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King leopold 2 legacy
Essay the past colonial congo
Essay the past colonial congo
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King Leopold’s role of playing philanthropist was essential to his success in the Congo. He was able to successfully manipulate the public by hiding behind a false identify of a philanthropist claiming to be in the Congo to help save the African people. While all through the 1980’s he used this fake role to seize control of the Congo and using the indigenous people as slave labor with over eight million people being killed during his tyranny. King Leopold first started his conquest over the Congo after meeting Henry Morton Stanley who told him of the potential of the region. It has good natural transportation systems and minimal military threat from the indigenes tribes because of the centuries of slave hunting in the area. When the Committee
Congo was an astounding bestseller novel. It was a great fictional novel that took place in the depths of the Congo rainforest. The novel was later made into a movie. Both the novel and the movie were good, however, I prefer the novel. It just seemed like a more entertaining piece than the movie. This movie was based much upon the novel, but had many alternatives and a completely different ending than the novel.
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.
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.
Leopold profited around $1.1 billion from his Congo. At the age of seventy he sold the Congo territory to the Belgian government. By the time he was seventy-four he became sick and died, he left all his properties to his wife and sons. King Leopold II died, but his legacy in the Congo didn’t. The people were still enslaved and killed and with the dawn of the First World War some natives were made soldiers to fight. Morel became an activist against the war, but it resulted in him losing his popularity; after the war ended he was elected to parliament and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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.
Leopold was very sly in gaining and sustaining his control over the Congo. Leopold grew obsessed with the idea of how much profit the colonies could bring to Belgium. As Hochschild writes, “His drive for colonies, however, was shaped by a desire not only for money but for power” (39). This quote shows just how much Leopold hated being a king of a monarchy where his powers were limited. He loved having absolute power over the Congo. In the novel, Leopold also says that for him and Henry Morton Stanley, a British journalist and explorer of central Africa, “Africa was a chance to gain upward mobility towards wealth and glory” (63).
The land Leopold had obtained was about eighty times larger than that of Belgium itself. Plus, Leopold was proclaimed the “sovereign” ruler of all the Congo Free Sta...
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.
Joseph Conrad’s own experiences during his trip through the Congo helped him provide a foundation for the writing of Heart of Darkness. In 1890, Conrad took a job as a captain on the river steamer Kinshasa. Before Conrad took this job, he had worked for the French merchant navy as a way to escape Russian military service and also to escape the emotional troubles that had plagued him. Conrad had been in a financial crisis that was resolved with help from his uncle. After this series of events, Conrad joined the British merchant navy at the beckoning of his uncle and took the job as the captain of a steamboat in the Congo River. An important fact to remember is that Conrad was a young and inexperienced man when he was exposed to the harsh and dangerous life of a sailor. His experiences in the West Indies and especially in the Belgium Congo were eye opening and facilitated his strong outlooks that are reflected in the book Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s journey through the Belgian Congo gave him the experiences and knowledge to write about a place that most Europeans would never see in their lives.
King Leopold II used slave labor and torture on Africans in order to get raw materials to shape his fortune. He also killed over 10 million people during the time that he ruled, and is mainly spoken amongst people for his killings and his involvement in the East African slave trade. He is the second King of Belgium, his father being the foremost. Leopold always believed that overseas colonies were the key to success for the Belgian empire. This resulted in the Berlin Conference.This is when it all went bad for the Congo and is the main reason for why Leopold is remembered for being a killer and is compared to Adolf Hitler. Leopold II is the founder of the Congo Free State and is the deadliest dictator in the history of the world.
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...
...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.
It was the year 1868. A young boy of about nine years of age stood looking at a map of Africa. The boy raised up his hand and stuck his finger directly into the middle of the “dark continent.” “When I grow up I shall go there,” said this boy with great enthusiasm (Conrad 13). Little did he know that some years later his childhood wish would come true.