Leopold II & His Cruelties In The Congo
Channel: Brains Applied
Date: 2020-05-11

Hi everyone,

It's not one of my regular videos but I bet you'll like it.
At the end of the 19th century, the Western nations decided to divide Africa into several different colonies.
One of the territories in Central-Africa was given to King Leopold II of Belgium as his private state, named The Congo Free State.

At first everything was fine, when the explorer Henry Morton Stanley and his colleagues were still exploring the land. But when Leopold ran out of money, he decided to change things and claim all the available land (and the resources on them) for himself. In those days, ivory was Congo's main export product. But when John Boyd Dunlop invented the rubber tire, the demand for rubber skyrocketed. Leopold was now sitting on a goldmine.

The natives now had to pay taxes in the form of rubber. The rubber was collected by either sentry's or by Leopold's private army: armed men who were only paid when they were able to collect enough rubber. Obviously, this went awfully wrong. Women were held hostage, while their men were looking for rubber. Villages that  refused to cooperate were burned and many people were killed. Although it wasn't solely due to the violence of the army, it has been estimated that about 10 million natives died during Leopold's reign.

Most of the atrocities were committed by the army's soldiers, who were indigenous people, but on many occasions the European leaders were eager to join. It seems like Leopold knew of these atrocities but he never bothered to do something about it.

In 1904, his reign became an international scandal after Roger Casement had written a report about the Congo Free State. And in 1908, the Congo Free State was officially taken over by Belgium.

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References:
Van den Berge, J. (2014). Europa's Laatste Koningen. Roeselare, Belgium: Roularta Books
Van Reybrouck, D. (2010). Congo. Amsterdam, Netherlands: De Bezige Bij