+ All Categories
Home > Travel > King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Date post: 16-Jan-2015
Category:
Upload: john-murnane
View: 1,280 times
Download: 2 times
Share this document with a friend
Description:
 
Popular Tags:
15
by Adam Hochschild King Leopold’s Ghost
Transcript
Page 1: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

by Adam Hochschild

King Leopold’s Ghost

Page 2: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

King Leopold II of Belgium1835-1909

Dissatisfied with ruling a tiny country barely older than his own reign

Adept at manipulating press, public relations, and foreign powers

Exceedingly avaricious, though he learned to conceal this fact

Expensive tastes, especially for obtaining and renovating his palaces and initiating huge public worksHe will be designated henceforth by this graphic:

Page 3: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Europe in 1900

Page 4: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

The Belgian CongoPreviously the Congo Free State (1884-1908)

Page 5: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Henry Morton Stanley

Welsh explorer and journalist who passed himself off as American

Made several voyages of discovery through central Africa while writing newspaper dispatches to be telegraphed home

Travelled with a retinue of hundreds: cooks, guards, porters, scientists, etc., many of whom died along the way

Often cut his way through the jungle with machetes and opened fire on the natives with the slightest provocation

Public icon of his dayHe will be designated henceforth by this graphic:

1841-1904

Page 6: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

General Henry Shelton Sanford

“General” is an honorary title, actually he was an American businessman and diplomat

Assigned originally as an American official to a diplomatic post in Belgium; when his term was up went to work for LeopoldHe will be designated henceforth by this graphic:

1823-1891

Page 7: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Taking over the CongoStanley goes on his first African adventure, the search for David Livingstone. He is successful, ensuring his undying fame. Leopold realizes what a lucrative resource interior Africa is and determines to rule it. Publicly, he is outraged by “Arab” slave trading and wants to see the Congo liberated. He and Sanford recruit Stanley.Stanley goes back to Africa and forces chiefs, sometimes at gunpoint, to sign over all their land, labor, and trading rights to Leopold’s front agency.

Leopold needs official recognition of his Congo from other countries. He dispatches Sanford to the United States.

Sanford convinces Congress and the president to declare their recognition of the “Congo Free State”, as Leopold dubs his own private country, officially run by his front agency.

Page 8: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Colonial RuleAfricans were seen as less than human. Leopold’s objective was to squeeze as much money from the Congo as possible before he died or market prices dropped. He cared about Africans only as a source of labor. They were put to work:

Carrying supplies

Building railroads

Chopping wood for steamships

Gathering rubber

Page 9: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

A soldier’s job:-collect a given quantity of wild rubber-keep the natives in line

How a soldier proceeded:-take all the crops and animals found in a village-kill a few villagers to make his point-cut the right hands off the corpses -take the women and children hostage-send the men of the village out to gather rubber-kill or beat any men who brought slightly less than the required amount of rubber-release the hostages who hadn’t died in prison-continue to next town

Page 10: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

E. D. MorelEdmund Dene Morel was a British journalist and politician

Had a job with a company that contracted for King Leopold.

Realized while looking through the cargo lists of ships traveling to and from the Congo that the only explanation for the goods being transported was slave labor

Quit his job to write for newspapers and pamphlets full time, mostly in protest to Leopold’s Congo

He will be designated henceforth by this graphic:

1873-1924

Page 11: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Roger Casement

British consul working in the Congo

Documented the abuses witnessed there in long, detailed reports

Couldn’t protest actively due to his position in the British government; his reports, however, were extremely important, and he donated generously

He will be designated henceforth by this graphic:

1864-1916

Page 12: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

The Conflict

Casement and Morel met in England and together decided to establishthe Congo Reform Association.

King Leopold fought back by doing his best to get the press on his side. He bribed and traded favors and finally decided to send his own delegation of 3 judges to the Congo to report favorably on the situation. Unfortunately for Leopold, the delegation was so appalled by what they saw that they hindered his cause rather than helping it.

The CRA held meetings across Europe and America, which drew thousands of supporters

Morel was particularly good at both fundraising and attracting well-known personalities to the cause. Politicians, clergy, and royalty all lent their voices.

Page 13: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

ResolutionKing Leopold was finally forced to sell the Congo to the Belgian government.

For his personal country, Leopold received:-45.5 million francs towards his building projects-50 million francs “as a mark of gratitude for his great sacrifices”-Belgium assumed the Congo’s 110 million francs’ worth of debt-all this in addition to the fortune he had made off his African slaves over the yearsMorel reluctantly agreed that Belgian rule was an acceptable solution

The reports of atrocities coming from the Congo quieted down over the years, though not entirely. It was, after all, still the same companies and the same people operating in the Congo.

Page 14: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Brief Analysis

Contemporary and historical sources both put the number of African deaths in the Congo during Leopold’s reign at roughly 10 million, half the area’s population.

The scary part?That wasn’t at all an unusual statistic in similar parts of Africa.

Why the international outcry over the Congo?In a word, politics. Morel and many others were strong

British nationalists, staunch supporters of colonialism. They deluded themselves into believing that it was just Leopold who was flawed, not the whole colonial system.

Also, the Congo was a huge area controlled by the king of a small, insignificant country. Europe was on the brink of the first world war and none too eager to upset its power balance.

Not until late in the nineteenth century would African states be able to really get justice.

Page 15: King Leopolds Ghost Julie Kew

Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

Work Cited


Recommended