Congo Free StateName: - MR. BEST WORLD HISTORY



Congo Free StateName:Dreams of Empire: King Leopold II of Belgium wanted his small European country to be greater than it was. Belgium had no empire, no colonies, and no particularly exploitive treaties. However, Leopold had bought into the ideas of the White Man’s Burden. He saw it as the destiny and duty of all great nations to build empires.The Belgian Parliament rejected any plans to create an empire. They viewed empires as essentially evil (having themselves been under foreign control for much of their history). That didn’t stop Leopold from pursuing the dream. He contracted Henry Morton Stanley, an adventurer, to explore the Congo Basin and started a charity, the International African Association, to help alleviate some of the problems of Africa.Why did Leopold II want an empire?Why didn’t Belgium have one?Congo Free State: by 1880, the International African Association had more control of the Congo region than any country did. The goals of the organization were also what every European country wanted to hear: free trade, development of the region, end of slavery, spread of Christianity, peaceful government, and economic prosperity. At the Berlin Conference in 1884, King Leopold II put in a formal claim that his charity should become the controller of the Congo as a model for how to better Africa.This was accepted by the other powers and the Congo Free State was born. Unknown to them, however, Leopold actually was the sole stockholder of the International African Association. All of its other stockholders were actually just holding the stocks for Leopold to lend credibility to his organization. This meant that Leopold was essentially the ruler of the Congo Free State—not as part of Belgium but as his own private kingdom.How did a charity organization end up controlling a country?Who actually controlled Congo?How did Leopold deceive other countries into giving him a country?Rubber: On the money side, The Congo always struggled. By 1890 it was close to bankruptcy. But then international demand for rubber skyrocketed. At the time, rubber was one of the most prized economic resources. It was used in all sorts of new machines like cars and electric devices but it also could only be found in a few places on Earth. The Congo was one such place. However, the Congo did not have rubber trees—which are fairly productive. Instead, the Congo has rubber vines, which are much more difficult to harvest and much less rubber comes out of them. Still, having a source of rubber was very profitable so Leopold started the develop the rubber industry.Why was rubber so valuable?What’s different about Congo rubber?Quotas: more and more, Congo’s entire economy became based around the production of rubber. Experts were brought in from Southeast Asia, where rubber was already a booming industry. Villages were given quotas to meet. However, these quotas were based on the expected yield of rubber trees, not rubber vines, and so almost no villages met those quotas. To King Leopold II, this could only be viewed as laziness so more severe punishments were needed to motivate them.Why couldn’t the Congolese meet their rubber quotas?In the Rubber Fields: in 1891, Leopold gave full leeway to his colonial companies. Whatever they wanted to do was fine with him. This entered into the era of complete brutality. In the best of villages, failing to meet quotas meant whipping. Often the men would be tied down naked and whipped down to the bone. In worse villages, children and wives were held prisoner and might be executed, raped, tortured, or mutilated if the man did not meet his quotas. It became a tradition to cut of the hands of people who refused to do their work, or cut off the hands of their children to motivate them.People became desperate to meet their impossible quotas. They would steal from other workers or even kill if that meant they didn’t have to meet punishment. One unfortunate reality was that the rubber would often stick to the skin and desperate workers would strip this rubber the only way they could without damaging the rubber—with knives. This took hair and skin with it as well and you could recognize rubber workers by the deep scars on their hands and forearms.What were some of the ways colonial companies tried to motivate work?What would people do to meet their quotas?The Force Publique: eventually, the Congolese began to resist this system and Leopold decided it was a necessity to expand the Congo’s military—called the Force Publique. This was a military made up of Congolese primarily and could face the same punishments if they were disloyal. So the Force Publique carried out the orders of the colonial administration. They destroyed villages, performed mass executions, and killed those that resisted the colonial government. But bullets are expensive so the administration made them justify every bullet they fired by bringing in the severed hand of the person they used the bullets against. This led to a situation where soldiers of the Force Publique who fired their bullets would just cut off the hand of some random person to prove they hadn’t wasted the bullets.What was the job of the Force Publique?Why did the Force Publique start collecting hands?Zappo Zaps: However, the Force Publique had no center of power deep into the Congo, where most of the rubber production took place. So the administration decided it was best to find people who were already feared and could be paid to keep the region in line. The most feared of all the people of the central Congo were the Zappo Zaps, who were put on the payroll to discipline villages that resisted.The Zappo Zaps were feared because they were cannibalistic slave raiders whose way of life involved preying on other humans. Under the approval of the administration, this tribe carved a path of terror through the Congo Heartland for over a decade. Even after numerous complaints of Zappo Zap atrocities came from both the Congolese and missionaries, the colonial administration continued to use the tribe in its army.Why was the Force Publique not enough to oversee the Congo?Who were the Zappo Zaps? What were they paid to do?Genocide? There has been lots of argument about whether the Congo Free State was guilty of genocide. Part of that is because the population of the Congo declined by roughly 50% from 1885 to 1905. However, there was also a massive outbreak of disease at the time. Still, it is certainly clear that King Leopold’s system resulted in at least tens of thousands of direct deaths and hundreds of thousands or more of indirect deaths from malnutrition, poor hygiene, and the like. Belgium has consistently refused to call it genocide but support for that designation is growing. Why might the Congo be a genocide?Red Rubber: since 1884, Leopold had privately and secretly ruled the Congo—becoming one of the wealthiest men in Europe in the process. However, in 1906 a journalist published an article called “Red Rubber,” which took an unflinching look at the atrocities being committed in the supposed charitable state. There was massive international outcry and even questions of whether Leopold should be hanged for his crimes.The Belgian government acted on this in 1908 when it annexed the Congo, removing it from Leopold’s control and making it part of Belgium. Leopold sued his own government and won a payment of nearly $95 million to be paid to his building projects. He was allowed to finish out his reign and died a year later in 1909.Why did Leopold have to give up the Congo?What did the Belgian government pay for the Congo? ................
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