King Leopold's Statement Report

Summary of the text: Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa is a historical fiction published in 1998 (Hochschild, 1998). It comprises a myriad of evidence to testify the Belgian King Leopold II’s atrocities in Congo between 1885 and 1908 for the sake of capturing the attention of various readers towards the Belgian imperialist delinquencies through a detailed narration of a number of main characters’, including George Washington Williams and William Henry Sheppard, experiences in Belgian Congo (Hochschild, 1998). In this excerpt, it illustrates William’s peaceful exploration in Congo as the first American-Black missionary. During his journey, not only did he explore the Congolese culture,

George Washington Williams, an African American legislator, and Kande Kamara, an African colonial subject, both experienced some of the most brutal products of European Imperialism. Williams, in the late nineteenth century, toured the Belgian controlled Congo and witnessed the harsh measures King Leopold implemented to maintain absolute control and bleed the country of its resources. Kamara, on the other hand, bore witness to the end result of overzealous imperial ambitions when he was forced to fight for the allies in the trenches of WWI. These two men’s experiences, although considerably different, both shed light on Europe’s colonial philosophy of racism and ethnic superiority and its position of immense power during this period.

Thousands killed in the Leopold outbreak. King Leopold should be condemned for his brutal actions, and for making the population more then half in population, like in Lukolela “The population in the villages of Lukolela in January 1891 must have been not less than 6,000 people, but when I counted the whole population in Lukolela at the end of December 1896. I found it to be only 719… but judge of my heartache when on counting them all again on Friday and Saturday last, to find only a population of 352 people.” (Document 5) In 1800-1900’s, King Leopold wanted to and planned to take control of the Congo people.

In Hochschild’s novel King Leopold’s Ghost he details to readers that Leopold II was a man who managed to achieve his dream of developing a colony, but African exploitation fulfilled his dream. Belgium, as it seemed wasn’t a large enough country to be ruled by a king. It was a country that didn’t want to be made into a colony like Leopold wanted. A craving for more land bigger than the one that he ruled washes over him. The king wanted to be able to compete with other European powers that were amassing large amounts of wealth from their colonies.

The Congo Free State was a huge region comprising of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was privately owned by the King of Belgium, King Leopold II. The rubber plantations down there were horrific to say the least and one description in King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild by an Englishman that was a witness to this, “...was to arrive in canoes at a village...they attacked the natives until able to seize their women… [the women] were kept as hostages until the chief of the district brought in the required number of kilograms of rubber.” (Hochschild 161). Nowadays, we are utterly shocked in disbelief that such a system could arise but the emotion of fear can explain this.

One main driving force behind European imperialism in Africa is resources. Resources were very valuable back then. Someone couldn't just go to the grocery store and buy what is needed. They had to find it and process it by hand. Africa is rich in resources.

Imagine yourself being a ruler of one of the European nations in the 1800s. You control numerous nations, in Africa, all under your full control. Now, why did you go and take over these nations? Nationalism? Competition?

Also many different languages were taught in the schools that the government wanted. This made the Belgian and the Congolese people able to understand each other. Besides that, the Congolese people were highly discriminated and had stricter laws, including curfew and were banned from white establishments. Because of all of this, the culture of the Congolese people was getting destroyed.

The Congolese were forced to work all day and were very overworked. The photograph from document 5 shows that the Congolese suffer consequences for not collecting enough rubber. This also indicates that King Leopold II didn’t come to Congo for the well-being of the Congolese but for the well-being of himself. This demonstrates that the Belgians caused the deaths of many people and the loss of natural resources. But it

Imperialism In the 19th and 20th centuries, various powerful nations sent colonizers to dominate weaker nations and expand their influence. This domination is called imperialism, which is still practiced today in moderation. Among the many countries shaped by imperialism were India and China. These two large countries were both colonized by the British who were one of the greatest imperialistic powers at that time.

When King Leopold established the Congo Free State, he destroyed the link between the Congolese people and their homeland (Kenneth). King Leopold made one single country between Belgium and Congo. He combined the ethnicities of both of these cultures, taking away the Congolese people’s heritage and culture. In addition to this, the Roman Catholic Church forced their religion and values on the Congolese people, taking away their beliefs, and using violence if necessary. The Belgians forced their values upon the Congolese people in order to assimilate their religion and gain more power.

Adam Hochschild is an American author, he covers a lot of human rights in his writing, when he wrote this book he had not known about the atrocities of Leopold’s

What is imperialism? Imperialism is an approach to expand a nation’s power and their influences over other lands. Empires would look for expansion in their rule over other countries like Africa, Asia, and the Middle East starting in the 1870s and continued until 1914. But, was Imperialism beneficial for developing nations? Imperialism benefited developing nations from the positive aspects of technological advancements, economic gain, and political power.

The only thing Europeans loved more than political power was increasing their trade. In the 1800’s European nations had a desire to get a lead to widespread imperialism in Africa. With the end of slavery in 1833, European interest in Africa shifted to seizing colonies. King Leopold of Belgium acquired a private country in Africa that was 95 times bigger than Belgium and his purpose was to make money by taking out ivory and rubber.

Tryston Strickland Dr. Norwood Honors English IV March 8, 2018 The Flaw: Human Nature In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad shows human nature’s tendency toward callousness through the use of greed, imperialism, and darkness. Throughout the book the topics of greed, imperialism, and heartlessness give examples of the flaw that humans cannot fix. Humans tend to help others when there is a benefit for them to gain.