209-597: From 1885 to 1908, many atrocities were committed in the Congo Free State (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo ) under the absolute rule of King Leopold II of Belgium . These atrocities were particularly associated with the labour policies, enforced by colonial administrators, used to collect natural rubber for export. Combined with epidemic disease, famine , and falling birth rates caused by these disruptions,
418-721: A conference . Leopold wanted the International Association of the Congo boundaries drawn by Stanley to be officially confirmed, thus giving the Association an official status. On 26 February 1885, the Berlin Act was signed. The Act regulated an immense free trade zone in the Congo Basin and made it a neutral territory. Furthermore, the Act declared war on slavery. The act contained only one article that Leopold disliked: Article 17 gave
627-742: A " Galvanized Yankee ." He joined the Union Army on 4 June 1862 but was discharged 18 days later because of severe illness. After recovering, he served on several merchant ships before joining the US Navy in July 1864. He became a record keeper on board the USS ; Minnesota , and participated in the First Battle of Fort Fisher and the Second Battle of Fort Fisher , which led him into freelance journalism. Stanley and
836-401: A "slave society" as companies became increasingly dependent on forcibly mobilising Congolese labour for their collection of rubber. The state recruited a number of black officials, known as capitas , to organise local labour. However, the desire to maximise rubber collection, and hence the state's profits, meant that the centrally enforced demands were often set arbitrarily without considering
1045-515: A 10-year-old girl and offered her to cannibals to document and sketch how she was cooked and eaten. Stanley found out only when Jameson had died of fever. The spread of sleeping sickness across areas of central and eastern Africa that were previously free of the disease has been attributed to this expedition, but this hypothesis has been disputed. Sleeping sickness had been endemic in these regions for generations and then flared into epidemics as colonial trade increased trade throughout Africa during
1254-583: A Belgian territory until Leopold's death in 1909. Leopold's conquest of the Lado Enclave met with approval from the British government, at least initially, which welcomed any aid in their ongoing war with Mahdist Sudan. But frequent raids outside of Lado territory by Belgian Congolese forces based in Rejaf caused alarm and suspicion among British and French officials wary of Leopold's imperial ambitions. In 1910, following
1463-528: A Commission of Enquiry, appointed by the regime in 1904, confirmed the stories of atrocities and pressure on the Belgian government increased. In 1908, as a direct result of this campaign, Belgium formally annexed the territory, creating the Belgian Congo . Conditions for the indigenous population improved dramatically with the partial suppression of forced labour, although many officials who had formerly worked for
1672-669: A book about his experiences: How I Found Livingstone; travels, adventures, and discoveries in Central Africa (1872). In 1874, the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph financed Stanley on another expedition to Africa. His ambitious objective was to complete the exploration and mapping of the Central African Great Lakes and rivers, in the process circumnavigating Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika and locating
1881-510: A calmness of exterior before the Arabs which was hard to simulate as he reached the group, Mr. Stanley said: – "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" A smile lit up the features of the pale white man as he answered: "Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you." Stanley joined Livingstone in exploring the region, finding that there was no waterway from Lake Tanganyika to the Nile. On his return, he wrote
2090-434: A cloth, beads, a portion of salt, or a knife. On one occasion, a customary chief who ordered his subjects to gather rubber was rewarded with slaves. Workers who refused to supply their labour were coerced with "constraint and repression". Dissenters were beaten or whipped with the chicotte , hostages were taken to ensure prompt collection and punitive expeditions were sent to destroy villages which refused. The policy led to
2299-462: A collapse of Congolese economic and cultural life, as well as farming in some areas. Much of the enforcement of rubber production was the responsibility of the Force Publique , the colonial military. The "force" had originally been established in 1885, with white officers and non-commissioned officers , and black privates , recruited from as far afield as Zanzibar , Nigeria , and Liberia . In
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#17330844747172508-591: A colony for himself and inspired by recent reports from central Africa, Leopold began patronising a number of leading explorers, including Henry Morton Stanley . Leopold established the International African Association ( Association internationale africaine ), a "charitable" organisation to oversee the exploration and surveying of a territory based around the Congo River , with the stated goal of bringing humanitarian assistance and "civilisation" to
2717-416: A colony for himself and inspired by recent reports from central Africa, Leopold began patronizing a number of leading explorers, including Henry Morton Stanley . Leopold established the International African Association , a charitable organization to oversee the exploration and surveying of a territory based around the Congo River , with the stated goal of bringing humanitarian assistance and civilization to
2926-567: A consequence, Peter Forbath claims, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in cut-off hands. In Forbath's words: The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber ... They became
3135-451: A district along the river 500 kilometres (300 mi) north of Stanley Pool : All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator ... From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets ... A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean. As
3344-646: A district or the rubber concession, for example. The other zone—almost two-thirds of the Congo—became the Domaine Privé , the exclusive private property of the state. In 1893, Leopold excised the most readily accessible 259,000 km (100,000 sq mi) portion of the Free Trade Zone and declared it to be the Domaine de la Couronne , literally, "fief of the crown". Rubber revenue went directly to Leopold who paid
3553-536: A domainal system that privatized extraction rights over rubber for the state in certain private domains, allowing Leopold to grant vast concessions to private companies. In other areas, private companies could continue to trade but were highly restricted and taxed. The domainal system enforced an in-kind tax on the Free State's Congolese subjects. As essential intermediaries, local rulers forced their men, women and children to collect rubber, ivory and foodstuffs. Depending on
3762-444: A famine in 1899 and in 1900 missionaries recorded a "terrible famine" across ABIR's concession. Leopold sanctioned the creation of "child colonies" in which orphaned Congolese would be kidnapped and sent to schools operated by Catholic missionaries in which they would learn to work or be soldiers; these were the only schools funded by the state. More than 50% of the children sent to the schools died of disease, and thousands more died in
3971-481: A few days after a bite from a tsetse fly , many of his porters deserted, and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases. Stanley found David Livingstone on 10 November 1871 in Ujiji , near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania . He later claimed to have greeted him with the now-famous line, " Dr. Livingstone, I presume? " However, this line does not appear in his journal from the time—the two pages directly following
4180-609: A few days' journey". Professor James Newman has written that "establishing the connection between the Lualaba and Congo Rivers and locating the source of the Victoria Nile" justified him (Newman) in stating that: "In terms of exploration and discovery as defined in nineteenth-century Europe, he (Stanley) clearly stands at the top." On 15 April 1877, King Leopold II of the Belgians sent his first expedition to Central Africa, then still under
4389-404: A few tons of rubber per year here. You only have to sail up such a river and the branches with rubber hang almost up to your ship." In 1891, rubber extraction was divided among concessionaires. This soon led to abuses, when the switch was made to "forced labour". Stanley, who had left from a post at Vivi near Matadi on 21 February 1880, arrived at Stanley pool on 3 December 1882. Building
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#17330844747174598-499: A few weeks of his birth. There is some doubt as to his true parentage. As his parents were unmarried, his birth certificate describes him as a bastard ; he was baptised in the parish of Denbigh on 19 February 1841, the register recording that he had been born on 28 January of that year. The entry states that he was the bastard son of John Rowland of Llys Llanrhaidr and Elizabeth Parry of Castle. The stigma associated with illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life. The boy
4807-507: A field of work could best dispense with, and whose nobility is too nice to be stained with toil." About society women, Stanley wrote that they were "toys to while slow time" and "trifling human beings." When he met the American journalist and traveller May Sheldon , he was attracted because she was a modern woman who insisted on serious conversation and not social chit-chat. "She soon lets you know that chaff won't do," he wrote. The authors of
5016-418: A figure of at least five million deaths; John Gunther similarly estimates that Leopold's regime caused five to eight million deaths. Lemkin posited that 75% of the population was killed. Since no census records the population of the region at the inception of the Congo Free State (the first was taken in 1924), the precise population change in the period is not known. Despite this, Forbath more recently claimed
5225-655: A full apology. Even before his accession to the throne of Belgium in 1865, the future king Leopold II began lobbying leading Belgian politicians to create a colonial empire in the Far East or in Africa, which would expand and enhance Belgian prestige. Politically, however, colonisation was unpopular in Belgium as it was perceived as a risky and expensive gamble with no obvious benefit to the country and his many attempts to persuade politicians met with little success. Determined to look for
5434-825: A junior colleague jumped ship on 10 February 1865 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire , in search of greater adventures. Stanley was possibly the only man to serve in the Confederate Army, the Union Army, and the Union Navy. Following the American Civil War, Stanley became a journalist in the days of frontier expansion in the American West . He then organised an expedition to the Ottoman Empire that ended catastrophically when he
5643-463: A large piece of granite inscribed with the words "Henry Morton Stanley, Bula Matari, 1841–1904, Africa". Bula Matari translates as "Breaker of Rocks" or "Breakstones" in Kongo and was Stanley's name among locals in Congo. It can be translated as a term of endearment for, as the leader of Leopold's expedition, he commonly worked with the labourers breaking rocks with which they built the first modern road along
5852-490: A larger area. Sleeping sickness, in particular, was "epidemic in large areas" of the Congo and had a high mortality rate. In 1901 alone, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Congolese died from sleeping sickness. Vansina estimated that five per cent of the Congolese population perished from swine influenza. In areas in which dysentery became endemic, between 30 and 60 per cent of the population could die. Vansina also pointed to
6061-521: A letter to the United States Secretary of State , he described conditions in the Congo as " crimes against humanity ", thus coining the phrase, which would later become key language in international law . Public interest in the abuses in the Congo Free State grew sharply from 1895, when the Stokes Affair and reports of mutilations reached the European and American public which began to discuss
6270-497: A new umbrella organization. This organization sought to combine the numerous small territories acquired into one sovereign state and asked for recognition from the European powers. On 22 April 1884, thanks to the successful lobbying of businessman Henry Shelton Sanford at Leopold's request, President Chester A. Arthur of the United States decided that the cessions claimed by Leopold from the local leaders were lawful and recognized
6479-689: A number of treaties curated there (and gathered by Stanley himself from what is present-day Uganda during the Emin Pasha Expedition), ostensibly gaining British protection for a number of African chiefs. Amongst these were a number that have long been identified as possible frauds. A good example is treaty number 56, supposedly agreed upon between Stanley and the people of "Mazamboni, Katto, and Kalenge". These people had signed over to Stanley, "the Sovereign Right and Right of Government over our country for ever in consideration of value received and for
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6688-529: A policy of deliberate extermination has led others to dispute the comparison; there is an open debate as to whether the atrocities constitute genocide. According to the United Nations ' 1948 definition of the term "genocide" , a genocide must be "acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". According to Georgi Verbeeck, this conventional definition of genocide has prevented most historians from using
6897-525: A portion of East African coast, of which Mombasa and Malindi were the principal towns. For eight years, to my knowledge, the matter had been placed before His Highness, but the Sultan's signature was difficult to obtain. The records at the National Archives at Kew, London, offer an even deeper insight and show that annexation was a purpose he had been aware of for the expedition. This is because there are
7106-473: A road from Vivi to Isangila , Stanley took almost 2 years to traverse the rapids towing with him 50 tonnes of equipment, including 2 dismantled steamboats and a barge. After he arrived at Stanley pool, a local king, Makoko of the Anziku Kingdom , gave him a site near Kintambo to build a city. Despite hostilities from another nearby king, Ngaliema , he decided to start the construction of Léopoldville on
7315-454: A secretary-general ( secrétaire-général ), who was obligated to enact the policies of the sovereign or else resign. Below the secretaries-general were a series of bureaucrats of decreasing rank: directors general ( directeurs généraux ), directors ( directeurs ), chefs de divisions (division chiefs) and chefs de bureaux (bureau chiefs). The departments were headquartered in Brussels . Finance
7524-455: A sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace ... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected. In theory, each right hand proved a killing. In practice, to save ammunition soldiers sometimes "cheated" by simply cutting off
7733-529: A strip of land on the Free State's eastern border in exchange for the Lado Enclave , which provided access to the navigable Nile and extended the Free State's sphere of influence northward into Sudan . After rubber profits soared in 1895, Leopold ordered the organization of an expedition into the Lado Enclave, which had been overrun by Mahdist rebels since the outbreak of the Mahdist War in 1881. The expedition
7942-433: A summary of Stanley's letters published by The New York Times on 2 July 1872. Stanley biographer Tim Jeal argued that the explorer invented it afterwards to help raise his standing because of "insecurity about his background", though ironically the phrase was mocked in the press for being absurdly formal for the situation. The Herald 's own first account of the meeting, published 1 July 1872, reports: Preserving
8151-504: A village that had protested. The officer in command "ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades ... and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross". After seeing a Congolese person killed for the first time, a Danish missionary wrote, "The soldier said 'Don't take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don't bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service. ' " As
8360-428: A wealthy trader. He saw Stanley sitting on a chair outside his store and asked him if he had any job openings. He did so in the British style: "Do you need a boy, sir?" The childless man had indeed been wishing he had a son, and the inquiry led to a job and a close relationship between them. Out of admiration, John took Stanley's name. Later, he wrote that his adoptive parent died two years after their meeting, but in fact
8569-421: A word, and to which they sign a cross in order to have peace and to receive gifts, are really only serious matters for the European powers, in the event of disputes over the territories. They do not concern the black sovereign who signs them for a moment." Leopold began to create a plan to convince other European powers of the legitimacy of his claim to the region, all the while maintaining the guise that his work
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8778-402: A young man, I saw [Fiévez's] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river ... Rubber causes these torments; that's why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters. One junior officer described a raid to punish
8987-456: Is also widely believed that birth rates fell during the period too, meaning that the growth rate of the population fell relative to the natural death rate. Vansina, however, notes that precolonial societies had high birth and death rates, leading to a great deal of natural population fluctuation over time. Among the Kuba, the period 1880 to 1900 was actually one of population expansion. A reduction of
9196-431: Is impossible to separate deaths caused by massacre and starvation from those due to the pandemic of sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) which decimated central Africa at the time. Historians generally agree that a dramatic reduction in the overall size of the Congolese population occurred during the two decades of Free State rule in the Congo. It is argued that the reduction in the Congo was atypical and can be attributed to
9405-463: Is necessary for their own well-being, even more than ours." Unexpectedly, France had sent its own expedition to the Congo Basin . Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza had undermined Stanley's mission by concluding contracts himself with native heads of state. The creation of a station that would later be called Brazzaville could not be prevented. Leopold was furious, writing angrily to Strauch: "The terms of
9614-470: Is not explicit on the agenda but it is clear enough: We then entered heartily into our business; how absolutely necessary it was that he should promptly enter into an agreement with the English within the limits assigned by Anglo-German treaty. It would take too long to describe the details of the conversation, but I obtained from him the answer needed. A few pages further in the same book, Stanley explains what
9823-545: Is recognised for his important contributions to Western knowledge of the geography of Central Africa and for his resolute opposition to the slave trade in East Africa . Henry Stanley was born as John Rowlands in Denbigh , Denbighshire , Wales . His mother Elizabeth Parry was 18 years old at the time of his birth. She abandoned him as a very young baby and cut off all communication. Stanley never knew his father, who died within
10032-454: The Force Publique numbered 19,000 men. In addition to the army, rubber companies employed their own militias, which often worked in tandem with the Force Publique to enforce their rule. The red rubber system emerged with the creation of the concession regime in 1891 and lasted until 1906 when the concession system was restricted. At its height, it was heavily localised in the Équateur , Bandundu , and Kasai regions. Failure to meet
10241-527: The Berlin Conference on Africa that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work and would not tax trade. Via the International Association of the Congo , he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo Basin . On 29 May 1885, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at
10450-480: The Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference (1889–1890), Leopold issued a new decree mandating that Africans in a large part of the Free State could sell their harvested products (mostly ivory and rubber) only to the state. This law extended an earlier decree declaring that all "unoccupied" land belonged to the state. Any ivory or rubber collected from the state-owned land, the reasoning went, must belong to
10659-476: The Brussels Geographic Conference , inviting famous explorers, philanthropists, and members of geographic societies to stir up interest in a "humanitarian" endeavour for Europeans in central Africa to "improve" and " civilize " the lives of the indigenous peoples. At the conference, Leopold organized the International African Association with the cooperation of European and American explorers and
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#173308447471710868-505: The Comité d'études du Haut-Congo , under Leopold's orders. King Leopold gave Stanley clear instructions: "It is not about Belgian colonies. It is about establishing a new state that is as large as possible and about its governance. It should be clear that in this project there can be no question of granting the Negroes the slightest form of political power. That would be ridiculous. The whites, who lead
11077-539: The Congo Free State propaganda war , European and US reformers exposed atrocities in the Congo Free State to the public through the Congo Reform Association , founded by Casement and the journalist, author, and politician E. D. Morel . Also active in exposing the activities of the Congo Free State was the author Arthur Conan Doyle , whose book The Crime of the Congo was widely read in the early 1900s. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to
11286-455: The Congo River . Author Adam Hochschild suggested that Stanley understood it as a heroic epithet, but there is evidence that Nsakala, the man who coined it, had meant it humorously. Having survived for ten years of his childhood in the workhouse at St Asaph , it is postulated that he needed as a young man to be thought of as harder and more formidable than other explorers. This made him exaggerate punishments and hostile encounters. It
11495-481: The Congo River . Having succeeded with this second objective, they then traced the river to the sea. During this expedition, Stanley used sectional boats and dug-out canoes to pass the large cataracts that separated the Congo into distinct tracts. These boats were transported around the rapids before being reassembled to travel on the next section of river. In passing the rapids many of his men were drowned, including his last white colleague, Frank Pocock. The expedition
11704-529: The Congo–Arab war in 1892–1894, there were reports of widespread cannibalisation of the bodies of defeated combatants by the Batetela allies of the Belgian commander Francis Dhanis . After a brutally suppressed rebellion that followed the completion of the war, a young Belgian officer described the subsequent consumption of the victims' bodies as "horrible but exceedingly useful and hygienic". Officially cannibalism
11913-425: The Domaine Privé . Eventually, the Congo Free State was recognized as a neutral independent sovereignty by various European and North American states. Leopold used the title 'Sovereign of the Congo Free State' as ruler of the Congo Free State. He appointed the heads of the three departments of state: interior, foreign affairs and finances. Each was headed by an administrator-general ( administrateur-général ), later
12122-756: The Herald in the Middle East and the Black Sea region, visiting Egypt, Jerusalem, Constantinople, the Crimea, the Caucasus, Persia and India , during which time he apparently carved his name into a stone of the ancient palace at Persepolis in Persia . Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871, later claiming that he outfitted an expedition with 192 porters . In his first dispatch to
12331-717: The Lualaba under Tippu Tip's friendship. Now, Stanley discovered that Tippu Tip's men had reached still further west in search of fresh populations to enslave. Four years earlier, the Zanzibaris had thought the Congo deadly and impassable and warned Stanley not to attempt to go there, but when Tippu Tip learned that Stanley had survived, he was quick to act. Villages throughout the region were burned and depopulated. Tippu Tip had raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and, when Stanley reached his camp, had 2,300 slaves, mostly young women and children, in chains ready to transport halfway across
12540-577: The New York Herald , however, he stated that his expedition numbered only 111. This was in line with figures in his diaries. James Gordon Bennett Jr. , publisher of the New York Herald and funder of the expedition, had delayed sending to Stanley the money he had promised, so Stanley borrowed money from the United States Consul . During the 700-mile (1,100 km) expedition through the tropical forest, his thoroughbred stallion died within
12749-707: The Order of the Bath in the 1899 Birthday Honours , in recognition of his service to the British Empire in Africa. In 1890, he was given the Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold by King Leopold II. Stanley died at his home at 2 Richmond Terrace, Whitehall , London on 10 May 1904. At his funeral, he was eulogised by Daniel P. Virmar. His grave is in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels' Church in Pirbright , Surrey , marked by
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#173308447471712958-504: The Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren , Belgium in 1954. He died in 1959. Mainly at his wife's behest, Stanley took up British citizenship and entered Parliament as a Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North , serving from 1895 to 1900. He disliked politics and made little impression on Parliament. He became Sir Henry Morton Stanley when he was made a Knight Grand Cross of
13167-511: The Ruwenzori Range and Lake Edward , and emerged from the interior with Emin and his surviving followers at the end of 1890. Despite its success, this expedition tarnished Stanley's name because of the conduct of the other Europeans on the expedition. Army Major Edmund Musgrave Barttelot was killed by an African porter after behaving with extreme cruelty. James Sligo Jameson , heir to Irish whiskey manufacturer Jameson's , allegedly bought
13376-483: The US Navy Congo River Expedition of 1885 , which gave a detailed description of travel along the river. Leopold was able to attract scientific and humanitarian backing for the International African Association ( French : Association internationale africaine , or AIA), which he formed during a Brussels Geographic Conference of geographic societies, explorers, and dignitaries he hosted in 1876. At
13585-413: The Uele in the north-east. Some of the violence of the period can be attributed to African groups using colonial support to settle scores or white administrators acting without state approval. Ultimately the state's policy towards its African subjects became dominated by the demands which were made—both by the state itself and by the concessionary companies—for labour for the collection of wild produce of
13794-409: The United Kingdom , Belgium, the United States , and elsewhere. An international campaign against the Congo Free State began in 1890 and reached its apogee after 1900 under the leadership of the British activist E. D. Morel . On 15 November 1908, under international pressure, the Government of Belgium annexed the Congo Free State to form the Belgian Congo . It ended many of the systems responsible for
14003-484: The Zande Federation , and Swahili-speaking territory in the eastern Congo under slave trader Tippu Tip , refused to recognise colonial authority and were defeated by the Force Publique with great brutality, during the Congo–Arab War . In 1895, a military mutiny broke out among the Batetela in Kasai, leading to a four-year insurgency. The conflict was particularly brutal and caused a great number of casualties. The presence of rubber companies such as ABIR exacerbated
14212-411: The association , and replaced it with an appointed cabinet of Belgians who would do his bidding. To the temporary new capital of Boma , he sent a governor-general and a chief of police. The vast Congo Basin was split up into 14 administrative districts , each district into zones, each zone into sectors, and each sector into posts. From the district commissioners down to post level, every appointed head
14421-429: The "Congo Question". To appease public opinion, Leopold instigated a Commission for the Protection of Natives ( Commission pour la Protection des Indigènes ), composed of foreign missionaries, but made few serious efforts at substantive reform. In the United Kingdom, the campaign was led by the activist and pamphleteer E. D. Morel after 1900, whose book Red Rubber (1906) reached a mass audience. Notable members of
14630-464: The "crown domain" ( Domaine de la Couronne ) under personal rule, which was added to the territory he already controlled under the Private Domain ( Domaine privé ). Thus most economic exploitation of the Congolese interior was undertaken by Leopold and the major concessionaires. The system was extremely profitable and ABIR made a turnover of over 100 per cent on its initial stake in a single year. The King made 70 million Belgian francs ' profit from
14839-409: The 1890s, however, ended these problems as the Free State compelled Congolese males to work as forced labour collecting wild rubber which could then be exported to Europe and North America. The rubber boom transformed what had been an unexceptional colonial system before 1890 and led to significant profits. Exports rose from 580 to 3,740 tons between 1895 and 1900. To facilitate economic extraction from
15048-426: The American journalist May Sheldon , and between him and his wife Dorothy Tennant , shows that he enjoyed close relationships with those women, but both Roberts and Pike ultimately rejected him when he refused to abandon his protracted travels. When Stanley married Dorothy , he invited his friend, Arthur Mounteney Jephson , to visit while they were on their honeymoon. Dr. Thomas Parke also came because Stanley
15257-562: The Association decided to sell. This may also have helped Leopold to gain recognition for his claim by the other major powers, who thus wanted him to succeed instead of selling his claims to France. He also enlisted the aid of the United States, sending President Chester A. Arthur carefully edited copies of the cloth-and-trinket treaties that Stanley (a Welsh-American ) claimed to have negotiated with various local authorities, and proposing that, as an entirely disinterested humanitarian body,
15466-500: The Association would administer the Congo for the good of all, handing over power to the natives as soon as they were ready for that responsibility. Leopold wanted to have the United States support his plans for the Congo in order to gain support from the European nations. He had help from American businessman Henry Shelton Sanford , who had recruited Stanley for Leopold. Henry Sanford swayed President Arthur by inviting him to stay as his guest at Sanford House hotel on Lake Monroe while he
15675-577: The Belgian annexation of the Congo Free State as the Belgian Congo in 1908 and the death of the Belgian King in December 1909, British authorities reclaimed the Lado Enclave as per the Anglo-Congolese treaty signed in 1894, and added the territory to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . While the war against African powers was ending, the quest for income was increasing, fuelled by the aire policy. By 1890, Leopold
15884-526: The Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. The Free State was privately controlled by Leopold from Brussels; he never visited it. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the Belgian Parliament reluctantly annexed the state as a colony belonging to Belgium after international pressure. Leopold's reign in
16093-570: The Congo Basin were awarded with the État Indépendant du Congo (CFS, Congo Free State). By a resolution passed in the Belgian Parliament, Leopold became roi souverain , sovereign king, of the newly formed CFS, over which he enjoyed nearly absolute control. The CFS (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo), a country of over two million square kilometres, became Leopold's personal property,
16302-459: The Congo by attributing the losses to smallpox and sleeping sickness. Campaigning groups such as the Congo Reform Association did not oppose colonialism and instead sought to end the excesses of the Free State by encouraging Belgium to annex the colony officially. This would avoid damaging the delicate balance of power between France and Britain on the continent. While supporters of the Free State regime attempted to argue against claims of atrocities,
16511-441: The Congo eventually earned infamy on account of the atrocities perpetrated on the locals . Ostensibly, the Congo Free State aimed to bring civilization to the local people and to develop the region economically. In reality, Leopold II's administration extracted ivory , rubber , and minerals from the upper Congo basin for sale on the world market through a series of international concessionary companies that brought little benefit to
16720-435: The Congo region). "Belgium does not need a colony. Belgians are not drawn towards overseas enterprises: they prefer to spend their energy and capital in countries which have already been explored or on less risky schemes ... Still, you can assure His Majesty of my whole-hearted sympathy for the generous plan he had conceived, as long as the Congo does not make any international difficulties for us." Determined to look for
16929-413: The Congo via Lieutenant Cameron 's 1873 expedition from Zanzibar to bring home Livingstone 's body, but was reluctant to take on yet another expensive, unproductive colony. Bismarck of Germany had vast new holdings in southwest Africa , and had no plans for the Congo, but was happy to see rivals Britain and France excluded from the colony. In 1885, Leopold's efforts to establish Belgian influence in
17138-629: The Congo, it recruited from specific ethnic and social demographics. These included the Bangala , and this contributed to the spread of the Lingala language across the country, and freed slaves from the eastern Congo. The so-called Zappo Zaps (from the Songye ethnic group ) were the most feared. Reportedly cannibals, the Zappo-Zaps frequently abused their official positions to raid the countryside for slaves. By 1900,
17347-465: The Congolese in their land to native villages and farms, essentially making nearly all of the CFS terres domaniales (state-owned land). Leopold further decreed that merchants should limit their commercial operations in rubber trade with the natives. Additionally, the colonial administration liberated thousands of slaves. Four main problems presented themselves over the next few years. Leopold could not meet
17556-456: The Dark Continent (1878) (in which he coined the term "Dark Continent" for Africa), Stanley said that his expedition had numbered 356, the exaggeration detracting from his achievement. Stanley attributed his success to his leading African porters, saying that his success was "all due to the pluck and intrinsic goodness of 20 men ... take the 20 out and I could not have proceeded beyond
17765-443: The Dark Continent . Failing to enlist British interest in the Congo region, Stanley took up service with Leopold II, who hired him to help gain a foothold in the region and annex the region for himself. From August 1879 to June 1884 Stanley was in the Congo basin, where he built a road from the lower Congo up to Stanley Pool and launched steamers on the upper river. While exploring the Congo for Leopold, Stanley set up treaties with
17974-446: The European powers recognized the claims of a supposedly philanthropic organisation run by Leopold II, to most of the Congo Basin region. Leopold had long held ambitions for colonial expansion. The territory under Leopold's control exceeded 2,600,000 km (1,000,000 sq mi), more than 85 times the territory of Belgium; amid financial problems, it was directed by a tiny cadre of administrators drawn from across Europe. Initially
18183-492: The Free State because there was no evidence of a policy of deliberate extermination or the desire to eliminate any specific population groups, though the latter added that nevertheless there was "a death toll of Holocaust proportions," which led him to call it "the Congo holocaust." Congo Free State The Congo Free State , also known as the Independent State of the Congo ( French : État indépendant du Congo ),
18392-630: The Free State for the high costs of exploitation. The same rules applied as in the Domaine Privé . In 1896 global demand for rubber soared. From that year onwards, the Congolese rubber sector started to generate vast sums of money at an immense cost for the local population. Early in Leopold's rule, the second problem—the British South Africa Company's expansion into the southern Congo Basin—was addressed. The distant Yeke Kingdom , in Katanga on
18601-454: The Free State government, which not only paid no taxes but also collected all the potential income. These companies were outraged by the restrictions on free trade, which the Berlin Act had so carefully protected years before. Their protests against the violation of free trade prompted Leopold to take another, less obvious tack to make money. A decree in 1892 divided the terres vacantes into
18810-484: The Free State were retained in their posts long after annexation. Instead of mandating labour for colonial enterprises directly, the Belgian administration used a coercive tax that deliberately pressured Congolese to find work with European employers to procure the necessary funds to make the payments. For some time after the end of the Free State the Congolese were also required to provide a certain number of days of service per year for infrastructure projects. ... It
19019-401: The Free State, land was divided up under the so-called "domain system" ( régime domanial ) in 1891. All vacant land, including forests and areas not under cultivation, was decreed to be " uninhabited " and thus in the possession of the state, leaving many of the Congo's resources (especially rubber and ivory) under direct colonial ownership. Concessions were allocated to private companies. In
19228-473: The French and Germans that, behind this professedly humanitarian quest, we might have annexation projects. However, Stanley's other writings point to a secondary goal which was precisely territorial annexation. He writes in his book on the expedition about his meeting with the Sultan of Zanzibar, when he arrived there at the start of the expedition, and a certain matter that was discussed at that meeting. At first, he
19437-573: The International Association of the Congo's claim on the region, becoming the first country to do so. In 1884, the US Secretary of State said, "The Government of the United States announces its sympathy with and approval of the humane and benevolent purposes of the International Association of the Congo." In November 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened a 14-nation conference to submit the Congo question to international control and to finalize
19646-485: The International Congo Association, and specified that it should have no connection with Belgium (beyond a personal union ), or any other country, but would be under the personal control of King Leopold. It drew specific boundaries and specified that all nations should have access to do business in the Congo with no tariffs. The slave trade would be suppressed. In 1885, Leopold emerged triumphant. France
19855-589: The Kuba population (one of the many Congolese populations) was rising during the first two decades of Leopold II's rule, and declined by 25 per cent from 1900 to 1919, mainly due to sickness and that numbers from the rubber provinces could not be readily extrapolated to the entire Congo area. Others argued a decrease of 20 per cent over the first forty years of colonial rule (up to the census of 1924). According to historian Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem 13 million died, although he later revised this number downwards to 10 million. Louis and Stengers state that population figures at
20064-427: The Nile via Lake Albert and thus be the river's primary source. It was therefore essential that Stanley should trace the course of the Lualaba downstream (northward) from Nyangwe , the point where Livingstone had left it in July 1871. Between November 1876 and August 1877, Stanley and his men navigated the Lualaba up to and beyond the point where it turned sharply westward, away from the Nile, identifying itself as
20273-595: The Red Cross to attend their 1877 conference. The International Law Institute was supportive of the project under the belief that it was aimed to abolish the Congo Basin slave trade. Nevertheless, the AIA eventually became a development company controlled by Leopold. After 1879 and the crumbling of the International African Association, Leopold's work was done under the auspices of the "Committee for Studies of
20482-497: The Upper Congo" ( French : Comité d'Études du Haut-Congo ). The committee, supposedly an international commercial, scientific, and humanitarian group, was in fact made of a group of businessmen who had shares in the Congo, with Leopold holding a large block by proxy. The committee itself eventually disintegrated (but Leopold continued to refer to it and use the defunct organization as a smokescreen for his operations in laying claim to
20691-574: The Wangwana. He described the history of Boma as "two centuries of pitiless persecution of black men by sordid whites". He also wrote about what he thought was the superior beauty of black people in comparison with whites. According to Jeal, Stanley was not a racist, unlike his contemporaries Sir Richard Burton and Sir Samuel Baker . The Wangwana of Zanzibar were of mixed Arabian and African ancestry : "Africanized Arabs", in Stanley's words. They became
20900-657: The abuses. He delivered his report in December, and a revised version was forwarded to the Free State authorities in February 1904. In an attempt to preserve the Congo's labour force and stifle British criticism, Leopold promoted attempts to combat disease to give the impression that he cared about the welfare of the Congolese and invited experts from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to assist. Free State officials also defended themselves against allegations that exploitative policies were causing severe population decline in
21109-506: The abuses. The size of the population decline during the period is the subject of extensive historiographical debate; there is an open debate as to whether the atrocities constitute genocide . In 2020 King Philippe of Belgium expressed his regret to the Government of Congo for "acts of violence and cruelty" inflicted during the rule of the Congo Free State, but did not explicitly mention Leopold's role. Some activists accused him of not making
21318-431: The administration by implementing government orders within their communities. Throughout much of its existence, however, Free State presence in the territory that it claimed was patchy, with its few officials concentrated in a number of small and widely dispersed "stations" which controlled only small amounts of hinterland. In 1900, there were just 3,000 white people in the Congo, of whom only half were Belgian. The Free State
21527-558: The administration itself was to be considered responsible for the spreading of the epidemic. Violence and murder were likely not the primary causes of deaths, though detailed statistics are unavailable due to a lack of records. In a local study of the Kuba and Kete peoples , the historian Jan Vansina estimated that violence accounted for the deaths of less than five per cent of the population. The sentries introduced gross and wholesale immorality, broke up family life, and spread disease throughout
21736-572: The area. Under Leopold's administration, the Free State became one of the greatest international scandals of the early 20th century. The Casement Report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of officials who had been responsible for killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903. The loss of life and atrocities inspired literature such as Joseph Conrad 's novel Heart of Darkness and raised an international outcry. Debate has been ongoing about
21945-519: The atrocities contributed to a sharp decline in the Congolese population. The magnitude of the population fall over the period is disputed, with modern estimates ranging from 1.5 million to 13 million. The atrocities have been variously referred to as the Rubber Terror and by some as the Congolese Genocide , though the latter characterization is disputed. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885,
22154-563: The atrocities". Eventually, growing scrutiny of Leopold's regime led to a popular campaign movement, centred in the United Kingdom and the United States, to force Leopold to renounce his ownership of the Congo. In many cases, the campaigns based their information on reports from British and Swedish missionaries working in the Congo. The first international protest occurred in 1890 when George Washington Williams , an American, published an open letter to Leopold about abuses he had witnessed. In
22363-583: The backbone of all his major expeditions and were referred to as "his dear pets" by sceptical young officers on the Emin Pasha Expedition, who resented their leader for favouring the Wangwana above themselves. "All are dear to me", Stanley told William Grant Stairs and Arthur Jephson, "who do their duty and the Zanzibaris have quite satisfied me on this and on previous expeditions." Stanley came to think of an individual Wangwana as "superior in proportion to his wages to ten Europeans". When Stanley first met
22572-409: The birth-rate while excess deaths rose. The severing of workers' hands achieved particular international notoriety. These were sometimes cut off by Force Publique soldiers who were made to account for every shot they fired by bringing back the hands of their victims. These details were recorded by Christian missionaries working in the Congo and caused public outrage when they were made known in
22781-447: The book The Congo: Plunder and Resistance tried to argue that Stanley had "a pathological fear of women, an inability to work with talented co-workers, and an obsequious love of the aristocratic rich," This is not only at odds with his opinions about society women, but Stanley's intimate correspondence in the Royal Museum of Central Africa , between him and his two fiancées, Katie Gough Roberts and Alice Pike , as well as between him and
22990-463: The campaign included the novelists Mark Twain , Joseph Conrad and Arthur Conan Doyle as well as Belgian socialists such as Emile Vandervelde . In May 1903 a debate in the British House of Commons led to the passing of a resolution in condemnation of the Congo Free State. Soon after, the British consul in the town of Boma , Roger Casement, began touring the Congo to investigate the true extent of
23199-534: The colonial partitioning of the African continent. Most major powers (including Austria-Hungary , Belgium , France , Germany , Portugal , Italy , the United Kingdom , Russia , the Ottoman Empire , and the United States ) attended the Berlin Conference , and drafted an international code governing the way that European countries should behave as they acquired African territory. The conference officially recognized
23408-416: The companies were allowed free rein to exploit the concessions, with the result being that forced labour and violent coercion were used to collect the rubber cheaply and maximise profit. The Free State's military force, the Force Publique , enforced the labour policies. Individual workers who refused to participate in rubber collection could be killed and entire villages razed. The main direct cause of
23617-419: The conference's "Principle of Effective Occupation" . Following the United States' recognition of Leopold's colony, other Western powers deliberated on the news. Portugal flirted with the French at first, but the British offered to support Portugal's claim to the entire Congo in return for a free trade agreement and to spite their French rivals. Britain was uneasy at French expansion and had a technical claim on
23826-533: The conference, Leopold proposed establishing an international benevolent committee for the propagation of civilization among the peoples of central Africa (the Congo region). The AIA was originally conceived as a multi-national, scientific, and humanitarian assembly, and even invited Gustave Moynier as member of the International Law Institute and president of the International Committee of
24035-399: The continent to the markets of Zanzibar. Having found the new ruler of the Upper Congo, Stanley had no choice but to negotiate an agreement with him, to stop Tip coming further downstream and attacking Leopoldville and other stations. To achieve this, he had to allow Tip to build his final river station just below Stanley Falls , which prevented vessels from sailing further upstream. At
24244-470: The costs of running the Congo Free State. Desperately, he set in motion a system to maximize revenue. The first change was the introduction of the concept of terres vacantes , "vacant" land, which was any land that did not contain a habitation or a cultivated garden plot. All of this land (i.e., most of the country) was therefore deemed to belong to the state. Servants of the state (namely any men in Leopold's employ) were encouraged to exploit it. Shortly after
24453-456: The cotton market. Sanford also convinced the people in New York that they were going to abolish slavery and aid travellers and scientists in order to have the public's support. After Henry's actions in convincing President Arthur, the United States was the first country to recognize Congo as a legitimate sovereign state. The United States further participated in the process of recognition by sending
24662-426: The direct and indirect effects of colonial rule, including disease and falling birthrate. The historian Adam Hochschild argued that the dramatic fall in the Free State population was the result of a combination of "murder", "starvation, exhaustion and exposure", "disease" and "a plummeting birth rate". Sleeping sickness was also a major cause of fatality at the time. Opponents of Leopold's rule stated, however, that
24871-411: The east African slave trade; promote humanitarian policies; guarantee free trade within the colony; impose no import duties for twenty years; and encourage philanthropic and scientific enterprises. Beginning in the mid-1880s, Leopold first decreed that the state asserted rights of proprietorship over all vacant lands throughout the Congo territory. In three successive decrees, Leopold promised the rights of
25080-429: The effect of natural disasters such as famine and disease. ABIR's tax collection system forced men out from the villages to collect rubber which meant that there was no labour available to clear new fields for planting. This in turn meant that the women had to continue to plant worn-out fields resulting in lower yields, a problem aggravated by company sentries stealing crops and farm animals. The post at Bonginda experienced
25289-433: The effects of malnutrition and food shortages in reducing immunity to the new diseases. The disruption of African rural populations may have helped to spread diseases further. Nevertheless, historian Roger Anstey wrote that "a strong strand of local, oral tradition holds the rubber policy to have been a greater cause of death and depopulation than either the scourge of sleeping sickness or the periodic ravages of smallpox." It
25498-479: The elder Stanley did not die until 1878. This and other discrepancies led John Bierman to argue that no adoption took place. Tim Jeal goes further, and, in his biography, subjects Stanley's account in his posthumously published Autobiography to detailed analysis. Because Stanley got so many basic facts wrong about his purported adoptive family, Jeal concludes that it is very unlikely that he ever met rich Henry Hope Stanley, and that an ordinary grocer, James Speake,
25707-446: The end of Leopold II's absolutist rule; the Belgian Parliament annexed the Congo Free State as a colony of Belgium. It became known thereafter as the Belgian Congo . In addition, a number of major Belgian investment companies pushed the Belgian government to take over the Congo and develop the mining sector as it was virtually untapped. Diogo Cão travelled around the mouth of the Congo River in 1482, leading Portugal to claim
25916-720: The end of his physical resources, Stanley returned home, to be replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Francis de Winton , a former British Army officer. In 1886, Stanley led the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition to "rescue" Emin Pasha , the governor of Equatoria in the southern Sudan , who was threatened by Mahdist forces. King Leopold II demanded that Stanley take the longer route via the Congo River, hoping to acquire more territory and perhaps even Equatoria After immense hardships and great loss of life, Stanley met Emin in 1888, mapped
26125-406: The ensuing decades. In a number of publications made after the expedition, Stanley asserts that the purpose of the effort was singular; to offer relief to Emin Pasha. For example, he writes the following while explaining the final route decision. The advantages of the Congo route were about five hundred miles shorter land journey, and less opportunities for deserting. It also quieted the fears of
26334-430: The entire Congolese situation. The key question was how the Free State could become profitable. Stanley pointed out to the monarch, among other things, the potential of rubber production. Stanley wrote: "You can find it on almost any tree. As we made our way through the forest, it was literally raining rubber juice. Our clothes were full of it. The Congo has so many tributaries that a well-organized company can easily extract
26543-404: The entire northern bank of the Congo, and sweetened the deal by proposing that, if his personal wealth proved insufficient to hold the entire Congo, as seemed utterly inevitable, that it should revert to France. On 23 April 1884, the International Association's claim on the southern Congo basin was formally recognized by France on condition that the French got the first option to buy the territory if
26752-507: The exaggerated accounts of corporal punishment and brutality in his books fostered a public reputation as a hard-driving, cruel leader, in contrast to the supposedly more humanitarian Livingstone. His contemporary image in Britain also suffered from the inaccurate perception that he was American. In the 20th century, his reputation was also seriously damaged by his role in establishing the Congo Free State for King Leopold II. Nevertheless, he
26961-460: The expedition to carry on much farther than the Lado Enclave, hoping indeed to take Fashoda and then Khartoum , Dhanis' column mutinied in February 1897, resulting in the death of several Belgian officers and the loss of his entire force. Nonetheless, Chaltin continued his advance, and on 17 February 1897, his outnumbered forces defeated the rebels in the Battle of Rejaf , securing the Lado Enclave as
27170-514: The flag of the International African Association . The members of the expedition, four Belgians, departing from Zanzibar , had the goal of establishing a scientific post in Karema , in today's Tanzania , but even before the group entered Central Africa , two of them had already died, one from a sun stroke, the other from a severe fever, upon which the other members of the expedition resigned. Because of these difficulties, Leopold realised how important it
27379-442: The forced marches into the colonies. In one such march 108 boys were sent over to a mission school and only 62 survived, eight of whom died a week later. Indigenous Congolese were not the only ones put to work by the free state. 540 Chinese labourers were imported to work on railways in the Congo; however, 300 of them would die or leave their posts. Caribbean peoples and people from other African countries were also imported to work on
27588-440: The hand and leaving the victim to live or die. Several survivors later said that they had lived through a massacre by acting dead, not moving even when their hands were severed, and waiting till the soldiers left before seeking help. In some instances a soldier could shorten his service term by bringing more hands than the other soldiers, which led to widespread mutilations and dismemberment. Historian David Van Reybrouck stated that
27797-481: The hands of the Governor-General ( Gouverneur général ), but this office was at times more honorary than real. When the governor-general was in Belgium he was represented in the Congo by a vice governor-general ( vice-gouverneur général ), who was nominally equal in rank to a secretary-general but in fact was beneath them in power and influence. A Comité consultatif (consultative committee) made up of civil servants
28006-501: The headmaster of the workhouse raped or sexually assaulted Rowlands, and that the older Rowlands was "incontrovertibly bisexual". When Rowlands was 10 years old, his mother and two half-siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, but he did not recognise them until the headmaster told him who they were. Rowlands emigrated to the United States in 1859 at age 18. He disembarked at New Orleans and, according to his own declarations, became friends by accident with Henry Hope Stanley,
28215-409: The high death rate in this period. The highest estimates state that the widespread use of forced labour , torture, and murder led to the deaths of 50 per cent of the population in the rubber provinces. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths caused by the exploitation and the lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists. During
28424-421: The hillside of Khonzo Izulu . Today Kinshasa 's population is 17,000,000, and it is one of the world's fastest growing megacities . Tippu Tip , the most powerful of Zanzibar 's slave traders of the 19th century, was well known to Stanley, as was the social chaos and devastation brought by slave-hunting . It had only been through Tippu Tip's help that Stanley had found Livingstone, who had survived years on
28633-696: The interior of the African continent. Leopold eagerly received a disenchanted Stanley at his palace in June 1878, and signed a five-year contract with him in November. Stanley persuaded Leopold that the first step should be the construction of a wagon trail around the Congo rapids and a chain of trading stations on the river. To avoid discovery, materials and workers were shipped in by various roundabout routes, and communications between Stanley and Leopold were entrusted to Colonel Maximilien Strauch . In 1879, Stanley left for Africa for his first mission, ostensibly working for
28842-658: The interior set up a propaganda office, the Bureau central de la presse ("Central Press Bureau"), in Frankfurt under the auspices of the Comité pour la représentation des intérêts coloniaux en Afrique (in German, Komitee zur Wahrung der kolonialen Interessen in Afrika , "Committee for the Representation of Colonial Interests in Africa"). The oversight of all the departments was nominally in
29051-425: The land. Formerly native conditions put restrictions on the spread of disease and localized it to small areas, but the black Congo soldiers, moving higher and thither to districts far from their wives and homes, took the women they wanted and ignored native institutions, rights, and customs. Diseases imported by Arab traders, European colonists and African porters ravaged the Congolese population and "greatly exceeded"
29260-656: The living were caused by soldiers who had shot people and had cut off their hands thinking they were dead while they were in fact still alive. Leopold II reportedly disapproved of dismemberment because it harmed his economic interests. He was quoted as saying "Cut off hands—that's idiotic. I'd cut off all the rest of them, but not hands. That's the one thing I need in the Congo." One practice used to force workers to collect rubber included taking wives and family members hostage. Leopold never proclaimed it an official policy, and Free State authorities in Brussels emphatically denied that it
29469-535: The local chiefs and with native leaders. In essence, the documents gave over all rights of their respective pieces of land to Leopold. With Stanley's help, Leopold was able to claim a great area along the Congo River, and military posts were established. Christian de Bonchamps , a French explorer who served Leopold in Katanga , expressed attitudes towards such treaties shared by many Europeans, saying, "The treaties with these little African tyrants, which generally consist of four long pages of which they do not understand
29678-421: The loss was at least five million. Demographer J.P. Sanderson estimates the population in 1885 at around 10–15 million people, and in 2020 proposed three possible scenarios of population decline under Leopold II, suggesting that the most likely scenario is a population decline of 1.5 million people, from 11.5 million people to around 10–10.3 million people during the Congo Free State period. Other investigators put
29887-548: The matter was about and this time, he makes it clear that indeed, it had to do with annexation. I have settled several little commissions at Zanzibar satisfactorily. One was to get the Sultan to sign the concessions which Mackinnon tried to obtain a long time ago. As the Germans have magnificent territory east of Zanzibar, it was but fair that England should have some portion for the protection she has accorded to Zanzibar since 1841 ... The concession that we wished to obtain embraced
30096-425: The militia Force Publique or turned them over as prisoners to allied local chiefs, who in turn gave them as laborers for the Belgian conscript workers; when Belgian Congo was established, chattel slavery was legally abolished in 1910, but prisoners were nevertheless conscripted as force laborers for both public and private work projects. In 1894, King Leopold II signed a treaty with the United Kingdom which conceded
30305-437: The natives. In the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, European leaders officially noted Leopold's control over the 2,600,000 km (1,000,000 sq mi) of the notionally independent Congo Free State. To give his African operations a name that could serve for a political entity, Leopold created, between 1879 and 1882, the International Association of the Congo ( French : Association internationale du Congo , or AIC) as
30514-476: The natives. In the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, European leaders officially recognised Leopold's control over the 2,350,000 km (910,000 sq mi) of the notionally-independent Congo Free State on the grounds that it would be a free trade area and buffer state between British and French spheres of influence. In the Free State, Leopold exercised total personal control without much delegation to subordinates. African chiefs played an important role in
30723-538: The north, the Société Anversoise was given 160,000 km (62,000 sq mi), while the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR) was given a comparable territory in the south. The Compagnie du Katanga and Compagnie des Grands Lacs were given smaller concessions in the south and east respectively. Leopold kept 250,000 km (97,000 sq mi) of territory known as
30932-439: The number of deaths significantly higher. Adam Hochschild and Jan Vansina use an approximate number of 10 million. Hochschild cites several recent independent lines of investigation, by anthropologist Jan Vansina and others, that examine local sources (police records, religious records, oral traditions, genealogies, personal diaries), which generally agree with the assessment of the 1919 Belgian government commission: roughly half
31141-401: The number of workers or their welfare. In the concessionary territories, the private companies which had purchased a concession from the Free State administration were able to use virtually any measures they wished to increase production and profits without state interference. The lack of a developed bureaucracy to oversee any commercial methods produced an atmosphere of "informality" throughout
31350-434: The numbers killed by violence. Smallpox , sleeping sickness , amoebic dysentery , venereal diseases (especially syphilis and gonorrhea ), and swine influenza were particularly severe. Lawyer Raphael Lemkin attributed the quick spread of disease in Congo to the indigenous soldiers employed by the state, who moved across the country and had sex with women in many different places, thus spreading localised outbreaks across
31559-492: The occupation of the Congo Basin region, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition . He was knighted in 1897, and served in Parliament as a Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North from 1895 to 1900. More than a century after his death, Stanley's legacy remains the subject of enduring controversy. Although he personally had high regard for many of the native African people who accompanied him on his expeditions,
31768-447: The photographs of mutilated people have created a misconception that dismemberment of the living was a widespread practice. He wrote that while dismemberment of the living did occasionally happen, the practice was not as systemic as often presented. Jean Stengers and Daniel Vangroenweghe have also stated there was no systemic practice of dismembering living people as a punishment for not producing enough rubber. Most cases of dismemberment of
31977-408: The population decline was disease, which was exacerbated by the social disruption caused by the atrocities of the Free State. A number of epidemics, notably African sleeping sickness , smallpox , swine influenza and amoebic dysentery , ravaged indigenous populations. In 1901 alone it was estimated that 500,000 Congolese had died from sleeping sickness. Disease, famine and violence combined to reduce
32186-431: The population decreased by half during this period. According to Edmund D. Morel , the Congo Free State counted "20 million souls". Other estimates of the size of the overall population decline (or mortality displacement ) range between two and 13 million. Ascherson cites an estimate by Roger Casement of a population fall of three million, although he notes that it is "almost certainly an underestimate". Peter Forbath gave
32395-487: The population of the Congo is noted by several researchers who have compared the country at the beginning of Leopold's control with the beginning of Belgian state rule in 1908, but estimates of the death toll vary considerably, mainly due to the absence of reliable demographic sources about the region, as well as the sometimes unsubstantiated numbers mentioned by contemporaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Estimates of some contemporary observers suggest that
32604-437: The population perished during the Free State period, based on numbers from the rubber provinces. Since the first official census by the Belgian authorities in 1924 put the population at about 10 million, these various approaches suggest a rough estimate of a population decline by 10 million. Jan Vansina returned to the issue of quantifying the total population decline, and discarded his earlier claim of 10 million, he concluded that
32813-595: The posts at Bongandanga and Mompono each recorded death rates of three to ten prisoners per day in 1899. Persons with records of resisting ABIR were deported to forced labour camps . There were at least three such camps: one at Lireko , one on the Upper Maringa River and one on the Upper Lopori River. Aside from rubber collection, violence in the Free State chiefly occurred in connection with wars and rebellions. Native states, notably Msiri 's Yeke Kingdom ,
33022-482: The posts, have all the power." Stanley described in writings his dismay with the terrible scenes taking place in Congo. At the same time, his "findings" conveyed an idea that the Dark Continent must submit, willingly or otherwise. Stanley's writings show that he, too, held this view. "Only by proving that we are superior to the savages, not only through our power to kill them but through our entire way of life, can we control them as they are now, in their present stage; it
33231-521: The power of local rulers, the Free State paid prices below the rising market prices. In October 1892, Leopold granted concessions to a number of companies. Each company was given a large amount of land in the Congo Free State on which to collect rubber and ivory for sale in Europe. These companies were allowed to detain Africans who did not work hard enough, to police their vast areas as they saw fit and to take all
33440-417: The products of the forest for themselves. In return for their concessions, these companies paid an annual dividend to the Free State. At the height of the rubber boom, from 1901 until 1906, these dividends also filled the royal coffers. The Free Trade Zone in the Congo was open to entrepreneurs of any European nation, who were allowed to buy 10- and 15-year monopoly leases on anything of value: ivory from
33649-403: The protection he has accorded us and our Neighbours against KabbaRega and his Warasura." On his return to Europe, Stanley married English artist Dorothy Tennant . They adopted a child named Denzil, who was the son of one of Stanley's first cousins, though Stanley concealed this fact from the public and possibly even from Dorothy. Denzil later donated around 300 items to the Stanley archives at
33858-428: The quasi-colony proved unprofitable and insufficient, with the state always close to bankruptcy. The boom in demand for natural rubber, which was abundant in the territory, created a radical shift in the 1890s—to facilitate the extraction and export of rubber, all vacant land in the Congo was nationalised, with the majority distributed to private companies as concessions . Some was kept by the state. Between 1891 and 1906,
34067-448: The railway in which 3,600 would die in the first two years of construction from railroad accidents, lack of shelter, flogging, hunger, and disease. Cannibalism was well-established in parts of the Free State area when the State was founded, and the colonial administration seems to have done little to suppress it, sometimes rather tolerating it among its own auxiliary troops and allies. During
34276-412: The recording of his initial spotting of Livingstone were torn out of the journal at some point—and it is likely that Stanley simply embellished the pithy line sometime afterwards. Neither man mentioned it in any of the letters they wrote at this time, and Livingstone tended to instead recount the reaction of his servant, Susi, who cried out: "An Englishman coming! I see him!" The phrase is first quoted in
34485-470: The region. Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was at the heart of independent Africa, as European colonialists seldom entered the interior. Along with fierce local resistance, the rainforest , swamps, malaria , sleeping sickness , and other diseases made it a difficult environment for Europeans to settle. Western states were at first reluctant to colonize the area in the absence of obvious economic benefits. In 1876 Leopold II of Belgium hosted
34694-443: The rubber collection quotas was punishable by death . Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions (imported from Europe at considerable cost) for hunting or to stockpile them for mutiny. A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez , who ran
34903-424: The same most favoured nation (MFN) status Portugal had offered them. At the same time, Leopold promised Bismarck he would not give any one nation special status, and that German traders would be as welcome as any other. "I do not want to risk ... losing a fine chance to secure for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake." Leopold then offered France the support of the association for French ownership of
35112-491: The source of the Nile . Between 1875 and 1876 Stanley succeeded in the first part of his objective, establishing that Lake Victoria had only a single outlet, the one discovered by John Hanning Speke on 21 July 1862 and named Ripon Falls . If this was not the Nile's source, then the separate massive northward flowing river called by Livingstone , the Lualaba , and mapped by him in its upper reaches, might flow on north to connect with
35321-488: The start of Leopold's control are only "wild guesses", while calling E. D. Morel's attempt and others at coming to a figure for population losses "but figments of the imagination". Generally, works based on the highest numbers have often been discredited as "wild" and "unsubstantiated", whereas authors who point out the lack of reliable demographic data are questioned by others, calling them "minimalists", "agnosticists" and "revisionists" who allegedly "seek to downplay or minimize
35530-615: The state in regard to the operation of enterprises, which in turn facilitated abuses. Treatment of labourers (especially the duration of service) was not regulated by law and instead was left to the discretion of officials on the ground. ABIR and the Anversoise were particularly noted for the harshness with which their officials treated Congolese workers. The historian Jean Stengers described regions controlled by these two companies as "veritable hells-on-earth". Rubber harvesters were usually compensated for their labour with cheap items, such as
35739-442: The state, thus creating a de facto state-controlled monopoly. Therefore, a large share of the local population could sell only to the state, which could set prices and thereby control the income the Congolese could receive for their work. For local elites, however, this system presented new opportunities, as the Free State and concession companies paid them with guns to tax their subjects in kind. Trading companies began to lose out to
35948-486: The superpowers the right to establish an international commission to supervise the freedom of trade and navigation in Congo. As a result, Leopold would not be able to collect customs duties on the Congo River In 1890, on the 25th anniversary of Leopold's reign as Belgian monarch, Stanley was taken from one banquet hall to another, proclaimed a hero. Leopold honoured him with the Order of Leopold . Together they examined
36157-402: The support of several European governments, and was himself elected chairman. Leopold used the association to promote plans to seize independent central Africa under this philanthropic guise. Henry Morton Stanley , famous for making contact with British missionary David Livingstone in Africa in 1871, explored the region in 1876–1877, a journey that was described in Stanley's 1878 book Through
36366-413: The system between 1896 and 1905. The Free State's concession system was soon copied by other colonial regimes, notably those in the neighbouring French Congo . With the majority of the Free State's revenues derived from the export of rubber, a labour policy—known by critics as the "red rubber system"—was created to maximise its extraction. Labour was demanded by the administration as taxation. This created
36575-467: The term to describe atrocities in the Free State; in the strict sense of the term, most historians have rejected allegations of genocide. Sociologist Rhoda Howard-Hassmann stated that because the Congolese were not killed in a systematic fashion according to this criterion, "technically speaking, this was not genocide even in a legally retroactive sense." Adam Hochschild and political scientist Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja rejected allegations of genocide in
36784-427: The territory that it claimed was patchy, with its few officials concentrated in a number of small and widely dispersed "stations" which controlled only small amounts of hinterland. In 1900, there were just 3,000 Europeans in the Congo, of whom only half were Belgian. The colony was perpetually short of administrative staff and officials, who numbered between 700 and 1,500 during the period. Leopold pledged to suppress
36993-417: The territory. The system itself engendered abuses ... The Free State was intended, above all, to be profitable for its investors and Leopold in particular. Its finances were frequently precarious. Early reliance on ivory exports did not make as much money as hoped and the colonial administration was frequently in debt, nearly defaulting on a number of occasions. A boom in demand for natural rubber in
37202-501: The treaties Stanley has made with native chiefs do not satisfy me. There must at least be an added article to the effect that they delegate to us their sovereign rights ... the treaties must be as brief as possible and in a couple of articles must grant us everything." Since everything in Central Africa was about the balance of power between the Great Powers , Leopold considered his next moves and sent an envoy to Berlin to press for
37411-413: The upper Lualaba River , had signed no treaties, was known to be rich in copper and thought to have much gold from its slave-trading activities. Its powerful mwami (King), Msiri , had already rejected a treaty brought by Alfred Sharpe on behalf of Cecil Rhodes . In 1891 a Free State expedition extracted a letter from Msiri agreeing to their agents coming to Katanga and later that year Leopold II sent
37620-497: The vicinity of Stanley Pool (Kinshasa), they will go home thoughtful men, and may return again to this land to put to good use the wisdom they should have gained ... during their peaceful sojourn." In How I Found Livingstone (1872), he wrote that he was "prepared to admit any black man possessing the attributes of true manhood, or any good qualities ... to a brotherhood with myself." Stanley insulted and shouted at William Grant Stairs and Arthur Jephson for mistreating
37829-566: The well-armed Stairs Expedition , led by the Canadian mercenary William Grant Stairs , to take possession of Katanga one way or another. Msiri tried to play the Free State off against Rhodes and when negotiations bogged down, Stairs flew the Free State flag anyway and gave Msiri an ultimatum. Instead, Msiri decamped to another stockade . Stairs sent a force to capture him but Msiri stood his ground, whereupon Captain Omer Bodson shot Msiri dead and
38038-451: Was European. However, with little financial means the Free State mainly relied on local elites to rule and tax the vast and hard-to-reach Congolese interior. In the Free State, Leopold exercised total personal control without much delegation to subordinates. African chiefs played an important role in the administration by implementing government orders within their communities. Throughout much of its existence, however, Free State presence in
38247-579: Was Rowlands' true benefactor until his (Speake's) sudden death in October 1859. Stanley reluctantly joined in the American Civil War , first enrolling in the Confederate States Army 's 6th Arkansas Infantry Regiment and fighting in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. After being taken prisoner there, he was recruited at Camp Douglas, Illinois , by its commander Colonel James A. Mulligan as
38456-416: Was a British-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author, and politician famous for his exploration of Central Africa and search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone . Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is mainly known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo rivers, the work he undertook as an agent of King Leopold II of the Belgians that enabled
38665-513: Was a large state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by King Leopold II , the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium . In legal terms, the two separate countries were in a personal union . The Congo Free State was not a part of, nor did it belong to Belgium. Leopold was able to seize the region by convincing other European states at
38874-744: Was a loss to Leopold II. This, and Leopold's humanitarian pledges to the Berlin Conference to end slavery, meant war was inevitable. Open warfare broke out in late November 1892. Both sides fought by proxy, arming and leading the populations of the upper Congo forests in conflict. By early 1894 the Zanzibari/Swahili slavers were defeated in the eastern Congo region and the Congo Arab war came to an end. The Belgians freed thousands of men, women and children slaves from Swaihili Arab slave owners and slave traders in Eastern Congo in 1886-1892, enlisted them in
39083-611: Was a serious error of judgement for which his reputation continues to pay a heavy price. In the conclusion to his account of a fight with a fellow boy while in the workhouse, Stanley remarked, "Often since have I learned how necessary is the application of force for the establishment of order. There comes a time when pleading is of no avail." He was accused of indiscriminate cruelty against Africans by contemporaries, which included men who served under him or otherwise had first-hand information. Stanley himself acknowledged, "Many people have called me hard, but they are always those whose presence
39292-453: Was composed of two columns: the first, under Belgian war hero Baron Dhanis , consisted of a sizeable force, numbering around three-thousand, and was to strike north through the jungle and attack the rebels at their base at Rejaf. The second, a much smaller force of only eight-hundred, was led by Louis-Napoléon Chaltin and took the main road towards Rejaf. Both expeditions set out in December 1896. Although Leopold II had initially planned for
39501-513: Was employed. Nevertheless, the administration supplied a manual to each station in the Congo which included a guide on how to take hostages to coerce local chiefs. The hostages could be men, women, children, elders, or even the chiefs themselves. Every state or company station maintained a stockade for imprisoning hostages. ABIR agents would imprison the chief of any village which fell behind its quota; in July 1902 one post recorded that it held 44 chiefs in prison. These prisons were in poor condition and
39710-400: Was eventually made responsible to the sovereign alone. There was a supreme court composed of three judges, which heard appeals, and below it a high court of one judge. These sat at Boma. In addition to these, there were district courts and public prosecutors ( procureurs d'état ). Justice, however, was slow and the system ill-suited to a frontier society. Leopold no longer needed the façade of
39919-439: Was facing considerable financial difficulty. District officials' salaries were reduced to a bare minimum, and made up with a commission payment based on the profit that their area returned to Leopold. After widespread criticism, this "primes system" was substituted for the allocation de retraite in which a large part of the payment was granted, at the end of the service, only to those territorial agents and magistrates whose conduct
40128-585: Was fatally wounded in the resulting fight. The expedition cut off Msiri's head and put it on a pole, as he had often done to his enemies. This was to impress upon the locals that Msiri's rule had really ended, after which the successor chief recognized by Stairs signed the treaty. In the short term, the third problem, that of the African and Arab slavers like Zanzibari / Swahili strongman Tippu Tip (actually Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī, but much better known by his nickname)
40337-433: Was for the benefit of the native peoples under the name of a philanthropic "association". The king launched a publicity campaign in Britain to distract critics, drawing attention to Portugal's record of slavery, and offering to drive slave traders from the Congo basin. He also secretly told British merchant houses that if he was given formal control of the Congo for this and other humanitarian purposes, he would then give them
40546-424: Was given 666,000 km (257,000 sq mi) on the north bank (the modern Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic ), Portugal 909,000 km (351,000 sq mi) to the south (modern Angola ), and Leopold's personal organization received the balance: 2,344,000 km (905,000 sq mi), with about 30 million people. However, it still remained for these territories to be occupied under
40755-588: Was given his father's surname of Rowlands and brought up by his grandfather Moses Parry, a once-prosperous butcher who was living in reduced circumstances. He died when John was five. Rowlands then stayed with families of cousins and nieces for a short time, but he was eventually sent to the St Asaph Union Workhouse for the Poor. The overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in his being frequently abused by older boys. Historian Robert Aldrich has alleged that
40964-403: Was imprisoned. He eventually talked his way out of jail and received restitution for damaged expedition equipment. In 1867, the emperor of Ethiopia , Tewodros II , held a British envoy and others hostage, and a force was sent to effect the release of the hostages. Stanley accompanied that force as a special correspondent of the New York Herald . His report on the Battle of Magdala in 1868
41173-569: Was in Belgium . On 29 November 1883, during his meeting with the President, as Leopold's envoy, he convinced the President that Leopold's agenda was similar to the United States' involvement in Liberia . This satisfied Southern politicians and businessmen, especially Alabama Senator John Tyler Morgan . Morgan saw Congo as the same opportunity to send freedmen to Africa so they could contribute to and build
41382-417: Was in charge of accounting for income and expenditure and tracking the public debt. Besides diplomacy, foreign affairs was in charge of shipping, education, religion and commerce. The department of the interior was responsible for defence, police, public health and public works. It was also charged with overseeing the exploitation of the Congo's natural resources and plantations. In 1904, the secretary-general of
41591-448: Was indeed a holocaust before Hitler's Holocaust. ... What happened in the heart of Africa was genocidal in scope long before that now familiar term, genocide, was ever coined. The significant number of deaths under the Free State regime has led some scholars to relate the atrocities to later genocides , though understanding of the losses under the colonial administration's rule as the result of harsh economic exploitation rather than
41800-608: Was indefensible at home and abroad. Leopold II was heavily criticized by the European public opinion for his dealings with Tippu Tip. In Belgium, the Belgian Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1888, mainly by Catholic intellectuals led by Count Hippolyte d'Ursel , aimed at abolishing the Arab slave trade. Furthermore, Tippu Tip and Leopold were commercial rivals. Every person that Tippu Tip hunted down and put into chattel slavery and every pound of ivory he exported to Zanzibar
42009-489: Was judged "satisfactory" by their superiors. This meant in practice that nothing changed. Congolese communities in the Domaine Privé were not merely forbidden by law to sell items to anyone but the state; they were required to provide state officials with set quotas of rubber and ivory at a fixed, government-mandated price and to provide food to the local post. Henry Morton Stanley Sir Henry Morton Stanley GCB (born John Rowlands ; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904)
42218-607: Was outlawed in the Force Publique and punishable by death. When sending out "punitive expeditions" against villages unwilling or unable to fulfil the government's exorbitant rubber quota, Free State officials nevertheless repeatedly turned a blind eye both to arbitrary killings of those considered guilty as well as to the "cannibal feast[s]" celebrated by native soldiers that sometimes followed. In various cases they even handed captives, including infants and old women, over to their soldiers or local allies, implicitly or even explicitly allowing them to kill and eat them. I suggest that it
42427-450: Was perpetually short of administrative staff and officials, who numbered between 700 and 1,500 during the period. In the early years of the Free State, much of the administration's attention was focused on consolidating its control by fighting the African peoples on the Free State's periphery who resisted the Free State's rule. These included the tribes around the Kwango , in the south-west, and
42636-550: Was repeatedly attacked by natives in canoes. Stanley and his men reached the Portuguese outpost of Boma , around 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic Ocean, after 999 days on 9 August 1877. Muster lists and Stanley's diary (12 November 1874) show that he started with 228 people and reached Boma with 114 survivors, with him the only European left alive out of four. In Stanley's Through
42845-498: Was seriously ill at the time. Stanley's good relations with these two colleagues from the Emin Pasha Expedition could possibly be seen as demonstrating that he could get along with colleagues. In Through the Dark Continent , Stanley observed the peoples of the region, and wrote that "the savage only respects force, power, boldness, and decision". Stanley further wrote: "If Europeans will only ... study human nature in
43054-409: Was set up in 1887 to assist the governor-general, but he was not obliged to consult it. The vice governor-general on the ground had a state secretary through whom he communicated with his district officers. The Free State had an independent judiciary headed by a minister of justice at Boma . The minister was equal in rank to the vice governor-general and initially answered to the governor-general, but
43263-517: Was temporarily solved. Initially the authority of the Congo Free State was relatively weak in the eastern regions of the Congo. In early 1887, Henry Morton Stanley had therefore proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor (wali) of the Stanley Falls District . Both Leopold II and Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar agreed and on 24 February 1887, Tippu Tip accepted. In the longer term this alliance
43472-414: Was the first to be published, as he had bribed a telegraph operator to send his story first, even before the official army report. After his message was sent, the cable broke; British government officials were greatly irritated to learn of the battle from an American newspaper. Subsequently, he was assigned to report on Spain's Glorious Revolution in 1868. In 1870, Stanley undertook several assignments for
43681-527: Was to find experienced men to lead his expeditions. He first tried to persuade Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza , but he had already entered French service; his eye now fell on Stanley. Stanley had first hoped to continue his pioneering work in Africa under the British flag. But neither the Foreign Office nor Edward, the Prince of Wales, felt called to receive Stanley after the many rumours of his looting and killing in
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