Forced Labor in King Leopold’s Ghost
In King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, forced labor seems to be a recurring theme throughout the book. Forced labor would be non-existence or be very minimal if it wasn’t for colonialism. Google defines colonialism as an exploitation by a stronger country of weaker one; the use of the weaker country's resources to strengthen and enrich the stronger country. King’s Leopold’s Ghost, Belgium is known as the stronger country in search of a colony (Congo) for its own exploitation. Professor Landstreet defines forced labor as the most extreme form of slavery, work that people are compelled to do against their will and subjected to physical punishment if they don’t perform their work. In the following essay I will be discussing the social structure, ideologies and power relations in context with forced labor.
The scramble for Africa started from 1800s to the start of the First World War (1914). Prior to the 19th century, the rest of the world knew very little about Africa, the Dark Continent. Africa brought huge areas of lands under the control of Europeans. Colonies were created and forced labor was introduced to bring land and labor together. The main purpose of forced labor was to acquire raw materials, ivory and rubber, for processing in European industries. Leopold garnered public support at home by publicly announcing his intent to Christianize and modernize the Congolese population, all the while planning the forced labor of men, women, and children for the lucrative ivory and rubber business.
Forced labor was centered around the Force Publique. The Force Publique was created in 1885, when King Leopold II of Belgium, who held the Congo Free State as his private property, order...
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...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.
Works Cited
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.
Print.
Landstreet, Peter. A World of Sociology. Part 1. 2009. Print.
Landstreet, Peter. “Power and Power relations lecture”. Sociology 1010. York University.
11 January 2010
Landstreet, Peter. “Power and Power relations lecture”. Sociology 1010. York University.
18 January 2010
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.
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.
The book King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa is written by Adam Hochschild. Adam Hochschild is the author of many books. He teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
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...
Forced labor takes many forms. Some victims are born into slavery, which still exists in some parts of the world. Some are trafficked. Some get trapped in endless debt through fraudulent job recruitment schemes or unreasonable pay deductions. Some are confined to workplaces through various forms of physical and psychological coercion.
Back in the 1700’s slavery had just come to the Americas and was thought as a revolutionary entity that was necessary for all people. The owners of these slaves forced them work all day long through all the elements just to get their money. Even if they, by some means, escaped slavery they still did the hard labor, which others were not willing to do, for money.
The growing of tobacco, cotton, rice, and indigo and the plantation economy created a tremendous need for labor in Southern English America; slavery and indentured servants were great for this type of industry. Slavery was a systematic controlling structure under which African Americans are treated as property and are forced to work in harsh labor settings. Where as indentured servants, Europeans or Americans, signed an agreement and were bound by indentures to work for another for a specified time especially in benefit for payment of travel expenses and maintenance. Slaves were to be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation.
Forms of labor included child slavery that existed throughout American History. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work. Children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to start a rebellion.2 Growing opposition to children in the North caused many factories to move to South. By early 1900’s, states varied considerably in whether they had implemented child labor standards.3Child labor peaked in the nineteenth century. American children worked in large numbers in places like mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, shoe shiners and peddlers....
At this point in time, geographic areas close to trade routes had more economic resources which brought them power and they could use this power to target areas with profitable natural resources, such as ivory or rubber, without risk. Explorers were sent to Africa in search of whatever could make King Leopold money. They were able to explore more parts of the Congo River and set up trade routes. The explorers would do whatever they had to do to get their way even if it meant taking a life. This was also during the time of slave trading. King Leopold was able to have his men set up trading post to sell African Americans. They would get on a ship and travel the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to Europe. “Forced-marched to the coast, their necks locked into wooden yokes, the slaves were rarely given enough food, and because caravans usually traveled in the dry season, they often drank stagnant water” (Hochschild, 1998. Page 202). This just shows that no one cared about the Africans and how they were being treated; as long as the whites got what they wanted, they were
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
The Congo Free State was personally owned by King Leopold II and was suffering torture everyday. On page 80 it displays a hair of it, “Stanley was a harsh taskmaster. ‘The best punishment is that of irons,’ he explained in one of his letters to Brussels, ‘because without wounding, disfiguring or torturing the body, it inflicts shame and discomfort.’” It was not until other countries came in did the punishment lessen. WIth the help of human rights organizations, the British, and many others, the Congo was able to attain democratization and be free from the Belgians. One person to take a huge stand, questioning what the Belgians were doing was Morel. At the age of twenty- eight, he quit his job to take up full time work of stopping the cruelty of the people of the Congo. Page 213 elaborates, “Morel knew he had taken a momentous step. ‘I had launched the boat’ he wrote’, ‘and there could be no turning back.’” Soon after, people of the Parliament like Sir Charles Dilke spoke out strongly. THen there was humanitarian group like Anti-Slavery Society and the Aborigines Protection Society that preached Christian humanitarianism applying it to denouncing brutalities. The novel ends at the result of King Leopold II’s death, the transfer of the Congo to the Belgian colonial rule, and the first few years of independence. Important to be noted,
...ermore established imperial rule in the Congo. The Force Publique was Leopold’s governing army. They were to oversee the work of the now colonized people of the Congo. Another of Leopold’s objectives was to gain wealth from his acquired colony. With the Force Publique, he would force the Congolese to gather ivory from the land. Those who refused had their elders, women and children held hostage until they complied. Leopold’s International African Association was to be a humanitarian project that would help to end slavery, however, by forcing the people to work for him, he was enslaving those he supposedly sought to help. When the popularity of the bicycle rose in the late 19th, manufactures were in need of rubber for their tires. Leopold saw this as an opportunity to gain more wealth and quickly had the Force Publique force the people into harvesting rubber.
They are not only its inert or consenting target; they are always also the elements of its articulation” (Foucault, “Two Lectures” 34). Power may take various forms, all of which are employed and exercised by individualsand unto individuals in the institutions of society. In all institutions, there is political and judicial power, as certain individuals claim the right to give orders, establish rules, and so forth as well as the right to punish and award. For example, in school, the professor not only teaches, but also dictates, evaluates, as well as punishes and rewards.
Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic structural analyses and agency-centred traditions. According to this, people are free to act, but they must also use and replicate fundamental structures of power by and through their own actions. Power is wielded and maintained by how one ‘makes a difference’ and based on their decisions and actions, if one fails to exercise power, that is to ‘make a difference’ then power is lost. (Giddens: 1984: 14) However, more recent theorists have revisited older conceptions including the power one has over another and within the decision-making processes, and power, as the ability to set specific, wanted agendas. To put it simply, power is the ability to get others to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. In the political arena, therefore, power is the ability to make or influence decisions that other people are bound by.