Who Is King Leopold Imperialism
Nicholas Defreitas
Professor Herman
WHO 1030
10/20/15
King Leopold and the Congo Takeover
In the 1800’s, European countries all scrambled for African territory. The first to put his foot down in the territory however would be King Leopold ll. “I do not want to miss us getting a slice of this magnificent African cake” said Leopold to a London ambassador shortly before his invasion of Africa. He made his intentions sound charitable and generous; an attempt to help Africa and stop the slave trade, but it was merely a guise. His arrival in the Congo would signify the beginning of imperialism in Africa and would result in the deaths of 10 million Africans in the Congo, about 50% of its population. After David Livingston had traveled Africa …show more content…
These resources being palm-oil and ivory. Ivory was used by Europeans for superfluous items like pianos, knives, and game pieces while palm-oil had been used as a lubricant. Near the end of the 1800’s, rubber had become high in demand. Manufacturers wanted it to produce hoses, tubes, valves, etc. When King Leopold heard this, the situation in Africa took even more of a bitter turn. Leopold set up imperialistic colonies that commanded native Africans to work to make him money or suffer his wrath. He had essentially made them tear down their rubber trees and other plants in order to do so. “Between 1892 and 1896 rubber exports from the Congo increased from 250 to 1200 tons per year and in the 1900’s it had become 80% of the Congo’s exports” (Pakenham …show more content…
In just over two decades, Leopold had begun genocide. Within the time he imperialized Africa he had slaughtered over 10 million Africans by mutilating their limbs and genitals, whipping them to death, starving them into forced labor, holding their kids captive and setting fire to settlements. A FP junior officer described an invasion to punish a village that had protested Leopold’s rule, in the following words. “The commanding officer ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, also their sexual members, and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross." Between the 1880s and 1903 the populace of the Congo had been reduced from about 20 million to around 8 1/2 million. In Thomas Pakenhams book “The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912” he quoted a native who
Professor Herman
WHO 1030
10/20/15
King Leopold and the Congo Takeover
In the 1800’s, European countries all scrambled for African territory. The first to put his foot down in the territory however would be King Leopold ll. “I do not want to miss us getting a slice of this magnificent African cake” said Leopold to a London ambassador shortly before his invasion of Africa. He made his intentions sound charitable and generous; an attempt to help Africa and stop the slave trade, but it was merely a guise. His arrival in the Congo would signify the beginning of imperialism in Africa and would result in the deaths of 10 million Africans in the Congo, about 50% of its population. After David Livingston had traveled Africa …show more content…
These resources being palm-oil and ivory. Ivory was used by Europeans for superfluous items like pianos, knives, and game pieces while palm-oil had been used as a lubricant. Near the end of the 1800’s, rubber had become high in demand. Manufacturers wanted it to produce hoses, tubes, valves, etc. When King Leopold heard this, the situation in Africa took even more of a bitter turn. Leopold set up imperialistic colonies that commanded native Africans to work to make him money or suffer his wrath. He had essentially made them tear down their rubber trees and other plants in order to do so. “Between 1892 and 1896 rubber exports from the Congo increased from 250 to 1200 tons per year and in the 1900’s it had become 80% of the Congo’s exports” (Pakenham …show more content…
In just over two decades, Leopold had begun genocide. Within the time he imperialized Africa he had slaughtered over 10 million Africans by mutilating their limbs and genitals, whipping them to death, starving them into forced labor, holding their kids captive and setting fire to settlements. A FP junior officer described an invasion to punish a village that had protested Leopold’s rule, in the following words. “The commanding officer ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, also their sexual members, and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross." Between the 1880s and 1903 the populace of the Congo had been reduced from about 20 million to around 8 1/2 million. In Thomas Pakenhams book “The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912” he quoted a native who