King Leopold the Second of Belgium villain King Leopold || of Belgium had never been a very good man. Neither during or after his “reign” of the Congo, the reign that Belgium had to forcibly end after 23 years of empowerment. He was a tyrant who committed a mass genocide even larger than Adolf Hitler’s control of Germany in 1934,enslaving an entire country and hiding it by stating that the transactions he was making were “scientific”. He wanted to increase his personal wealth, and he’d do anything to do it. His greed was tremendous and was only cut off when his life was threatened after killing 10 million Congo citizens. To fully understand the deeds that were committed by King Leopold, is to go backwards, from the time everything ended.
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He wanted a colony of his own. He searched for one for years with nothing to show for it, so he “bought” the Congo. He went after three different things during his “reign”. First, was the colony. But he wasn't satisfied with the money it was bringing in, so as his greed grew, Leopold started collecting ivory off to the side for a short period of time. Finally, he saw the possibility in collecting rubber, since the Congo had a surplus of rubber trees. So, lastly, he collected his slaves and started gathering rubber, hiding his business transactions behind “science” and “study”. Once his business ended Leopold had a large sum of personal wealth… At the cost of 10 million …show more content…
This came at a cost he didn’t pay any mind to. The only way he could get people to abide by his laws and free labor, was with force. He set large quotas of rubber into every village and sent an army into the country, putting officers and footmen at every village to ensure all the men met their quotas. If the slave turned citizens did not collect enough rubber in the set time, then their wife was tied up, an easy target to abuse until he gathered enough. If he didn’t come back fast enough from collecting in that round, the wife and child/ren were killed, and he was beat with the chicotte. The chicotte is a dried by the sun, twisted piece of hippo hide with a sharp end. Twenty strikes made you black out; 100 or more strikes was deadly. The king gave the entire country permission to use these weapons. Another possibility, is the entire family in general being killed. In one of these instances, an officer would gather the heads of corpses and stab the stakes of a fence through it, placing it in the center of the village. The king also ordered the hands of men killed by bullets to be cut off and shipped to him, to make sure the soldiers weren’t wasting bullets on animals. When villagers attempted to flee, they were directed them into the desert where the water holes were poisoned, so people either died of dehydration or the officers that caught up. By the time Leopold gave up the Congo to
He wanted a colony of his own. He searched for one for years with nothing to show for it, so he “bought” the Congo. He went after three different things during his “reign”. First, was the colony. But he wasn't satisfied with the money it was bringing in, so as his greed grew, Leopold started collecting ivory off to the side for a short period of time. Finally, he saw the possibility in collecting rubber, since the Congo had a surplus of rubber trees. So, lastly, he collected his slaves and started gathering rubber, hiding his business transactions behind “science” and “study”. Once his business ended Leopold had a large sum of personal wealth… At the cost of 10 million …show more content…
This came at a cost he didn’t pay any mind to. The only way he could get people to abide by his laws and free labor, was with force. He set large quotas of rubber into every village and sent an army into the country, putting officers and footmen at every village to ensure all the men met their quotas. If the slave turned citizens did not collect enough rubber in the set time, then their wife was tied up, an easy target to abuse until he gathered enough. If he didn’t come back fast enough from collecting in that round, the wife and child/ren were killed, and he was beat with the chicotte. The chicotte is a dried by the sun, twisted piece of hippo hide with a sharp end. Twenty strikes made you black out; 100 or more strikes was deadly. The king gave the entire country permission to use these weapons. Another possibility, is the entire family in general being killed. In one of these instances, an officer would gather the heads of corpses and stab the stakes of a fence through it, placing it in the center of the village. The king also ordered the hands of men killed by bullets to be cut off and shipped to him, to make sure the soldiers weren’t wasting bullets on animals. When villagers attempted to flee, they were directed them into the desert where the water holes were poisoned, so people either died of dehydration or the officers that caught up. By the time Leopold gave up the Congo to