“THE HORROR” of King Leopold II

In 1884, the Berlin Conference assembled to finalize the “carving of the magnificent African cake” as quoted by Belgian’s King Leopold II. In attendance were the late 19^th century imperialist states given that during this time, all the major European powers were colonizing. King Leopold II had a particular interest in the Congo which notably was not owned by the Kingdom of Belgium but rather, it was the king’s very own personal property, a private colony in the heart of the Central African rainforest. The Congo, rich with natural resources and cheap labour, was a success formula for wealth which King Leopold II undoubtedly recognized. His domination and power over this colony became his legacy, a legacy of greed and horrid violence. The terror caused by King Leopold’s enforcers if trade quotas were not met was described as unsurpassed barbarism. As quoted by genocide scholar, Adam Jones, “Male rubber tappers and porters were mercilessly exploited and driven to death. Leopold’s agents held the wives and children of these men hostage until they returned with their rubber quota. Those who refused or failed to supply enough rubber had their villages burned down, children murdered, and hands cut off.” There are stories of soldiers and officials that returned from expeditions with strings of ears or collections of amputated hands. In addition, the chicotte, a hippo-hide whip, was widely used as a means of punishing and quickly became the feared symbol of Leopold’s administration. Joseph Conrad’s famous novella, Heart of Darkness, perhaps best captured the dehumanizing of the Africans as quoted, “the horror, the horror”! King Leopold II is often compared to a subsequent European tyrant, Adolf Hitler. To his legacy, King Leopold II turned his Congo, his “heart of darkness”, into a massive labour camp, reaped a fortune from its natural resources, and contributed to the death of over ten million innocent Africans. To this day, this African holocaust has clearly - never recovered.