire civilizations. When not ignored outright, the subject of imperialism has been sanitized, so that empires become “commonwealths,” and colonies become “territories” or “dominions.” Imperialist military interventions become matters of “national defense,” “national security,” and maintaining “stability” in one or another region