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Leopold II Saxe-Coburg-Gotha | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 9 April 1835 Brussels, Belgium |
| Died | 17 December 1909 Brussels, Belgium |
| Political orientation | Colonialism |
Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor was the king of Belgium from 1865 to 1909 and brutal colonial ruler of the Congo Free State, murdering half of its population between 1885 and 1908.[1]
Colonization of the Congo[edit | edit source]
Leopold founded a private company to colonize the Congo in 1878 and became the owner of 2.3 million km2 of African land with the formation of the "Congo Free State" following the 1885 Berlin Conference. The Congo Free State was approximately eighty times the size of Belgium.[1]
Leopold, who had been attempting to acquire colonies for Belgium, had set up a so-called scientific institute called the International African Association (IAA) which sent expeditions into central Africa to gather intelligence for a future land grab. He portrayed himself as a philanthropist and proposed that the IAA become a protective state over the Congo basin, which was approved at the Berlin Conference.[2]:104
He set up a militia called the Force Publique (or "Public Force") to dismember and torture Africans who did not work hard enough.[1] The colonial economy of Congo Free State initially focused on acquiring ivory, but shifted more to a focus on rubber following the onset of the wild rubber boom in the late 1800s.[3]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Vijay Prashad (2008). The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World: 'Brussels' (pp. 17–18). [PDF] The New Press. ISBN 9781595583420 [LG]
- ↑ John Tully (2011). The Devil's Milk: A Social History of Rubber. ISBN 978-1-58367-231-0
- ↑ Angela Thompsell (2025-05-18). "Congo Free State Rubber Regime Atrocities" Thought Co..