In King Leopold’s Ghost, Hoschild shares with his readers the unfamiliar story of King Leopold of Belgium’s exploitation of the Congo and the horrible crimes committed against humanity for economical and political gain. The author’s goal in this book was to bring awareness to what happened at this moment in history. Hoschild shows us that a lot of history as we know it is biased and Eurocentric. Many times history is authored or monitored by those who are in power (politically or economically) and their biases are created out of maliciousness, ignorance or self-preservation. Throughout this book, Hoschild was able to illuminate and explore the other side of this very unknown piece of history through investigating and including sources that had been forgotten or suppressed.
The book starts out explaining the early expeditions into the Congo and Leopold’s plans to colonize and find ways to profit from the ivory and rubber trade in Africa. Hoschild described a lot of the atrocities and events themselves from a lot of first hand accounts, documents and records that were managed to be preserved through the Congo reform movement. He referred a lot of his work from Morton Stanley and also from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” I think that throughout the book you can clearly see the author’s frustration regarding the horrible events that happened and how they easily went so unnoticed by the rest of the world.
The Congo population was nearly cut in half because of this genocide and he points out that if it weren’t for many of these first hand accounts, a lot of history would be “forgotten” and let slip through the cracks. An example of this became clear to me when Henry Morton Stanley’s true intent was revealed. In many history book...
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...ors have made in the past. The best way to responsibly address these issues is to connect history to our present day world and learn. In so many ways, Hoschild showed his frustration to his readers that history is written so biasely and a lot of times was skewed and perceived untruthfully. Hoschshild often referred to the findings of other scholars and provided a lot of documents from the historical events in Congo. These primary sources were how he educated and informed his readers with as much context as necessary. Throughout the book you can tell he is very passionately against the events in the Congo but, I don't think that takes away any sort of credibility to his story. In so many situations throughout history, the past has been "forgotten" or left out in order to preserve a person or country's image or other reasons and keep the people naive and in the dark.
The book mainly chronicles the efforts of King Leopold II of Belgium which is to make the Congo into a colonial empire. During the period that the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River.
Alas, in 1961 Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by a US- sponsored plot 7 months after independence, and replaced him with a “puppet dictator named Mobutu” (Kingsolver). In her book, Barbara Kingsolver surfaces a forgotten part of our nation’s history in the exploitation of the Congo through her main characters, the Price family, who are missionaries sent to the Kilanga village. Through characters’ narratives that “double as allegories for the uneasy colonial marriage between the West and Africa” (Hamilton, Jones), Kingsolver creates a relatable way for her readers to understand the theme she is trying to convey, which is “‘what did we do to Africa, and how do we feel about it?’” (Snyder). Kingsolver began with this theme and developed the rest of the novel around it, just as she does with her other works, and sticking with her trademark technique, she utilizes her book as a vessel for “political activism, an extension of the anti-Vietnam protests” she participated in college (Snyder).
Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" is a lost historical account starting in the late 19th century continuing into the 20th century of the enslavement of an entire country. The book tells the story of King Leopold and his selfish attempt to essentially make Belgium bigger starting with the Congo. This was all done under an elaborate "philanthropic" public relations curtain deceiving many countries along with the United States (the first to sign on in Leopold's claim of the Congo). There were many characters in the book ones that aided in the enslavement of the Congo and others that help bring light to the situation but the most important ones I thought were: King Leopold, a cold calculating, selfish leader, as a child he was crazy about geography and as an adult wasn't satisfied with his small kingdom of Belgium setting his sites on the Congo to expand. Hochschild compares Leopold to a director in a play he even says how brilliant he is in orchestrating the capture of the Congo. Another important character is King Leopold's, as Hochschild puts it, "Stagehand" Henry Morton Stanley. He was a surprisingly cruel person killing many natives of the Congo in his sophomore voyage through the interior of Africa (The first was to find Livingston). Leopold used Stanley to discuss treaties with African leaders granting Leopold control over the Congo. Some of the natives he talked to weren't even in the position to sign the treaties or they didn't know what they were signing.
...abor to get what he wanted, ivory and rubber. Leopold was able to colonize and pillage Congo for its resources during the Scramble for Africa through forced labor. The quote that sums up my essay and the book is best described at the end of chapter 15. Massacring huge numbers of natives will eventually frighten the survivors into gathering rubber. This shows the intentions of forced labor by the Force Publique and the reason for the population drop in Congo during Leopold’s rule.
Hochschild concludes that the world must never forget the events of Leopold’s Congo. This event is evidence that it is the result of human greed that led to so much suffering, injustice, and corruption.
The land Leopold had obtained was about eighty times larger than that of Belgium itself. Plus, Leopold was proclaimed the “sovereign” ruler of all the Congo Free Sta...
During the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, King Leopold II of Belgium invaded the Congo and used it to procure more wealth for himself and his nation. In doing so, as many as ten million Congolese were decimated, and they faced unspeakable horrors. Hochschild argues in King Leopold’s Ghost that all actions taken by King Leopold II were done out of nothing more than sheer greed and selfishness, and he used any means necessary to get what he wanted, and manipulated others into following suit by exploiting their own greed and racism. The only way the brutality was combated, Hochschild further goes on to describe, was through the actions of the few with a higher moral character.
During the 17th century, slavery was a widely used commodity with the Europeans, little do people know however that African kings also had and accepted slavery in their own nations. King Nzinga Mbemba of Congo and the King of Ouidah had similarities on the issue of slavery; they tolerated the use of slaves. Congo’s king had no contingency with slavery; in fact, he had slaves in his country. When the Portuguese were purchasing goods in Congo, the king had men “investigate if the mentioned goods are captives or free men” (NZ, 622). The fact that the king differentiates the men between ‘free’ and ‘captives’ illustrates that not all people in Congo are free. Whether these captives are from the country of Congo or not, they are still caught and held all across the nation against their will. King Mbemba kept slaves because the population of Congo was vastly declining due to the slave trade. In his letter, he pleads with the king of Portug...
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Imperialism is the “state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas”. Some of the reasons why imperialism exist are: power, political opportunity, economic, and technology. In King Leopold’s Ghosts we can clearly see all these reasons which lead Leopold conquer part of Africa.
Zins, Henryk S. "Joseph Conrad and the Early British Critics of Colonialism in the Congo." Lubelskie Materiały Neofilologiczne 22.(1998): 155-169. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Sun. 08 May 2011.
As a political figure, King Leopold of Belgium had minimal power, yet he acknowledged the political and financial advantages of colonization, and acquired the Congo as a private colony whereas Britain snatched up colonies globally, including the “crown jewel” of all colonies, India. Belgium and Britain demonstrated a stark contradiction of two opposing methods of colonization. These two countries methods’ of domination ultimately decide the fates of each party, conqueror and conquered, in the precarious gamble that is imperialism.... ... middle of paper ...
When comparing the Holocaust and the atrocities in the Belgian Congo I was able to further understand the differences between crimes against humanity and genocides. Further more the impact they have on society, especially how easily it was for the Belgian government to wash out the permanent footprint they caused on the Congo. As previously stated, the main differences we could find were the monetary priorities established in the Belgian Congo and the motivations behind the ethnic extermination, which led to the Holocaust.
One of Achebe’s main points is that the dehumanization of Africa and Africans has fostered and will continue to foster unless otherwise opposed. As Achebe begins to move away from the novel and towards Conrad’s life, he states that Conrad was born, at a time, when the black population was viewed at a low level. Achebe describes the accuracy of Conrad’s view of the people of the Congo as “grossly inadequate even at the height. of King Leopold’s International Association for the Civilization of Central Africa.” [pg.6] Achebe states that Conrad’s image of Africa is not of his own, but of the Western imagination and that Conrad is simply showing the norm.
The first Congo war began in October of 1996, due to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi killed over 800,000 Tutsis and Pro-Peace Hutus in 100 days, after the genocide 2 million refugees retreated to Rwanda’s western border in the Congo. The refugee camp was the base for the exiled Interhamwe and the army of Liberation o...
As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo, it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.