Adam Hochschild painted a very vivid picture of the cruelty and injustices done to the Congolese from 1885 to 1908 in his book King Leopold’s Ghost. Hochschild shows us how manipulative King Leopold was in his desire for fortune and more power. This paper will point out the how King Leopold was a silver tongued snake, how he used his charm to win him the colony of Congo, and how his greed caused many innocent lives to be lost. This can be seen in the examination of how he gained control of the colony and his management thereafter.
We first start to see how Leopold’s personality was developing into the character he became when even his father, the king, had spoken to one of his advisors stating, “Leopold is subtle and sly.” He also made reference to Leopold being like a fox. Hochschild went on further to state how these assets would become valuable to Leopold as an adult because he learned how to be stealthy, observe from a distance, and was able to dissemble problems when they would arise. Leopold had an obsession with trade; a first step into his world of greed, he was often looked upon by the
…show more content…
Leopold often had many individuals on his pay roll, many being newspaper writers that would make Leopold sound like a righteous man. King Leopold finally had the power he desired became Congo’s “King Sovereign”. In no way did he share his power with the Belgium government. On May 29, 1885, the king named his new, privately owned country the Congo Free State and the king had the country he always dreamed of.
Another example of King Leopold’s cunning is when he won over the Christian supporters and missionaries by denouncing the use of slavery and slave trade in Africa. He was elected a member of a human rights group called Aborigines Protection Society. Little did they know the terrible atrocities he had ordered his people to do to make the Africans work or acquire
The book mainly chronicles the efforts of King Leopold II of Belgium which is to make the Congo into a colonial empire. During the period that the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River.
It may seem like Ghost on the Throne by James Romm is just another one of the thousands of books written about the life about Alexander the Great. The fact is it was nearly the exact opposite. Of course, Alexander the Great plays an enormous role in the book, but Ghost on the Throne told the story of the legacy Alexander the Great left behind after his death. In fact, the word “Ghost” in the title of the book refers to Alexander the Great. Throughout the book, Romm told many stories about those who ruled after Alexander the Great and the influence Alexander had on the way those people ruled. This is why the book was given the title “Ghost on the Throne.” James Romm proves the impact Alexander’s legacy had on those once under his command even after he was no longer alive. Ghost on the Throne was a very interesting read and did an excellent job explaining Alexander the Great’s legacy.
Alas, in 1961 Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by a US- sponsored plot 7 months after independence, and replaced him with a “puppet dictator named Mobutu” (Kingsolver). In her book, Barbara Kingsolver surfaces a forgotten part of our nation’s history in the exploitation of the Congo through her main characters, the Price family, who are missionaries sent to the Kilanga village. Through characters’ narratives that “double as allegories for the uneasy colonial marriage between the West and Africa” (Hamilton, Jones), Kingsolver creates a relatable way for her readers to understand the theme she is trying to convey, which is “‘what did we do to Africa, and how do we feel about it?’” (Snyder). Kingsolver began with this theme and developed the rest of the novel around it, just as she does with her other works, and sticking with her trademark technique, she utilizes her book as a vessel for “political activism, an extension of the anti-Vietnam protests” she participated in college (Snyder).
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.
Leopold paid a large monthly price to a journalist to ensure a stream of sympathetic articles about his activities in the Congo. The French did not feel threatened by Belgium or by Leopold’s claims. Their main fear was that when the king ran out of money, as they were sure he would, in his expensive plan to build a railway, he might sell the whole territory to their rival, Britain. When talking to the British, Leopold hinted that if he didn’t get all the land he wanted, he would leave Africa completely, which meant he would sell the Congo to France. The bluff worked, and Britain gave in. Staff in place and tools in hand, Leopold set out to build the infrastructure necessary to exploit his colony. Leopold’s will treated the Congo as if it were just a piece of uninhabited land to be disposed of by its owner. Leopold established the capital of his new Congo state at the port town of
...abor to get what he wanted, ivory and rubber. Leopold was able to colonize and pillage Congo for its resources during the Scramble for Africa through forced labor. The quote that sums up my essay and the book is best described at the end of chapter 15. Massacring huge numbers of natives will eventually frighten the survivors into gathering rubber. This shows the intentions of forced labor by the Force Publique and the reason for the population drop in Congo during Leopold’s rule.
While my opinion is that the book itself was a good read, the context troubles me in that it took so much effort to expose Leopold’s crimes and it was forgotten. The story starts with King Leopold II of Belgium. In the scramble for Africa, many nations rushed to establish colonies, and those who did made a great profit from them. The king himself wanted to compete with them, as well as amass a profit. He traveled to several British colonies and learnt how to establish and manage a colony of his own.
George Washington Williams was a black American. He had come to the Congo over a route that seemed almost as if it took him through several different lives. He was in the U.S. Army, fought battles, attended University`s, and graduated from Newton in 1874. Williams married and became a pastor. He also created a milestone in the literature of human rights and of investigative journalism. This work is titled An Open Letter to His Serne Majesty Leopold 2nd , King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo, by Colonel the Honorable Geo.W. Williams, of the Untied States of America(102). As well as submitting a statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations urging recognition of the International Association of the Congo. Williams had a plan to go to the Congo to collect material for his book. As Williams traveled up the the great river he had time to take in Africa. When he reached Stanley Falls he could no longer contain what he had felt and saw. He then writes h...
Hochschild also wants to show the heroism that took place afterwards in what became the first human rights movement of our time. Hochschild does an excellent and detailed job of showing how clever and cunning (like a fox) Leopold was in obtaining and maintaining his hold in the Congo. Early on Leopold became obsessed with the idea of colonies and the profit that they could bring to his country.
In 1865, King Leopold II succeeded his father to the thrown of Belgium and thus began one of the most brutal and insensitive periods of imperialism ever to exist. From manipulative treaties to straight forward intimidation, Leopold dominated his empire like no other. He was cruel, deceptive, and downright evil, yet it took the world over twenty years to recognize this. The record of King Leopold’s atrocity is an interesting account of how a jealous man could inflict some of the most disgusting forms of oppression upon his fellow members of the human race.
During the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, King Leopold II of Belgium invaded the Congo and used it to procure more wealth for himself and his nation. In doing so, as many as ten million Congolese were decimated, and they faced unspeakable horrors. Hochschild argues in King Leopold’s Ghost that all actions taken by King Leopold II were done out of nothing more than sheer greed and selfishness, and he used any means necessary to get what he wanted, and manipulated others into following suit by exploiting their own greed and racism. The only way the brutality was combated, Hochschild further goes on to describe, was through the actions of the few with a higher moral character.
During the 17th century, slavery was a widely used commodity with the Europeans, little do people know however that African kings also had and accepted slavery in their own nations. King Nzinga Mbemba of Congo and the King of Ouidah had similarities on the issue of slavery; they tolerated the use of slaves. Congo’s king had no contingency with slavery; in fact, he had slaves in his country. When the Portuguese were purchasing goods in Congo, the king had men “investigate if the mentioned goods are captives or free men” (NZ, 622). The fact that the king differentiates the men between ‘free’ and ‘captives’ illustrates that not all people in Congo are free. Whether these captives are from the country of Congo or not, they are still caught and held all across the nation against their will. King Mbemba kept slaves because the population of Congo was vastly declining due to the slave trade. In his letter, he pleads with the king of Portug...
Leopold researched the continent extensively and followed the news of the white explorers through the region. When he found out that an explorer was low on funds, he quickly offered to contribute to the cause. He found a few explorers who had brought back news of Africa and its current state at the time, when Arab slave traders were seen leading caravans of captives to be sold into the slave trade. This news stirred the many Europeans who were looking to abolish the slave trade. Leopold saw this as a way to get into Africa by setting up faux organizati...
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
Dracula, as it was written by Bram Stoker, presents to us possibly the most infamous monster in all of literature. Count Dracula, as a fictional character, has come to symbolize the periphery between the majority and being an outsider to that group. Dracula’s appeal throughout the years and genres no doubt stems from his sense of romanticism and monster. Reader’s no doubt are attracted to his “bad-boy” sensibilities, which provide an attraction into the novel. Looking first at his appearance, personality, and behaviour at the beginning of the novel, we can easily see Dracula’s blurred outsider status, as he occupies the boundaries of human and monster. Related to this is Dracula’s geographic sense of outsider. For all intents and purposes, Dracula is an immigrant to England, thus placing him further into the realm of outsider. To look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula as solely a monster in the most violent sense of his actions would to be look at a sole aspect of his character, and so we must look at how he interacts with the outside world to genuinely understand him.