ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how King Leopold II of Belgium managed to procure the vast territory of the Congo Basin in 1885 as his own personal property; how he exploited its immense natural resources for the benefit of Belgium; and how his abusive tactics finally forced him to give his colony to the Belgium government. Leopold II’s agents – including Henry Morton Stanley – forced or tricked local chieftains into surrendering their land. The Force publique, Leopold’s military/police operation – worked the Congolese to exhaustion or even death to meet the king’s demands, first for ivory, then for rubber, and eventually for copper ore. In the 1980s, Protestant missionaries began to arrive, intent on “civilizing” and converting the Congolese to Christianity. Leopold II initially supported them to gain favor in Europe but soon campaigned to have his land colonized instead by Belgian priests. He gave generous state subsidies to the Catholic Church to establish schools and health centers. By the early 1900s, stories of Leopold’s abuses in the Congo Free State began to filter back to Brussels. When the Belgian parliament could no longer overlook reports of the atrocities committed by their king, they reluctantly annexed the territory in 1908, renaming it the Belgian Congo.
