King Leopold's Ghost Essay

The novel, King Leopold’s Ghost written by Adam Hochschild, creates the main idea by shedding light upon the dark side of human history that incorporates tyranny and slavery. It is in the nonfiction category bringing back the time of King Leopold II, King of Belgians, and how he owned the Congo Free State for over twenty years. He used it to exploit their main natural resources of ivory, helping Belgium. In order to achieve the wanted result: torture, maiming, and terror were used to scare the slaves to work. It was not until the natural resources were exhausted did the objections from powerful countries result in a change. Henry Morton Stanley, an explorer, was sent by Leopold to make treaties with the leaders so that Leopold II could take

over the only unclaimed sizable geographic area. The rubber was used in the beginning (1890) and it became to be a proven economically beneficial in the international scale. As the need for it increase, so did the quotas for the workers and the terror. Human rights movements started to spread and the crimes that Leopold II was committing became known to the public. In 1908, Belgium annexed the Congo as a colony., and in 1960, the Congo gained independence. Despite the attempts to tear the Congo apart, King Leopold's Ghost depicts the challenges of achieving democracy, developing, and the benefits of interconnectedness; using resources a country develops, with being interconnected countries can help one another to achieve democracy.
The novel displays the theme of development in the aspects of their potential for development and in their decline of developmental potential. The reason why it matters in this case was to show the reader the potential the Congo had before it was stripped of its natural resources. The statistics of the Congo are known throughout the world. In King Leopold’s Ghost, they start them loud and clear so that everyone would know, “The Congo River drains more than 1.3 million square miles, and area larger than India. It has estimated one sixth of all the world’s hydroelectric potential”. Those two sentences give the reader an idea of how wealthy the Congo could be to help. Sadly, the help that arrived ended up hitting their developmental chance down to barely anything. The Congo had ⅙ of part of the world’s natural resources, rubber, ivory, diamonds, copper, etc., but since King Leopold’s time those natural resources have been exhausted. Contrary to their trading potential, the people there had no military, no central government, no currency, and what was happening there, the Europeans knew nothing about what was happening. For from the novel in Stanley’s prospective states on page 73, “Of the people who lived in the Congo basin, Europeans still knew little.” It later continues to say, “His other discovery was that, along with the crucial transportation artery of the Congo River, there was no single- all powerful state that had to be subdued….” With no overpowering country taking control of them, the Congo had the ability of developing into a powerful nation, but detrimental events occurred and just as quickly as their potential was discovered, it was taken away.
The Congo was always an isolated country. During the time of the Scramble of Africa, the majority of Africa was being discovered at the same time. Stanley Morton, world renowned explorer, was the first person to ever explore the Congo. Interconnectedness has many different denotations like; connectedness of country, the country’s feeling on non-isolationism towards other countries, etc. In this case the Congo shows all of the previously mentioned definitions. Before the Congo was tangled with the dealing of Europe, the country itself was fine. They had their own way of trading, obtaining goods, currency, and everyone one could think of. Page 73 enlightens the reader by stating, “Stanley had been interested in them mainly as a source of supplies, people with whom he could take trinkets or cloth for food.” Instead of currency, and the risk of economic collapse, the people used the simplistic way of obtaining what they needed by trading. Before the time of imperialism, all countries had a sense of isolationism, which was a safe idea to take because the more you communicate, the more chance you have of becoming as powerful nation, but only with the chance of exploding from the inside. Concluding the statements regarding the theme of interconnectedness within the novel, there was not as much display of interconnectedness compared to the other two themes democratization and development. Lastly, the novel King Leopold’s Ghost should spark the controversy that the author intended to that being whether or not a country like the Congo, a country with little knowledge of what is happening around them, undeveloped, not being harmed, should be left to stay that way or not.
The Congo “Free State”, at first glance one would think that the Congo was a free country, but whoever thinks that could not be more wrong.

The Congo Free State was personally owned by King Leopold II and was suffering torture everyday. On page 80 it displays a hair of it, “Stanley was a harsh taskmaster. ‘The best punishment is that of irons,’ he explained in one of his letters to Brussels, ‘because without wounding, disfiguring or torturing the body, it inflicts shame and discomfort.’” It was not until other countries came in did the punishment lessen. WIth the help of human rights organizations, the British, and many others, the Congo was able to attain democratization and be free from the Belgians. One person to take a huge stand, questioning what the Belgians were doing was Morel. At the age of twenty- eight, he quit his job to take up full time work of stopping the cruelty of the people of the Congo. Page 213 elaborates, “Morel knew he had taken a momentous step. ‘I had launched the boat’ he wrote’, ‘and there could be no turning back.’” Soon after, people of the Parliament like Sir Charles Dilke spoke out strongly. THen there was humanitarian group like Anti-Slavery Society and the Aborigines Protection Society that preached Christian humanitarianism applying it to denouncing brutalities. The novel ends at the result of King Leopold II’s death, the transfer of the Congo to the Belgian colonial rule, and the first few years of independence. Important to be noted,

democratization surrounds the entire novel from when it was first imperialized to the very end when it became a free country.
Because the book I chose was nonfiction, it was like reading history. I read the novel King Leopold’s Ghost, which covered the era of when King Leopold personally owned the Congo and what he did because of greed. The crimes against the slaves were horrific in the novel, and they were horrific in real life. The characters in the novel were people who really lived. Knowing that the novel was nonfiction, it reminded me that it was history. Before reading this I believed that whatever nonfiction novel I read it was like reading a history textbook that is dry and boring with facts. Now, because of this book, it makes me understand that even though it was history and that it was nonfiction, it doesn’t have to be dry facts that I forget within a week. This novel helped me really understand what if felt like to be in that time period. The feeling of being in the Belgian Congo, which was a colony in Central Africa between the years 1908 to 1960 (when it gained its independence), deepens the understanding of the novel because it is no longer stone cold facts, but I related it to feelings of shock that what was written really happened.
I personally enjoyed King Leopold’s Ghost because it made me question to myself “how?” It really makes one think to themselves, ‘how could a person be this evil?’ ‘how could a person be ABLE to do this without regretting it?’.

The novel evokes the feelings of hatred within me for Leopold, but it makes you want to read more. For me, even though reading a chapter nearly everyday was a time struggle, it did not seem like a chore because at night I would just sit in my bed reading. History and nonfiction books, take you back to a different time where you feel as if you are apart of history, the novel previously stated included. The characters came alive while I was reading because the events are well shown. I believe that everyone who has a love in history should read this. It is such an amazing read that shocks you at moments, which keeps it interesting. Through all of the torture there was there was also heroes. To compare two stories, when most people are little they are aware of the firebreathing dragon, the hero, and the princess. While reading, that story came back to me but as different characters. The dragon was King Leopold, the heroes were the human rights campaigners, and the princess took on the slaves in the Congo. My point being that the story shows a whole journey that the Congo had to face. I believe that King Leopold’s Ghost is an amazing novel that everyone should read because even if you are not the story type of person, it still instills a lesson that greed

is wrong and that we should never forget the past even though it is hard.