King Leopold's Ghost Summary

Book Report: King Leopold’s Ghost

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.

During that time, the vast interior of the Africa continent was still undeveloped and unknown to Europeans while the coastal regions had already been claimed by others. Since Belgium was a small country, King Leopold II was very obsessed with obtaining a colony so that he could focus on claiming the interior of Africa gradually, which was the only unclaimed and sizable geographic area in Africa at that time.

The most important part of this tale is the creation of what might reasonably be called the world 's first human rights movement. Hochschild brings the history alive by providing details of a vast array of different characters. George Washington Williams was the first bravest campaigner and he was the person that initially sounded the alarm. However, as an African American, he was ignored largely. Edmund Morel was a young British shipping agent, whose suspicions were aroused when he first noticed the imbalance of trade to the colony while working at the docks. He led the major effort to uncover King Leopold’s crime. William Sheppard was another brave African American, as well as a Presbyterian missionary who risked his own life bringing the first-hand evidence of King Leopold’s violence to reveal to the rest of the world. Roger Casement was an Irish patriot, diplomat as well as the hero of the tale. He played an important role in anti-Leopold movement. He was also an significant figure in the Irish independence movement. Unfortunately, he ended up executed in the London gallows. The efforts of these men contributed together to put large pressure onto King Leopold. As a result, Leopold had to determine to turn over the Congo to the Belgian