In the 19th Century, Europeans were drawn to Africa’s ...



A (very) Brief History of the Congo Free State

In the 19th Century, Europeans were drawn to Africa’s natural resources. At the Berlin Conference, new colonial boundaries were drawn to ease squabbling between the European powers. One of the many tragic results of the Berlin Conference was the creation of what was to be called the “Congo Free State.” King Leopold II of Belgium claimed the Congo Free State as his own.

Leopold claimed he wanted to civilize the Congolese, protect them from the slave trade, and spread the word of god. Europeans around the world had bought in to the myth of Social Darwinism and the “White Man’s Burden.” In other words, many Europeans believed they were a superior race and it was their duty to spread their own customs, ideas and values to the savage natives of Africa. Leopold used the wrong-headed ideas of his time to conceal his true motives. It was a brilliant disguise for a plan fueled by greed, vanity, and racism. But at first his colony did not make much money; it wasn’t until the invention of the pneumatic tire that this would all change. Rubber, a resource the Congo had a surplus of, was now in high demand.

Once the worldwide demand for rubber took off, so did Leopold’s business in the Congo. In fact, he couldn’t harvest rubber fast enough to keep up with demand. The price for rubber was high, and selling rubber harvested for free by slaves made it an extremely profitable business. So how would Leopold keep production up?

Agents for King Leopold developed a system to satisfy the demand. They required all the men of villages in certain areas to collect rubber--eight kilos per month. Armed guards, stationed in the villages, collected the rubber and punished those who failed to meet their quotas.

Punishment ranged from imprisonment to beatings to execution. In some instances, when villages did not meet their rubber quotas, militias murdered all villagers they could find--men, women, and children. Even with these efforts, the demand could still not be met, so women and children were also forced to collect rubber. Before long, the heavy quotas led to overexploitation of the wild rubber resources, and the laborers found it increasingly difficult to fill them. One African said:

"We tried, always going further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes around their necks and bodies and taken away."

In order to justify their use of ammunition, the soldiers hired by the rubber companies cut off the hands of their victims and brought them to the posts. Of course, one did not need to kill an African to take his hand, and many victims were maimed. The hands that arrived at the posts were of all sizes--adult to child. One particularly disturbing photograph from the Congo shows a father staring--with what? despair? disbelief?--at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter.

Practices such as these would ultimately come back to haunt the Belgians. On the one hand, Africans used the very concept of "civilization" against the European invaders. In conditions such as these, who were the truly civilized and who were the "savages"? One Congolese song of the late 19th century clearly made the point:

"We are tired of living under this tyranny. We cannot endure that our women and children are taken away and dealt with by the white savages. We shall make war. . . . We know that we shall die, but we want to die. We want to die."

    Gradually, news of these horrors escaped to the outside world. The widespread use of another relatively new invention, the camera, provided reformers with the documentation they needed to bring international condemnation of the brutal practices in the Congo. The most famous reformer, Edmund Morel, created the Congo Reform Association. Morel thus became one of the earliest international human rights advocates.

Morel’s achievements as an advocate for the people of the Congo were a huge step in international human rights. Though his name is unfortunately absent from most history books, his legacy is one an incredible example of ordinary people in the world working to stop injustice. Edmund Morel deserves to have a place of honor in the minds and hearts of historians. But what became of the man responsible for the evil Morel was fighting?

For all Leopold’s blatant disregard for human life, for all the greed and arrogance of his operations in the Congo, and for all his deceit and lies about his true intentions there, his only punishment was giving up ownership of his own private “Congo Free State.”

In 1908, under increasing international pressure, Leopold gave up his one-man show in the Congo and the colony was annexed by Belgium. Leopold did not go away empty-handed, of course. Belgium provided Leopold 50 million francs as compensation--and the money was to be taken from the Congo.

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*** YOUR ASSIGNMENT***

Imagine you are a human rights activist in 1915. Write a 1-2 page letter to the collective governments of England, Germany, the United States, France and Spain or a 8 slide minimum comic strip, telling why Leopold got off too easy and why he needs to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Here’s what you will need to include in your letter:

▪ Who was King Leopold? What did he do?

▪ What was the difference between what he claimed he wanted to do in the Congo, and what he actually did?

▪ What system for harvesting rubber was put in place in the Congo, and how was it enforced?

▪ Who exposed Leopold’s brutality to the world, and how?

▪ What foolish ideas about race and Europeans’ role in the world made it possible for Leopold to take control of the Congo in the first place?

▪ What should Leopold’s punishment be?

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