The 19th and early 20th Centuries saw the European civilizations starting to branch out. This could be as a result of sudden and extensive industrialization. They became conscious of other areas around the world which, while inhabited by less technologically developed cultures and presented promise of perfect opportunity to colonize - that is, to spread European 'civilization' to native peoples in exchange for cheap labour and natural resources. The nationalist feeling among major powers of Europe such as Britain,France, Russia and later Germany caused them to become fiercely competitive, and each country strove to accumulate more overseas territory and 'spread civilization' to locations such as Asia and Africa, to a truly unprecedented extent. King Leopold II of Belium has the dishonourable reputation of being one of the most brutal and cruel rulers of the 19th century, for his actions done in Central Africa, mainly the Congo. There are arguments defending the actions claiming that hes actions furthered Congo, by modernizing and civilizing Congo. The counterarguments, and one which will be argued for this paper, is to show the fact that king Leopold II has committed rather unforgivable crimes against the people of Congo, this was done for his love of materialistic love for wealth from the ivory and rubber gathered through force labour. His actions in 22-year reign in Congo can be classified as too inhumane and unjustifiable. In order to effectively illustrate the argument, the essay will be divided into various parts for clarity and coherence purposes. A historical foundation will be outlined initially in order to provide the reader a backdrop behind the moral blindness of the leader, the various parties that acted as a footho... ... middle of paper ... ...ce Publique (FP), a military corps which comprised of regular soldiers and mercenaries from other countries. Their mission was to campaign against the Arab slave trade in the Upper Congo and to protect the economic interests. [16] The first major hurdle Leopold had to overcome in consolidating his new realm was the dispersion of Arab slavers living along the Lualaba River. In The 1860s, the slavers were firmly entrenched in the region and did not necessarily recognize Leopold's claim to the area. Given that an aim of the Berlin Conference was to see the abolitionment of Africa's interior slave trade, the slavers knew their livelihood was threatened. This situation was complicated by a history of previous interactions during which slavers operating in the area had shown hospitality and friendship to individual European missionaries and agents operating in the area.
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.
... to the interior as soon as possible, and to send reports soon”(195). Casement was nineteen years old when he first saw the Congo as he was working on a Elder Dempster ship. For two years he had been sending reports to the Foreign Office about the harsh conditions in the Leopold`s Congo. He spent days at Lake Tumba where rubber slavery operations were ran. Counting the number of people held hostage in a village because they did not meet the rubber quota. Casement wrote in his diary daily talking about the horror he had faced during his adventure. Casement found someone he could share his feelings with about the conditions in the Congo. He had read Edmund Morel`s writings and wanted to meet him. The two shared evidence about what they uncovered in the Congo. Together Morel and Casement would form an organization devoted mainly to campaigning for justice in the Congo.
So when he does this he set up fake chair organizations which only help one to meet but still had and publish Literature but all which course actually from King Leopold and he commissions famous explorer Henry Morgan Stanley best known for finding doctor Livingstone. Stanley was the guy who actually explore Africa for King Leopold and mark out the territory for his organization which pretends not to be Belgium. This is an important powerful book which provides concise account of the abuses which have really held Africa backs for so long. The focus of the colony after a while became the Rubber trade so there we be basically a cowry labor system where people would be a force by the threat of destruction of their villages or suction of their children to me rubber codes. The problem with harvesting rubber is the vines near the village will gets exhausted will not
...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.
In 1865, King Leopold II succeeded his father to the thrown of Belgium and thus began one of the most brutal and insensitive periods of imperialism ever to exist. From manipulative treaties to straight forward intimidation, Leopold dominated his empire like no other. He was cruel, deceptive, and downright evil, yet it took the world over twenty years to recognize this. The record of King Leopold’s atrocity is an interesting account of how a jealous man could inflict some of the most disgusting forms of oppression upon his fellow members of the human race.
With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, Europe was looking to bolster their trade markets abroad. Thinking of it this way: in order to sell more goods, you need more places to sell them. So, with this thinking in mind, the Europeans said to themselves, 'What better place than Africa and Asia?' Along the same lines, colonies on these continents were seen as great places to get cheap, raw materials for Europe's factories. Add to this that Europe needed a place to house and employ their surplus population, and you can see why New Imperialism held the promise of economic growth.
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 second half of the nineteenth century, many Europeans came to believe that imperial expansion and colonial domination were crucial for the survival of their states and societies as well as the health of their personal fortunes.
In this paper, I would like to examine how Conrad's Heart of Darkness has played an important role in exposing the brutal reality of Belgian colonialism of the Congo Free State under the pretence of a civilizing mission . The study focuses on how historicizing Conrad's Heart of Darkness has been instrumental in uncovering atrocities committed by King Leopold II's agents in their desperate scramble for the rich resources of Congo like ivory and rubber. King Leopold II's atrocities may account for the death of almost ten million Congolese natives, a crime of a genocidal scale which has terribly affected the future of the Congo and its people till today. Conrad renders his own anti colonial critique through his central character,
Adam Hochschild came into great detail of the outcomes and consequences of Leopold’s reign in the Congo. It also brings up Jules Marchal studies on Leopold’s Profits. It says in chapter 18 that he drew about 220 Million Francs from the Congo (or $1.1 Billion in today’s dollar) over the course of his 41 years of ruling. Of course, this sum does not include the more hard-to-trace money that Leopold spent or hid with more secrecy. As mentioned before, t...
During the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution gave certain countries in Western Europe a big boost of economic power. France, Britain, Italy, and Germany emerged as industrialized powers, with high population and high production. During a time when Social Darwinism was popular, it was only natural that these nations compete with each other for survival. The most important motivation for Europeans to colonize during the 19th and 20th centuries was to strengthen their own countries in order to compete with the other European powers.
Conquest and colonization has always played a role in the history of European powers. Throughout the centuries many different European empires have attempted to make their mark on multiple different continents. Some have found success, while others have failed. One case in particular, in which European nations could not quite find stability, was in North America. Factors such as the American Revolution, U.S. westward expansion, and the Monroe Doctrine pushed European nations out of North America. Afterwards, the late 19th century marked the beginning of New Imperialism. As New Imperialism began, Africa became important to European nations in their “Scramble for Africa”.
The late 19th century saw a new wave of European Imperialism. The colonies of England, France, and Germany are some of the most common examples of late imperialism, but this wave of late imperialism saw the rise of a new major European power: Belgium. King Leopold held a massive tract of land in Central Africa that would come to be know as The Congo Free State. According to the editors of The Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), a small group of investors headed by King Leopold would be drawn to the land after Morton Stanley’s exploration of the land during the 1870’s. Once they had acquired their land they would set up a system that was meant to extract maximum profit from the natural resources of Central Africa. They had a complete disregard
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.
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.