Answer:
it subjected them to forced labor and the constant threat of violence.
Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s. It was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who explored under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. However Leopold had different plans for the Congo and was able to solicit the region by convincing the European community that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work. Leopold extracted ivory, rubber, and minerals in the upper Congo for sale on the world market.
Leopold obtained rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and made the land his private property. On May 29, 1885, the king named his new colony the Congo Free State.
In the Congo Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber. Rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold. To enforce the rubber quotas, the army, the Force Publique, cut off the limbs of the natives as a matter of policy.
After all these acts of brutality, Congolese fought back against the terror regime of Belgium, many groups fought and attack the government interests. The Congo State by the 20th century was to become a new “Cuba” in Africa.
