Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" is a lost historical account starting in the late 19th century continuing into the 20th century of the enslavement of an entire country. The book tells the story of King Leopold and his selfish attempt to essentially make Belgium bigger starting with the Congo. This was all done under an elaborate "philanthropic" public relations curtain deceiving many countries along with the United States (the first to sign on in Leopold's claim of the Congo). There were many characters in the book ones that aided in the enslavement of the Congo and others that help bring light to the situation but the most important ones I thought were: King Leopold, a cold calculating, selfish leader, as a child he was crazy about geography and as an adult wasn't satisfied with his small kingdom of Belgium setting his sites on the Congo to expand. Hochschild compares Leopold to a director in a play he even says how brilliant he is in orchestrating the capture of the Congo. Another important character is King Leopold's, as Hochschild puts it, "Stagehand" Henry Morton Stanley. He was a surprisingly cruel person killing many natives of the Congo in his sophomore voyage through the interior of Africa (The first was to find Livingston). Leopold used Stanley to discuss treaties with African leaders granting Leopold control over the Congo. Some of the natives he talked to weren't even in the position to sign the treaties or they didn't know what they were signing. And probably the most influential person in the book, E.D. Morel. Morel, an employee of a Belgian company that handled shipments to the Congo, noticed that the shipments coming to and from the Congo seemed really suspicious.…
In the years leading up to the Age of Imperialism, Cameroon was relatively primitive. The first known people to inhabit the area of Cameroon were the pygmy Baka people. They were replaced by the Bantu tribes and absorbed into the Bantu culture. Of a religious point of view, a powerful Islamic movement in the country largely replaced traditional native beliefs. Christian missionaries also began to have some influence later on, with the coming of Europeans. Fernao do Po was the first European to reach the shores of present-day Cameroon. He gave Cameroon its name, Camarao the Portuguese word for prawns, which there was an abundance of in the Sanaga River. Following him were slave traders who set up ports at the colonies of Bimbia and Douala to name a couple. Bamileke, Bamoum and other kingdoms farther inland provided the slaves available for trade. In the 1800s the slave trade declined and instead trade of goods and produce grew, specifically in the trade of natural rubber. There was influence from many countries along the coast, with none managing to penetrate the interior due to malaria, however successful trade companies being implemented resulted in the colonization of Cameroon. Gustav Nachtigal on behalf of Germany set sail for Cameroon and obtained a treaty of chiefs from the coastal region asking for German protection.…
Document 2-1, “The King of the Congo Writes to the King of Portugal,” addresses King Joao III of Portugal from King Alfonso of Congo about how important Congo relies on their trade system with Portugal. King Alfonso mentions how his power of authority in the kingdom has fallen as materials are becoming scarce, in hopes that the Portuguese will provide them with the necessary goods. Congo’s community is heavily revolved around their Christianity faith, though individuals have caused a loss on God, as many turn into thieves and taking part in evil trade. As King Joao III continues to ignore King Alfonso’s requests, Congo is corrupted with chaos, diseases, a decline in christian faith, and slave trade. In addition, King Joao has added to the corruption…
The three decades following the Berlin conference were chaotic as European powers competed to occupy and colonize Africa. Europe would be profiting off the resources that they collected from their reaction to far much weaker subordinate African colonies. As Europe’s wealth amassed, Africa’s wealth approached its end. It was soon Eu European intruders as a much stronger force than themselves and lost all their ties to older tradition through fear. In 1886, the British government commissioned and administered the development of the which was signed by many African rulers (doc.1). These Africans gave in but the document does not specify if they gave in because they lost sights of the nation they were once before. Another document of the reason…
Soon after the Congress of Berlin in 1885, the Congo Basin was united as the Congo Free State. From the Belgian parliament, Leopold was granted almost absolute control of the area. Under terms of the General Act of the Berlin Conference, Leopold pledged to guarantee free trade within the colony, suppress the East African slave trade, promote humanitarian policies, impose no import taxes for twenty years, and encourage philanthropic and scientific enterprises. Conflicting with his oath, Leopold issued a series of decrees beginning in the mid-1880's that violated these conditions. First, he decreed that Belgium assert rights of proprietorship over all vacant land in the Congo. In three successive decrees, the already few rights of the Congolese were reduced even further. They were only able to lay claim on their native villages and farms. Second, Leopold ordered that merchants limit their commercial operations in the Congo to no more that bartering with natives. By 1890, faced with considerable financial difficulty, Leopold had already directly violated his promises; the Congo basically became a commercial entity and it was found that Leopold had been slowly monopolizing a large amount of the ivory and rubber trade by imposing import and export taxes.…
King Leopold II of Belgium was a manipulative ruler who created injustices in the Congo Free State. Many missionaries and young idealists traveled to Africa for adventure but unexpectedly found themselves amidst a holocaust. Despite the many African rebel leaders’ attempts to stop King Leopold, over ten million Congolese people were killed.…
Government scandal is no shocking news, constant new conspiracies and power plays are all too frequently covered by the media for such a thing to be a surprise. The biggest scandal is covering up their own actions. Too much history is covered up by governments around the world. Selfishly, they hide their own shameful history to keep a good name and to stay in good graces with their subjects. In his final chapter of King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild conveys how the transgression of the Flemish to the Congolese was erased. How is it that the people of both the Congo and Belgium have completely forgotten the horrors their predecessors endured and committed? For every secret that is uncovered, how many more are…
Journalists play an important role in our history because they give us a view of our world and help us make connections to everyone. They would have to go extreme measures if needed to find more information because they want their story to be the highly accurate and the best one out there. In order for the people to understand what was going on in daily news, they would read what the journalists wrote. King Leopold II was able to colonize Congo with the help of the journalists and writers keeping quiet about what was really happening in Congo. King Leopold II was an ambitious man who only cared about the money and power.…
The intention of colonialism, though cloaked with moral justification, was clear from the beginning: in order to assert oneself as a dominant power, a country must steal, ravish and exploit the land, people and culture belonging to another. The belief that taking of foreign land was justified because a particular country had the power to do so with little genuine resistance was so prevalent during the late Nineteenth, early Twentieth centuries that it significantly, and tragically affected those colonized land. In Adam Hochschild’s novel, King Leopold’s Ghost, he details chronicles that events that shaped King Leopold of Belgium’s rule over the Congo in Africa, but also illustrates that what went on was not aberrant. Rather, it was example of a broader problem that plagued many Europeans countries in the decades leading up to World War One that led to the death of millions.…
Another example of King Leopold’s hypocrisy is his accepting the recognition for being a humanitarian. It is hard to imagine someone accepting labels like, “humanitarian” (92) or his efforts being called “the greatest humanitarian work of this time,” (46) when people are being tortured, raped, mutilated and murdered under his rule Forcing the local Congolese into slave labor when he himself denounced the Arab slave trade is by no means humanitarian. Or, putting the Congolese in chains and justifying it as teaching them, “the sanctity of work” (118) humanitarian…
In some ways Imperialism made the life of the native people better by building and maintaining new infrastructure that the natives didn’t have before. With the new infrastructure the natives were able to lead longer and happier lives with more amenities provided by things like libraries and hospitals.In India the railroad system put in place by the British is still running and useful today as are many of the roads and hospitals. These services and India’s huge population has led to India being one of the premier economies in the world today. However in the Belgian Congo these improvements were more temporary with very few being serviceable today, and even the ones that are serviceable do not offer much of a service to the natives because of the enormous limits on where they can go and what they can do. This is…
Supporting Evidence #1: “However, he licensed companies that brutally exploited Africans by forcing them to collect sap from rubber plants. At least 10 million Congolese died due to the abuses inflicted during Leopold's rule.”World history: Patterns of interactions. (2009). p#774…
The Congo Free State, later named the Democratic Republic of Congo, drastically changed in 1876 when it was first colonized by King Leopold of Belgium. The colony of the Congo Free State was ruled solely by King Leopold, who used it for his own personal advancement. He took advantage of the country's well-known sources such as rubber. King Leopold of Belgium took all profits made off of the resources for himself and left the native people with nothing. In addition, King Leopold enslaved these natives and treated them poorly. They were forced to do hard and dangerous labor and if they did not meet the King’s standards, they could be killed. While the inhabitants of the Congo Free State could not do much to retaliate against the King, other countries…
Belgium saw them as an easy target with big profits and imperialized. Belgium, as a western nation, also agreed to the ideas of Social Darwinism, the belief that the white European was better than the rest of the people in the world, chiefly based on their physical features. Simply put, they were racist. Most Europeans fell into this belief, but the Belgian people took this to an extreme. They enslaved the native people of Congo in their own country and forced work upon them. Quotas and taxes were created to ensure certain amounts of raw materials were gathered and harsh punishments were put into action for those who didn’t complete or meet their requirements. According to Mark Twain, “The amount of rubber needed to meet the tax requires the men to work for up 25 days each month harvesting the wild rubber vines in the Congo forest” [3]. According to this that would leave only 5 days a month for “regular” life for the Congolese people. They did not have the time or resources to educate themselves, make money, or to develop. In 1908 the Belgian government gave the natives better treatment, by taking away the direct ownership of the nation from Leopold and they made it an official colony of the Belgian government [4]. This decision came through by putting humanitarian pressure put on King Leopold. Conditions improved, schools, hospitals, and roads were built, but the cruelty and racism was still their because of the history they had of it. Also, the punishment, crimes, and cruelty was all that the people understood because they were forced to live in it their entire lives, and it was a hard to shift back. Even in today’s world, this industrialization and these policies have left a scar on the Congos. In both the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic Of Congo there is still political unrest and constant violence. On December 17, there were 22…
Imperialism is the ideology that drives the Europeans in the “Heart of Darkness” towards the Congo for its ivory. In the Congo, the only things worth paying attention towards are those that provide monetary benefits, and this can be seen when Conrad states “Some, I heard, got drowned in the surf; but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to care.…
