Chicago: University of Chicago Press. These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder. DR Congo: King Leopold's legacy - DW - 06/29/2020 657, 660, 662). 06/29/2020. Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. Then, as they would be into the 21st century, most of the royal families of Europe were related. Beyond removal of statues, far more work is required to dismantle racism, protesters and black communities argue. A master of public relations who portrayed himself as a great philanthropist, the king orchestrated successful lobbying campaigns in one country after another. Initially, government and commercial agents focused on acquiring ivory, but inventions, like the car, dramatically increased the demand for rubber. Alice Harris, a British Baptist, took photographs of the atrocities she witnessed. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. If the government of Belgium would not take a colony, then he would simply do it himself, acting in his private capacity as an ordinary citizen. She or he will best know the preferred format. He attributes colonial crimes to the king himself, rather than the Belgian people or state. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. To prove that he had not wasted bulletsor, worse yet, saved them for use in a mutinyfor each bullet expended, a Congolese soldier of the Force Publique had to present to his white officer the severed hand of a rebel killed. A detachment of soldiers would march into an African village and seize the women as hostages. Leopold II implemented a forced-labour system in the Congo that was quickly copied by other European colonial powers. For many years Leopold II was widely known as a leader who defended Belgium's neutrality in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war and commissioned public works fit for a modern nation. Harper & Row. He traveled throughout Britain speaking to large audiences and was adept at recruiting bishops, well-known writers, and other luminaries to join him on the lecture platform. Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? The results of this rule were very uneven. And under such circumstances people tended to stop having children, so the birthrate plummeted as a result. The conference was a sham: at its close, Leopold proposed that they set up an international benevolent committee to carry on, and modestly agreed to accept the chairman's role. Montgomery Bus Boycott The boundaries of Colonialism, like those of many literary eras, are difficult to draw. Imperialism in Africa Assignment and Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet Belgian King Leopold II ruthlessly seized control of the African continent on February 5, 1885, establishing the Congo Free State as a . Women and children were often taken hostage until men fulfilled a quota; during which time the women were raped repeatedly. State troops pursued them, trapping Mulume Niama and his soldiers in a large cave. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. 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). As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. June 11th, 2020. Leopold agreed and in deepest secrecy, Stanley signed a five-year contract at a salary of 1,000 a year, and set off to Zanzibar under an assumed name. But in the chaos of the early 20th Century when World War One threatened to destroy Belgium, Leopold II's nephew King Albert I erected statues to remember the successes of years gone by. The people of the Congo were forced to labor for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. ThoughtCo. In actuality, Leopold wanted to get his hands on Congo's natural resources. Is climate change killing Australian wine? official, Major Charles C. Liebrechts, made the same estimate in 1920. Why did Leopold want the Congo? - JOUNIMARTIKAINEN Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels. Instead, he found what he called "the Siberia of the African Continent." Flament, F., et al. King Leopold's Rule in Africa. By the early 1890s a new source of riches had appeared. It had only been through Tippu Tip's help that Stanley had found Livingstone (who himself had survived years on the Lualaba by virtue of Tippu Tip's friendship). But taking the monument away does not solve the problem of racism, she believes, while creating one museum devoted to the statues would not be useful either. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death. Colonial administrators also kidnapped orphaned children from communities and transported them to "child colonies" to work or train as soldiers. In return European leaders, gathered at the Berlin Conference, granted him 2m sq km (770,000 sq miles) to forge a personal colony where he was free to do as he liked. Forty years later virtually all of it had been transformed into European colonies, protectorates, or territories ruled by white settlers. He had long wanted a colonial empire, and in Stanley he saw someone who could secure it for him. Eventually, the strain forced him to relinquish his control of the territory, and in 1908 it became the Belgian Congo. Leopold then used the treaties to convince other Western colonial powers that he had legal right to the Congo River basin, an area more than fifty times the size of Belgium. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. Leopold II established a colony in the Congo to gain natural resources for Belgium and wealth for himself. Published in many American and European newspapers, it was the first comprehensive, detailed indictment of the regime and its slave labor system. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Borgloon, Belgium: Editions Paula Bellings. As a result of King Leopold actions, thousands of African tribes populations decreased significantly. If a soldier fired at someone and missed, or used a bullet to shoot game, he then sometimes cut off the hand of a living victim to be able to show it to his officer. It is clearly understood that in this project there is no question of granting the slightest political power to the negros. States and then all the major nations of Europe to recognize his claim. 2023 . Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Using a wide variety of local and church sources, Jan Vansina, professor emeritus of history and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin and the leading ethnographer of Congo basin peoples, calculates that the Congo's population dropped by some 50 percent during this period, an estimate with which other modern scholars concur.