How did King Leopold II of Belgium rule the Congo?

1 answer:

8 0

Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) reigned as the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909. He became known for the founding and exploitation of the Congo Free State as a private venture. Born in Brusselsas the second (but eldest surviving) son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for 44 years until his death - the longest reign of any Belgian monarch. He died without surviving male issue; the current Belgian king descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I.

Leopold became the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf. He used explorer Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. From the beginning, however, Leopold essentially ignored these conditions. He ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal enrichment. He used great sums of the money from this exploitation for public and private construction projects in Belgium during this period. He donated the private buildings to the state before his death, to preserve them for Belgium.

Leopold extracted a fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and - after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s - by forced labour from the natives to harvest and process rubber. Under his régime millions of the Congolese people died; modern estimates range from 1 to 15 million, with a consensus growing around 10 million. Human-rights abuses under his régime contributed significantly to these deaths. Reports of deaths and abuse led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and the Belgian government ultimately forced Leopold to relinquish control of the colony to Belgian civil administration in 1908 <From wikipedia i give all credits to wikipedia> Hope it helps

You might be interested in

What are pros and cons of propaganda

tino4ka555 [31]

There's not really any pros for propaganda because essentially what you are doing is lying to get someone to believe something. I guess you could say a pro is that gullible people will believe you, but that's an unethical pro. The cons are that it usually causes much controversy in a society where there's not supposed to be a bias in the government. Propaganda in its true form is never a good thing. It is unethical in the sense that it takes advantage of people who are too lazy to do research and quick to believe what someone tells them. One example I like to use is many of these independent "news" websites. On both ends of the political spectrum, left and right, you find websites that have articles so heavily weighed down with that wings propaganda that true news becomes less and less visible. Occupy Democrats is one textbook example of that. Their articles are so left leaning that you read an article and are immediately left with a left leaning impression. Same goes for a lot of right wing websites. I'm not going to say "always" but propaganda 99.9 percent of the time is not good. Instead of people doing their own research to decide their view on something, propaganda tells people what they should think versus the asking people what they think

8 0

3 years ago

Read 2 more answers

An older client who practices meditation describes his experience as being in a calm, nonreactive state where he focuses on the

serg [7]

Answer:Mindfulness Meditation

Explanation:

In Mindfulness meditation attention is paid to the surroundings i.e. where we are, what are we doing, sounds around us or thoughts i.e. quality of being Present. This Promotes calmness and a nonreactive state of mind by Practicing it regularly.

Here also client experiences match with the outcomes of mindfulness meditation i.e. calmness and high level of focus

6 0

3 years ago

What was the role of reformers in American life? a. to arrest political bosses b. to organize immigrants into labor unions c. to

mash [69]

It seems like d is the only possibility :)

7 0

3 years ago

Which of the following events are considered to be the start of World War II from a non-western point of view?

pochemuha

The answer is D because the long march was a huge factor in world war 2

5 0