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King leopold ii imperialism in africa
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In the later years of the 19th century, Africa, largely uncharted was overrun by European imperialist expansion with Belgium at the forefront. The scramble for Africa’s rich resources was disguised as philanthropic zeal to bring civilization to the dark continent. This moral crusade ended in a miasma of slavery and atrocities composed by King Leopold II of Belgium.
King Leopold’s ferocious appetites for a colony of his own were whetted through a series of risky investments including stake in the Suez Canal Company in Egypt as well as land and railroad prospects in Brazil and Argentina. These investment had little return and Leopold’s attention was directed to the race between France, Portugal, Spain and Britain for African territory. Portugal, Spain and Britain owned some small western islands while 80 percent of the continent was controlled by indigenous rulers.
Convinced that the Congo was exactly the colony he was looking for, Leopold began his plan for acquisition. Leopold deliberately built his image and reputation as a humanitarian and philanthropist by holding multiple international conferences in hopes of convincing the world superpowers to support Belgium’s claim to the Congo. In 1876 Leopold held a Geographical Conference in Brussels. Representatives from every
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Stanley made contact with many indigenous chiefs, taking advantage of their ignorance to get them to sign away everything they own. Stanley tricked 450 different chiefs to sign away their rights to their land and power. With a complete trading monopoly all Leopold needed was other countries to recognize his legitimate claim to the Congo. Wanting diplomatic recognition from the United States Leopold recruits General Henry Shelton Sanford to lobby for his claim to the Congo. Sanford then lobbied to congress and Leopold’s claim was recognized by the United States in
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.
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
In conclusion, during the 15th and 16th centuries Europeans visited the Atlantic Coast in the African states to observe for gold and silvers. They took advantage of the Africans to get their desires when the Africans acknowledged them to be equal which drove into Africa’s downfall.
...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.
So when he does this he set up fake chair organizations which only help one to meet but still had and publish Literature but all which course actually from King Leopold and he commissions famous explorer Henry Morgan Stanley best known for finding doctor Livingstone. Stanley was the guy who actually explore Africa for King Leopold and mark out the territory for his organization which pretends not to be Belgium. This is an important powerful book which provides concise account of the abuses which have really held Africa backs for so long. The focus of the colony after a while became the Rubber trade so there we be basically a cowry labor system where people would be a force by the threat of destruction of their villages or suction of their children to me rubber codes. The problem with harvesting rubber is the vines near the village will gets exhausted will not
After discovering what was happening in the Congo, he started a campaign to end Leopold’s Congo. He gained support by a Baptist missionary Alice Harris who had taken pictures of the human suffering in the Congo, which Morel was able to put on newspapers. Morel was also able to recruit Booker T. Washington and Mark Twain to his cause. King Leopold II was finally exposed after a Commission of Inquiry confirmed all crimes he had committed after taking in the testimonies of eyewitnesses including natives of the Congo. Leopold profited around $1.1 billion from his Congo.
When Leopold came to power in 1865, he was incredibly disappointed at Belgium’s lack of power in the imperial world. Every other western European nation by this time had taken on colonies as part of their empire and therefore had been acquiring incredible wealth due to their new markets and exploitation of the native peoples they encountered. Belgium, itself, was a small country, and unlike their neighboring nations, they had not yet entered into the colonial scene. This all changed when the famous explorer Henry M. Stanley accepted Leopold’s proposal to return to the Congo, acting as an agent of the crown whose mission was to obtain the signatures of all the native chieftains living in the Congo. Using despicable and manipulative tactics, Stanley was able to acquire over 450 treaties which paved the way for the declaration of nearly one million square miles of the Congo River Basin as the property of King Leopold II.
Europe, in the late 1800’s, was starting a land grab on the African continent. Around 1878, most of Africa was unexplored, but by 1914, most of Africa, with the lucky exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, was carved up between European powers. There were countless motivations that spurred the European powers to carve Africa, like economic, political, and socio–cultural, and there were countless attitudes towards this expansion into Africa, some of approval and some of condemnation. Europe in this period was a world of competing countries. Britain had a global empire to lead, France had competition with Britain for wealth and so did other nations like Germany and Russia.
During the Brussels conference in 1876, Leopold found the International African Association. Its object was, “the exploration of the country and the founding of stations which should be rest-houses for travellers and centres of civilization” (Tusan 195). The founding of the Congo as a free state was also proposed at the Brussels conference. Afterward came the Berlin conference of 1885. The Berlin conference was the formalization of the scramble and regulated european colonization and trade. It also defined the borders of the Congo, ensured free trade, and the abolition of the slave trade. The Treaty of Berlin was made to regulate colonization in Africa. As it stated, “All the powers exercising sovereign rights or influence in the aforesaid territories bind themselves to watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and to care for the improvement of the conditions of their moral and material well-being, and to help in suppressing slavery, and especially the slave trade. They shall, without distinction of creed or nation, protect and favour all religious, scientific or charitable institutions and undertakings created and organized for the above ends, or which aim at instructing the natives and bringing home to them the blessings of civilization” (Tusan 200). King Leopold then went on to claim the Congo as his personal property. He stated, “Our refined society attaches to human life (and with reason) a value unknown
For a very long time, Africa was in the eye sight of every major western power. Not only did the country awe people with its mass and beauty, its resources stayed grand and up for grabs. Ambitious European empires curiosity had explorers diving deep into this massive continent. Even with its size Africa wasn’t big enough for Western parties to share, competitions became bloody violent conflicts. These conflicts became so great that Portugal came up with an idea to get together and talk about what to do about Africa.
As a political figure, King Leopold of Belgium had minimal power, yet he acknowledged the political and financial advantages of colonization, and acquired the Congo as a private colony whereas Britain snatched up colonies globally, including the “crown jewel” of all colonies, India. Belgium and Britain demonstrated a stark contradiction of two opposing methods of colonization. These two countries methods’ of domination ultimately decide the fates of each party, conqueror and conquered, in the precarious gamble that is imperialism.... ... middle of paper ...
While Leopold II, the King of Belgium, desperately wanted an overseas colony, The Belgian people did not share his enthusiasm; which created the feelings of neglect and apathy Belgium had towards Congo. The Congo Free State, established “in the margins of the Berlin Conference” in 1885, allowed Leopold to “gain international recognition of his possession” which he had begun to take control of since the 1870s. However, while Leopold was securing control of the Congo, the Belgian people were not interested in controlling colonies, as they believed that colonies “would merely soak up resources that would be better used for social purposes at home.” Thus, the Belgian people decided to solve the problem of having an unwanted colony by separating the Belgian government from...
In the early 1880’s, the powers of Europe started to take control of regions in Africa and set up colonies there. In the beginning, colonization caused the Africans little harm, but before long, the Europeans started to take complete control of wherever they went. The Europeans used their advanced knowledge and technology to easily maneuver through the vast African landscape and used advanced weapons to take control of the African people and their land. The countries that claimed the most land and had the most significant effect on Africa were France, England, Belgium, and Germany. There were many reasons for the European countries to be competing against each other to gain colonies in Africa. One of the main reasons was that the Europeans believed that the more territory a country was able to control, the more powerful it could become and the more powerful it would be seen as by other countries. Other reasons for the desire to control African land included the many natural resources that could only be found in Africa, such as diamonds, gold, and as time progressed, rubber. It also provided new markets in surrounding places so that manufactured goods could be sold for a larger profit. The Europeans had many motives for imperialism in Africa. Yet the true motives were often shielded as they tried tom present themselves as humanitarians when in reality they were making Africa a terrible place to live with brutality and harsh treatment of the African natives. The ways of the Europeans had many physical and emotional costs for the people of Africa. The imperialism process also took a toll on the people of Europe. The European imperialistic colonization in Africa was motivated by the desire to control the abundant natural resources an...
...ermore established imperial rule in the Congo. The Force Publique was Leopold’s governing army. They were to oversee the work of the now colonized people of the Congo. Another of Leopold’s objectives was to gain wealth from his acquired colony. With the Force Publique, he would force the Congolese to gather ivory from the land. Those who refused had their elders, women and children held hostage until they complied. Leopold’s International African Association was to be a humanitarian project that would help to end slavery, however, by forcing the people to work for him, he was enslaving those he supposedly sought to help. When the popularity of the bicycle rose in the late 19th, manufactures were in need of rubber for their tires. Leopold saw this as an opportunity to gain more wealth and quickly had the Force Publique force the people into harvesting rubber.
The New Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa 1880-1914. Jeff Taylor, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.