History has its fair share of brutal monarchies. Kings and Queens who put their royal subjects
through wars, punish so-called traitors, and lived lavishly while their subjects starved.
But there is one recent monarch who may be the most brutal in recent history.
King Leopold II of Belgium may be remembered as “The Builder King”, but there is a side to his
reign that was destructive to a whole country. Hello, and welcome back to Nutty History. Today
we’re talking about King Leopold II of Belgium, and why he’s known as history’s most evil ruler.
A quick note, today’s video deals with some sensitive subject matter, so viewer discretion
is advised. The matter of colonialism and foreign sovereignty is one that many people
are still learning about and examining today, and Leopold II is a major figure in this process.
King Leopold II of Belgium was born in 1835 and ascended to the throne in 1865. At the time,
Belgium was still a young country — Leopold’s father, Leopold I, was the country’s first
king after gaining its independence from the Netherlands in 1830. He would later become known
as the “Builder King”, as he built a legacy of public spaces such as the Royal Galleries, Duden
Park in Brussels, the Cinquantenair/Jubelpark; Villa des Cedres and the accompanying botanical
gardens; and the Antwerpen-Centraal Railway Station. The mid-1800s saw the European-led,
so-called “Scramble for Africa”, in which many European nations were racing for their
own piece of land on the continent. Starting in 1855, Leopold II started trying to convince
the Belgian government that they needed to acquire a colony as well. He would later say,
in a letter to his brother, that “the country must be strong, prosperous, and therefore have colonies
of her own, beautiful and calm”. In 1876, he hosted the Brussels Geographic Conference,
inviting scientists, geographers, explorers, and philanthropists to consult with him on the
goal of establishing a humanitarian presence in Central Africa. Leopold II told them he wanted to
“improve” and “civilize” the lives of the people living there, and in the end the conference
established the International African Association — appointing King Leopold II as its chairman. At
the conference he met Henry Morton Stanley, a British explorer, who was hired to travel
to the Congo River Basin and set up treaties with chiefs and tribal leaders of the area,
and claim the land in the name of King Leopold II. Treaties just like these were signed all over
the colonized world with populations who had no idea what they meant in European politics.
Leopold II used these documents to legitimize his claim in Africa to the powers of Europe.
Leopold claimed his goals were to suppress the East African slave trade, and promote scientific
and humanitarian enterprises; but he is also quoted as saying: “I do not want to risk…losing
a fine chance to secure for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake”,
indicating he may have wanted the territory for other means. He managed to cut his slice at the
Berlin Conference in 1884, where an area of over 2 million square kilometres — about
900,000 square miles — was established as King Leopold II’s Domaine Privé — his private domain.
On February 5th, 1885, King Leopold II claimed the area as the Congo Free State,
and himself as the Sovereign of the Congo Free State. He installed a small government — all
members appointed by himself — and a private army called the Force Publique. Running the Congo Free
State proved to be expensive, and Leopold II did not want to lose his control of the
area — nor his money. The first problem proved to be expanding and establishing the territory
against its neighbors. Leopold engaged the Force Publique as well as various mercenaries in wars,
fights, and expeditions to maintain control of the Congo Free State. In the meantime,
Leopold declared that all vacant land in the Congo Free State was state-owned,
effectively creating a monopoly on resources cultivated on that land. When trading companies
protested, he created “Dominions” in which private companies had complete control of the land,
down to how they punished and policed those who lived on it. Of course, the companies who had
these dominions were heavily taxed, with all the profits generated going directly to the crown.
Also, Leopold II made sure that the majority of this land was still controlled by himself.
He declared the most accessible part of the State as Domaine de la Couronne — The
Domain of the Crown — and established a company with British collaborators, the ABIR Company.
But why was Leopold II so interested in this area anyway? What could make it so profitable? Not only
were there rumors of gold, and a thriving ivory industry, in 1887 John Boyd Dunlop
invented the pneumatic tyre — tires made of rubber for bicycles and automobiles.
With this invention the cultivation of rubber became a lucrative industry,
and the Congo Free State’s jungles had a huge supply of rubber vines waiting to be tapped.
This industry is what funded so many of the Builder King’s monuments, gardens, and
infrastructure. In contrast to what he had claimed he would do at the Berlin Conference, Leopold II
made the Congo Free State his personal commercial enterprise, and used the Force Publique to
reinforce it. The Force Publique enforced rubber quotas that were more impossible and stricter
as the demand for rubber grew. Because of the international demands for rubber, farming villages
in the Congo Free State were cleared to make way for rubber plantations, and the state imposed a
labor tax on the Congolese residents. This meant that, in order to live in the Congo Free State,
you had to work the rubber plantations effectively creating a state-run slave society. As rubber
demands grew, and rubber quotas were harder to fill, Congolese residents had to forgo farming to
meet quotas which meant widespread malnutrition. Because King Leopold II did not establish an
official government and turned policing the land over to the companies he had granted dominion,
there was very little law or process involved when it came to the cultivation of rubber.
These conditions likely contributed to the atrocities committed to the Congolese residents.
Villagers who did not meet the rubber quotas were killed, and villages that either refused to
or could not comply were burned to the ground. The ABIR Company in particular was noted for
how harshly it treated the Congolese laborers. Workers who refused to cultivate rubber were
also whipped and beaten, usually by soldiers tasked with collecting the rubber quotas.
The Force Publique became known for a form of mutilation that was particularly brutal and
inhumane. Because ammunition was expensive, as it had to be imported from Europe, the soldiers had
to provide proof for every bullet that they used. This proof came in the form of the right hand of
their victim. Sometimes, to save ammunition, the soldiers would remove a hand of a living worker,
leaving them to live or die. A soldier could even shorten his term of service by bringing
more to his superior, leading to even more unfair treatment of the Congolese workers.
Leopold II reportedly disapproved of this form of punishment — but not because it was inhumane.
He is reported as saying: “Cut off hands — that’s idiotic…That’s the one thing I need in the Congo”.
Soldiers would take women and children hostage to force men to work the rubber vines,
often taking advantage of the women they took prisoner. Leopold II also sanctioned “child
colonies” in which orphaned children would be sent to schools operated by Catholic Missionaries
where they would either be forced into becoming soldiers or rubber laborers.
In addition to rubber laborers, many workers died while constructing a railway through the country
some of whom were Chinese or Caribbean workers brought in to work in extremely unsanitary
conditions. It is estimated that between one and ten million people died during the time
of the Congo Free State, either because they were killed or from starvation, disease or exhaustion.
It is impossible to make an exact conclusion since there was never a census completed, but
historians use reports of population from when the state was established to the time it became the
Belgian Congo to estimate how many died. By the 1890s missionaries and explorers began to record
and report on the atrocities being committed in the Congo Free State. Alice Seeley Harris, a
British missionary, photographed mutilated workers and published the photographs back in Britain.
In 1899 Joseph Conrad published Heart of Darkness, inspired partly by his time working in the Congo
Free state. These books and social movements put pressure on Leopold II to investigate,
but he made very few serious efforts to change or question what was going on.
Eventually, in 1908 after the British government published the damning Casement Report,
and following significant pressure both internationally and at home,
the Belgian government forced King Leopold II to relinquish control of the Congo Free State,
renaming it Belgian Congo. King Leopold continued to deny any wrongdoing, concealing evidence and
claiming that the Belgian government had no right to know what he did in the Congo Free State. He
died in 1909, and his funeral procession was booed as it passed through the city of Brussels.
Leopold II’s reign is still controversial as more people learn of his bloody legacy in the Congo.
We hope you learned more about King Leopold II, and thanks for watching Nutty History!