King Leopold's Ghost Essay

The novel, King Leopold’s Ghost written by Adam Hochschild, creates the main idea by shedding light upon the dark side of human history that incorporates tyranny and slavery. It is in the nonfiction category bringing back the time of King Leopold II, King of Belgians, and how he owned the Congo Free State for over twenty years. He used it to exploit their main natural resources of ivory, helping Belgium. In order to achieve the wanted result: torture, maiming, and terror were used to scare the slaves to work. It was not until the natural resources were exhausted did the objections from powerful countries result in a change. Henry Morton Stanley, an explorer, was sent by Leopold to make treaties with the leaders so that Leopold II could take

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,

The novel evokes the feelings of hatred within me for Leopold, but it makes you want to read more. For me, even though reading a chapter nearly everyday was a time struggle, it did not seem like a chore because at night I would just sit in my bed reading. History and nonfiction books, take you back to a different time where you feel as if you are apart of history, the novel previously stated included. The characters came alive while I was reading because the events are well shown. I believe that everyone who has a love in history should read this. It is such an amazing read that shocks you at moments, which keeps it interesting. Through all of the torture there was there was also heroes. To compare two stories, when most people are little they are aware of the firebreathing dragon, the hero, and the princess. While reading, that story came back to me but as different characters. The dragon was King Leopold, the heroes were the human rights campaigners, and the princess took on the slaves in the Congo. My point being that the story shows a whole journey that the Congo had to face. I believe that King Leopold’s Ghost is an amazing novel that everyone should read because even if you are not the story type of person, it still instills a lesson that greed