Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II, King of the Belgians (April 9, 1835 - December 17, 1909), succeeded his father, Leopold I of Belgium, to the Belgian throne in 1865. He was born in Brussels and originally named Louis Philippe Marie Victor.
Most famous for having his own colony, the Congo Free State, which he made his private property in 1884. In 1908, the Congo free state was annexed by the Belgian state and renamed Belgian Congo.
At an early age he entered the Belgian army, and in 1853 he married Maria Henrietta (1836 - 1902), daughter of Joseph, Archduke of Austria (1776 - 1847) who was son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (1747 - 1792). In 1876 Leopold II of the Belgians organized an international association to develop central Africa, and he later financed the expedition (1879-1884) to the Congo River.
At the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, Leopold was recognized as sovereign of the Congo Free State. Reports of outrageous exploitation and mistreatment of the native population, including enslavement, malnutrition, and mutilation, especially at it applied to the rubber industry, led to an international protest movement in the early 1900s. Finally, in 1908, the Belgian parliament compelled the King to cede the Congo Free State to Belgium.
A constitutional, if strong-willed, monarch in Belgium, he ruled the Congo Free State (renamed Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as a personal domain. The population of the Congo decreased by half, a loss of some 10,000,000 souls, under Leopold's rule, though a combination of maltreatment, murder, disease, starvation, and emigration.
In Belgian domestic politics Leopold emphasized military defense as the basis of neutrality, but he was unable to obtain a universal conscription law until on his death bed. He was succeeded by his nephew Albert I of Belgium.
He married Caroline Lacroix a few days before his death, and immediately after Leopold died, she allegedly left Belgium with much of his fortune.
Writings about Leopold
Many prominent writers of the time took part in international condemnation of Leopold II's exploitation of the Congo, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Booker T. Washington, and those mentioned below.
The American mystic poet Vachel Lindsay wrote: "Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost / Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host / Hear how the demons chuckle and yell / Cutting his hands off, down in Hell."
King Leopold's Belgian Congo was described as a colonial regime of slave labor, rape and mutilation in Joseph Conrad's, Heart of Darkness.
Mark Twain wrote a biting sarcastic political satire, King Leopold's Soliliquy.
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External Links
- "Reforming The Heart of Darkness" The Congo under Leopold II