King Leopold's Ghost And Kaffir Boy Literary Analysis

Many aspects throughout life are affected by colonization, including internal conflict, territorial issues, unequal distribution of resources, unequal rights, and conflict of power. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild and Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane portray the affects colonization had on Africa. Both books argue that one person is not solely responsible for the negative affects of colonization in Africa, instead a system is responsible for the crimes that were committed. King Leopold and the apartheid system were guilty of committing crimes against humanity due to their illegal exploitation of territory and rights of the African people. Colonization within the two books brought out issues of fear, violence, rules and order, and hate.

In King Leopold’s Ghost, there were many heroes and villains present throughout the colonization process. Terror was often times instilled in order to obtain the villains’ needs of territory, resources, and most

From a young age, King Leopold was fascinated in obtaining his own colony in which he could exploit territory and resources from. At that time, Africa’s abilities in providing territory and resources were unknown for only a few people had explored the country. Leopold knew that he could not obtain Africa alone, thus Henry Stanley Morton proves his usefulness in this situation. Morton and many of Leopold’s missionaries were sent to map out the continent and illegally obtain territory through treaties, the basis of establishing order and rule for Leopold in Africa. Morton and the missionaries instilled terror by exploring the continent with combat weapons, such as elephant guns, and forced Africans to whip other Africans. This terror not only established colonization in Africa, but portrayed Leopold as a