King Leopold's Ghost Summary

Wayne Gerard Trotman, a British filmmaker, once said, “instead of loving people and using money, people often love money and use people.” During the Age of Imperialism, industrialized countries around the globe believed that conquest was the best way to boost their economies. These quickly-developing countries used the resources and people from their imperialized territories as their own. Whether or not this was done morally was of little concern to these countries. The need to boost their economy spurred industrialized countries to imperialize other countries for resources and power, which could not be done without a humanitarian cover.

For example, the United States imperialized less developed territories to profit from them while claiming

The book, King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild3, provides details of Leopold’s avarice. One example was when Leopold wanted to sell all the ivory found in the Congo, he increased incentives, and “Congo state officials and their African auxiliaries swept through the country on ivory raids, shooting elephants, buying tusks from villagers for a pittance, or simply confiscating them.” Even so, Leopold wrote to the prime minister that “the Congo state is certainly not a business. If it gathers ivory on certain of its lands, that is only to lessen its deficit.” Because only Leopold knew of the cruelty being used in the Congo, no one could testify against this benign claim. The entire process was not only unfair, but also it was cruel. To Leopold, the end, economic gain for Belgium and himself, justified the means. He even forced the Congolese to act as porters. “Even children were put to work: one observer noted seven- to nine-year-olds each carrying a load of twenty-two pounds.” These porters would carry loads for weeks at a time. Many died on the journey to their destination. Once again, the rest of Europe knew nothing of these atrocities. This went to show that Leopold was willing to do whatever was necessary to make a