After the Berlin conference of 1884-1885, various European nations set out to mount their flags all over Africa, murder the people, and then steal their resources to make Europe richer.
King Leopold II of Belgium laid claim to
After the Berlin conference of 1884-1885, various European nations set out to mount their flags all over Africa, murder the people, and then steal their resources to make Europe richer.
King Leopold II of Belgium laid claim to the Congo and declared it his territory while exerting physical threats to the indigenous people of the Congo (Kongo). He declared the people and the land to be his property, and he quickly turned the country into a moneymaking venture for himself and his throne.
Kongo was rich in numerous minerals but was richer in Ivory and rubber. He set up a system that was brutally harsh on the people – a system that killed and mutilated the indigenous peoples.
The people of the Kongo were then enslaved in their land. Since the slave trade had been aborted and abolished in Europe and America, the Europeans found a way to bring slavery to Africa. They came to steal resources from the Africans, and kill them in large numbers while at it.
The Exploration and Mapping Out of The Congo (Kongo)
After the Belin Conference, King Leopold II needed to explore and map out the Congo so as to determine its resources, people, and best routes for his planned exploitation.
He hired and sent a British explorer, named Henry Morton Stanley, to the Congo. Stanley’s job was to establish the Congo Free State. He chose Stanley because he had some form of experience with the people and the area since he had mapped out the Congo River, and was familiar with some of the indigenous people.
Although historians have tried to say that Stanley did not have any initial intentions of hurting the Congo people, we still don’t think that should exonerate him of his crimes against the people. His first crime was entering the Congo without the invitation of the indigenous people and then going ahead to map out their land without their permission.
The presence and behavior of Stanley and his men angered the natives of Congo, and this sparked off misunderstandings and later chaos.
Seven various indigenous peoples of the Congo got together and confronted Stanley and his men. The people had witnessed Stanley writing and drawing in his journal, and to them, that was a plot to undo them. They asked him to burn his book or he and his men would be killed. It was obvious that the natives didn’t want what was in his journal to get out of their land. And that was for good reason – the gods were wise.
Stanley continued his exploration and expedition and started to shoot at the Congolese whenever they came close, or he saw them. By the time he had gotten to the end of his exploration, he had succeeded in burning down over 32 towns of the natives and killing many of them.
His men were out of control, and they committed all manner of atrocities on the Congolese people. They went about kidnapping and raping the women and flogging the men to death for any little misunderstanding.
This was how the Congo Free State was created – on the foundations of terror, murder, rape, and arson.
The Enslavement of The Entire Congo Population
When Stanley sent his report to King Leopold, he reported of temples filled with Ivory (elephant tusks), and also the presence of rubber all over the Congo. The resources were bountiful, and Leopold was determined to create wealth out of it.
King Leopold II took ownership of two-thirds of the Congo land by force and mandated the real owners of the land to work for him as slaves. A few accounts mentioned that the people were paid pennies for their labor, but it was soon stopped, and then they were forced to work for 20 days in a month without pay.
The government and officials of King Leopold II stated that the harvesting of rubber was then a required tax that everyone who lived on the land would pay to the crown. This simply meant that Leopold stole a people’s lands and resources, and forced them to work as slaves on their own lands.
Because of the high expectation of wealth and profit from the rubber and ivory, the officials of King Leopold II made the quotas very huge and difficult to reach. It meant that the people would labor and toil for 20 days to meet their rubber quota, and then the remaining 10 days in a month was left to them to farm, and work to provide food for themselves and their families.
The Maiming and Killing of Congolese Who Didn’t Meet Their Quota
By the 1890s, Leopold II, through his officials, increased the rubber quota of the then battered and suppressed Congolese. The rubber business was booming in Europe, and he had to meet with the market demands. That meant more work hours for the indigenous people. The situation turned from bad to worse, as the penalty for not meeting your quota was the cutting off of a limb or death.
Leopold II had an army which was made up of about 19,000 troops. They were European mercenaries hired to protect his government