The Dark Heart of King Leopold II of Belgium

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The Dark Heart of King Leopold II of Belgium
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSU East Bay

• Kevin P. Dincher
• www.kevindincher.com

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Leopold II

• Africa

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Leopold II (1835 1909)

• King of the Belgians 1865 1909
• Family Connections
• Mother Louise dOrleans, Princess of France
• Wife Marie Henriette Hapsburg, Archduchess of
  Austria
• Sister Carlota of Mexico, Empress of Mexico
• 1st cousin Queen Victoria
• 7th cousin 6 times removed Kevin Dincher

Leopold, 1844
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Belgium

• October 4, 1830 Belgian Revolution
• Southern provinces declared independence from the
  Netherlands
• Catholic, officially French-speaking and neutral
• Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary
  democracy
• 1831 Leopold I
• Elected King of the Belgians
• House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

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Leopold II

• 1855 Became member of senate
• Immediately began urging establishing Belgian
  colonies
• Overseas colonies were the key to a country's
  greatness
• 1865 Became king
• 1866 first of three unsuccessful attempts to
  acquire the Philippines from Spain

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Leopold II

• 1876 Convened the Brussels Geographic
  Conference
• Proposed an international benevolent committee
• Propagation civilization among the peoples of
  Central Africa (Congo)
• Multi-national
• Scientific
• Humanitarian

Leopold II and Marie Henriette
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Leopold II

• 1876-1878 International African Association
  (AIA)
• Association Internationale Africaine
• Private holding company disguised as an
  international scientific and philanthropic
  association
• Leopold served as chairman twice
• Primary Achievement
• Convincing Belgian people and European countries
  that his interests in Africa were altruistic and
  humanitarian

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Leopold II

• 1878 Study Committee of the Upper Congo
• Comité d'Études du Haut-Congo
• Exploration
• Scientifc
• Humanitarian
• Commercial

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Leopold II

• 1879 International Association of the Congo
  (IAC)
• Association Internationale du Congo
• International Congo Society
• Humanitarian/philanthropic
• Scientific
• Commercial/economic
• Official Stockholders
• British/Dutch businessmen
• Belgian Banker

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Leopold II

• 1879 International Association of the Congo
  (IAC)
• Henry Morton Stanley
• Five-year contract
• Establish bases in the Congo
• Secure trade route for ivory market
• Rubber and minerals

Dr. Livingston, I presume?
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Henry Stanley a fearless newspaper reporter
ready to do whatever it takes to get a story,
regardless of any danger to his life!
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Leopold II

• 1881 1914
• Scramble for Africa
• Race for Africa
• Partition of Africa
• 1870
• Europeans occupied about 10 of the continent
• 1914
• only Ethiopia and Liberia were independent

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Leopold II

• 1884-1885 Berlin Conference
• Portuguese initiative
• British support
• Bismarks work
• Austria-Hungary
• Belgium
• Denmark
• France
• United Kingdom
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Portugal
• Russia
• Spain
• Sweden-Norway
• Ottoman Empire
• United States

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Leopold II

• 1884-1885 Berlin Conference
• Recognized the International Association of the
  Congo (IAC) as sovereign government

Belgium
Britain
France
Germany
Italy
Portugal
Spain
Independent
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Leopold II

• 1884-1885 Berlin Conference
• Spheres of Influence
• Region over which a state or organization has a
  level of cultural, economic, military, or
  political exclusivity
• An international prohibition of the slave trade
  throughout their respected spheres
• "International Society for the Suppression of
  Savage Customs" (Joseph Conrad, Heart of
  Darkness)

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Leopold II

• 1885
• Resolution passed in Belgian Parliament
• Transferred the IAC charter to Congo Free State
• État indépendant du Congo
• Leopold Roi-Souverain
• Person property - private colony
• Established Force Publique (FP)

• "I do not want to miss a good chance of getting
  us a slice of this magnificent African cake."
• King Leopold II

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Leopold II

• 1885 Congo Free State
• Leopold pledge to uphold Berlin Conference
• Suppress East African slave trade
• Promote humanitarian policies
• Guarantee free trade within the colony
• Impose no import duties for 20 yrs.
• Encourage philanthropic and scientific enterprises

• "I do not want to miss a good chance of getting
  us a slice of this magnificent African cake."
• King Leopold II

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Leopold II

• Exploitation of resources
• Ivory, Rubber, Minerals
• One of the greatest international scandals of the
  early 20th century
• Forced/slave labor
• Starvation
• Disease
• Torture/mutilation
• Directly and indirectly eliminated 20 of the
  population
• 10 to 13 million people

A 1906 Punch cartoon depicting Leopold II as a
rubber vine entangling a Congolese man
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Leopold II
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• "I have just returned from a journey inland to
  the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery
  and utter abandon is positively indescribable. I
  was so moved, Your Excellency, by the people's
  stories that I took the liberty of promising them
  that in future you will only kill them for crimes
  they commit.
• John Harris (Missionary)

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Hochschild Great Forgetting

• Royal Museum for Central Africa
• Large collection of colonial artifacts
• Blankenberge, Belgium
• Monument shows a colonialist bringing
  "civilization" to the black child at his feet
• Oostend, Belgium
• Monument to Leopold II with grateful Oostend
  fishermen and Congolese.
• The gratitude of the Congolese to Leopold II for
  having liberated them from slavery under the
  Arabs.

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I have undertaken the work in Congo in the
interest of civilization and for the good of
Belgium. Monument, Arlon, Belgium
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1. Everythings related!
2. When we learn about other people, times and
places, we learn about ourselves.
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The Dark Heart of King Leopold II

• Adam Hochschild
• King Leopold's Ghost A Story of Greed, Terror,
  and Heroism in Colonial Africa

• Lecturer, Graduate School of Journalism at UC
  Berkeley
• Other Works
• To End All Wars A Story of Loyalty and
  Rebellion, 1914-1918
• Bury the Chains Prophets and Rebels in the Fight
  to Free an Empire's Slaves
• The Mirror at Midnight A South African Journey
• The Unquiet Ghost Russians Remember Stalin

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The Dark Heart of King Leopold II

• Other Resources
• Handout, page 2
• Course Slides Online
• www.kevindincher.com
• Click on COURSES
• Click on THE DARK HEART OF KING LEOPOLD II OF
  BELGIUM
• Click on COURSE MATERIALS AND RESOUCES (at bottom
  of page)

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Africa
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Africa Caravan Routes
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Africa

• Reconquista 711 1492
• 1139-1179 Portugal as independent
• 1249 capture of the Algarve
• Henry (Enrique) the Navigator (1394-1460)
• Son of King and Queen of Portugal
• 1415 Battle of Ceuta (Morocco)
• Key to the Mediterranean
• Caravan routes
• Major northern trade center on the

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Africa

• Battle of Ceuta
• 45,000 Portuguese
• Practical Failure
• Success
• Energized Europeans
• Ripple effect
• Expansion beyond continent
• Christendom
• Portugal took the lead
• 1415-1505 expanded along the Pacific Coast of
  North Africa

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Africa

• Henry the Navigator
• Trade routes
• Prester John Legend

1420 Madeira Island
1427 Azores
1434 Beyond Cape Bojador
1441 First Slaves from Mauritania
1444 Senegal River (Beyond Sahara/Muslims) Gold/Slaves
1444-1446 40 ships trading at Lagos, Portugal
1456 Cape Verde Islands
1490 Cape of Good Hope
1498 Vasco da Gama Portugal to India
1552 slaves made up 10 of population of Lisbon
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Africa

• First Wave of European Colonization
• 1415 1830
• Primarily involved the colonization of the
  Americas
• Also some colonies in India and Maritime SE Asia
• Africa
• Trading posts
• Atlantic slave trade

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Atlantic Slave Trade
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Slavery

• the right by some individuals to possess, buy,
  sell, discipline, transport, liberate, or
  otherwise dispose of the bodies and behavior of
  other individuals.
• Seymour Drescher
• Abolition A History of Slavery and Antislavery
• integral element is that children of a slave
  mother automatically become slaves

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Slavery

• 1760 BCE
• Code of Hammurabi
• Earliest record of slavery as an established
  institution
• 1800
• ¾ of all people alive in some form of slavery or
  serfdom.
• David P. Forsythe, Encyclopedia of Human Rights

• 1981
• Mauritania Last country to outlaw slavery
• Did not become a crime to own slaves until 2007
• Today 10 to 20) of the population lives in
  slavery.
• 340,000 to 680,000

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Slavery Classical Era

• Ancient Greece
• 30 of the population of some cities
• Athens majority owned at least one slave
• Aristotle
• Ancient Rome
• Roman Republic
• vital to the economy
• Roman Empire
• 25 of the empire's population
• 30 to 40 of the population of Italy

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Slavery Middle Ages

• Vikings
• British Isles and Eastern Europe
• Sold on the Byzantine or Islamic slave markets
• Ended in the 11th century - Serfdom
• Spain/Portugal
• Muslim raids on Christian territories
• Byzantine-Ottoman Wars
• Both Christians and Muslims
• Knights of Malta

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• Charles Bridge, Prague

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Slavery Muslim Powers

• Islamic Law forbidden to enslave People of the
  Book
• Muslims, Christians, Jews Sabian, Magians
• Exceptions could be made if they were captured in
  battle
• Expected to be freed if converted to Islam
• Slave Trading Iberian Peninsula
• Muslim and Jewish merchants
• Brought slaves into al-Andalus from eastern
  Europe (pagan Slavs)
• Re-exported them to other regions of the Islamic
  world
• Christianization of Slavs ended practice
• Africa

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African Slave Routes

• 650 1900
• 4 million via Red Sea
• 4 million through the Swahili ports of the Indian
  Ocean
• 9 million along the trans-Saharan caravan route

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Slavery Before the Age of Discovery

• Not about Race
• Part of Human Nature
• Aristotle
• Consequence of Sin
• Augustine
• No Slave Economies

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Atlantic Slave Trade

• 12 million African slaves to the Americas between
  1600 and 1800

• 70 to Brazil and Caribbean Islands
• 5 (600,000) to US
• Half during colonial era

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Atlantic Slave Trade
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Slave Ship
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Brazil

• Slavery Mainstay of colonial economy
• Mining and sugar cane
• About 38 of all African slaves sent to Americas
• 1761 slavery abolished in Portugal but
  continued in colonies
• 1888 Last South American country to ban slavery

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Brazil

• Enslavement of Native Populations
• Jesuit Reductions
• The Mission

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Caribbean
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Caribbean

• Slavery Mainstay of colonial economy
• Sugar cane
• About 38 of all African slaves sent to Americas
• 1778 French alone importing 13,000 annually
• Death rates for Caribbean slaves were greater
  than birth rates
• Free blacks owned one-third of the plantation
  property and one-quarter of the slaves in Haiti
• 1794 French Republic abolished slavery
• 1802 Napoleon
• 1804 Haiti a free republic

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United States

• 1619 Jamestown
• 1st African indentured servants
• 1642 Colonies begin to codify slavery
• 1776 Declaration of Independence
• Gradual abolition in North
• Increase in slavery in the South
• 1787 US Constitution
• Article I, Section 9 allowed the continued
  "importation" of slaves
• Article IV, Section 2 Fugitive Slave Clause