Summary Of King Leopold's Ghost

The atrocities committed in the Congo were some of the most horrendous that the world has ever seen, yet many of us have never even heard of King Leopold II. Leopold was the king of Belgium from 1865-1909. In Belgium, his reign was seen as one that brought great riches to his country, and one filled with good deeds to the Congolese people. However the exact opposite is true. King Leopold II did bring mass amounts of money to Belgium, but at one of the greatest human costs the world has ever seen. According to Adam Hochschild’s book, King Leopold’s Ghost, more than 10 million indigenous people were killed in his quest for fame and riches. “The ends justify the means” and his means involved enslaving every Congolese person and forcing them to …show more content…
This was because many of the documents are kept under wraps by the Belgians. Once they came in, many of them went straight to the archives. It wasn’t until people from other countries came into the Congo, the heinous acts that they witnessed there, that lead them to seek an end to King Leopold’s Congo. One of the first to act was George Washington Williams, he was an African American visiting the Congo to see if the rumors of maltreatment were true. Once he saw what was happening, he was outraged. Williams wrote a letter to King Leopold blaming him for everything that was going on because even if he didn’t know what was going on, all of these deeds were done in his name. Williams called for a commission to investigate the Congo, but it was unsuccessful. On his boat ride back from the Congo, Williams died from tuberculosis, which undermined some of his credibility. Either way, people did not believe that the speculations against Leopold were true; he had done such a good job of promoting himself as a philanthropist, there was no solid evidence showing that these accusations were true, he had won over the right people, and he had documents of the tribal leaders signing their land to him. There was nothing that anyone could do; until Edmund Dene …show more content…
He enslaved all of the Congolese people and killed nearly 10 million. Though what happened in the Congo was truly appalling, Leopold never pulled a trigger that ended one of those lives, nor did he light the fires that burned down the villages or cut off the hands of any Congolese person. As Primo Levi, a Jewish poet who survived Auschwitz said, “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions”. Though Levi brings up a good point, and Leopold’s functionaries committed terrible acts, they did all of them in the name of King Leopold. I would argue that knowing what was going on, and allowing people to commit heinous acts in your name is on you. If you are aware of what is going on and do not intervene, that is what makes you a monster. Leopold was so concerned with himself and bringing in money that he did not care how it was done, when he found out what was going on, it didn’t bother him, so long as the money kept on coming in. Not acting on that knowledge made him very dangerous, and not only did he not act on it, he tried to hide it so that he could continue his operation. He did so by controlling the information that was made public, which made him look like a philanthropist and he was able to attain the proper paperwork and befriend the proper people so that no one would interfere. Leopold was a smart