Congo Free State
As European powers jockeyed for control over the African continent in the mid-19th century, an unusual colonial regime was established along the Congo River basin. Known as the Congo Free State, this was a vast territory over which Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was the sovereign ruler. For nearly three decades, the king’s pursuit of profit led him to preside over a brutal system of exploitation and oppression in what is one of the most sordid episodes in the history of imperialism.
This is the story of the Congo Free State.
Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man.
A Congolese man, Nsala, stares at the severed hand and foot of his daughter who was killed by rubber collectors. Photograph by John H. Harris, c. May 1904.
Bibliography
Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963.
O’Siochain, Seamas and O’Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement’s Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007.
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020.
Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003.
Rutz, Michael. King Leopold’s Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:’ a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018
An official report on conditions in the Congo exposes the Free State’s atrocities to the world. As pressure mounts on Leopold II to relinquish control of his colony, the king became increasingly determined to cling onto it until his dying breath.