Read on Twitter
On this day in 1835, the future Leopold II, second King of the Belgians, was born in Brussels, Belgium. He was the second but eldest surviving son of Leopold I, & would reign for 44 years until his death in 1909. 1/
Yet whilst he was the longest reigning monarch in Belgian history, it is not his exploits in Belgium that his is most remembered for. Strap in, folks, for the story of one of the modern-day monsters of European colonialism…2/
At the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, which marked the formalisation of the “Scramble for Africa”, Leopold managed to convince the other European powers in attendance to recognise his supposed humanitarian organisation, the International Association of the Congo (IAC)…3/
…as the de facto government of the Congo Free State (CFS); this despite the lack of any African presence at the talks. 4/
The outcome for Leopold, was the recognition of his smokescreen humanitarian organisation, the IAC, with Leopold as its chairman, as the de facto government for the area now named the L'État Indépendant du Congo – the Congo Free State. 5/
This personal success for Leopold was the reward for nearly twenty years of political manoeuvring in which he had managed to convince the world’s powers of his altruistic, humanitarian & philanthropic intentions in the Congo region. 6/
At long last, Leopold had the colony he had sought after for so long. After coming to power in 1865, Leopold pursued his dream of acquiring colonies abroad. Belgium had virtually no territory overseas & Leopold was suffering from a severe case of kingdom & empire envy. 7/
His first cousin, Queen Victoria, was about to be made Empress of India, & as he was related to most of the other royal families in Europe, Leopold was also envious of the empires they were building too. 8/
His previous attempts at purchasing Fiji & the Philippines had both failed. As a result, Leopold’s jealousy & greed led him to pursue his colonial ambitions in a ruthless & ingenious manner. 9/
The mid-19th century was the age of exploration & Leopold took full advantage of this when seeking out potential locations for his empire. He was a keen reader of the proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, as well as the Times & the Telegraph newspapers. 10/
Through these publications, he had followed closely the story of Henry Morton Stanley, possibly the greatest African explorer of all time, & his exploration of Central Africa. Leopold soon realised that Central Africa was essentially ‘up for grabs’ 11/
He met with Stanley upon his return, congratulating him on his success & convincing the explorer to allow Leopold to finance his return to the Congo, for the purposes of convincing the local chieftains to sign over their land to Leopold. 12/
He invested his own money into the association, as well as attracting financial support from anti-slavers & philanthropists alike. During the 1880s, Leopold embarked on a series of diplomatic manoeuvres. 13/
Leopold despatched an agent to the US to convince President Arthur to recognise his African Association – this despite nobody in the US really knowing what the organisation was. 14/
It was US recognition of the flag of the CFS that later provided the foundations for the American Congo Reform Association (ACRA) to protest the US govt to intervene in the Congo issue. 15/
Once Leopold had secured recognition of the flag by a major power, he then sought to further solidify his position by speaking to Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of the German Empire & the host of the Berlin Conference. 16/
Despite his initial hesitancy – Bismarck realised that Leopold was not the humanitarian he portrayed himself to be, noting that he was both a “swindler” & a “fantasist” – he nevertheless still supported Leopold’s plans for the Congo region. 17/
Leopold had taken full advantage of the paternalism that lurked behind the Berlin Conference; the powerful 19thC reasoning that European colonisation was good for Africans & that neatly fitted into the three Cs of colonialism: Civilization, Christianity, & Commerce. 18/
Leopold had realised that in order to get himself into Africa he would have to use the zeitgeist, which was anti-slavery, to prove to the world powers that he was in the Congo for humanitarian reasons – to help rid the Congolese of the “plague” of Arab slave traders. 19/
By the end of the Berlin Conference, Leopold had acquired a territory that was 1.3m sq miles in size – 78x bigger than the size of Belgium – & under the guise of philanthropy, found himself to be the toast of abolitionists & humanitarians, from whom he received much support. 20/
Given the context, no-one anticipated that Leopold’s ploy would lead to one of the major humanitarian disasters of the age. The seeds of disaster were sewn almost immediately. Under Leopold’s rule, the Congolese found themselves forced to work continuously to collect ivory. 21/
Failure to meet the set quotas resulted in the mutilation – the severing of hands and/or feet of those who failed to meet their quotas – & the torture, rape & murder of the Congolese people. The resulting death toll from the system operating in the CFS was enormous. 22/
Despite the lack of a census to determine the exact figure of Congolese killed during Leopold’s reign, estimates are usually around the 10million mark, with others exceeding that. 23/
The atrocities led to a transnational reform movement, aimed at pressuring Leopold into transferring the CFS to be ruled by the Belgian govt. For a variety of reasons, this transfer eventually took place in 1908. 24/
Leopold died on 17 Dec 1909. So unpopular by this point, his funeral cortege was booed by the crowd. Yet it didn’t take long for his reputation to be rehabilitated. Statues of Leopold were erected in the 1930s, with Leopold’s role in the CFS still debated today. END/
For anyone interested, I wrote about this legacy last year, both in terms of the propaganda war that fuelled this debate ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07075332.2020.1814841) &its historical legacy ( https://www.brusselstimes.com/opinion/117258/letat-cest-moi-leopold-ii-and-belgiums-imperial-memorials/). For a much more entertaining account, @bastardspod has a 2-part episode on Leopold
