Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost
Burning in Hell for hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell
The title of this review is the subtitle to Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost, an engrossing work about Belgian king Leopold the II and his disastrous, murderous, exploitative impact on Africa’s Congo region.
The Congo was first contacted by Portugal in 1491 and was taken over by European colonialism by the the late 1800s. Hochschild makes good use of the research and primary sources that exist to present a detailed (and painful) view of the Congo under imperialism. However, he does note:
My greatest frustration lay in how hard it was to portray individual Africans as full-fledged actors in this story. Historians often face such difficulties, since the written record from colonizers, the rich, and the powerful is always more plentiful than it is from the colonized…Again and again I felt frustrated that we know so much about the character and daily life of Leopold and so little about those of Congolese indigenous rulers at the time, and even less about the lives of villagers who died gathering rubber.”
Leopold was an avaricious imperialist who had an endless lust to establish his own colonies. He was also exceedingly clever. He knew the best way to colonize the Congo was to appear as if he had altruistic reasons for doing so. So to the world he said his interests were tied to a desire to eliminate slavery, incorporate scientific, hospitable bases to bring peace to the local tribes, and establish just arbitration. He cared about none of these things. His interest was in extracting resources and forcing the Congolese to labor for him to meet his ends.
Leopold sent reporter and explorer Henry Morton Stanley to the Congo to establish it as the king’s territory. Stanley–accomplished but also violent and vengeful–traversed 1,500 miles of the Congo river, making exploitive treaties with tribes to take over their land. He employs African porters, who from then to the worst of the colonial times, provide free or virtually free labor carrying the expedition’s goods and even boats that are broken into pieces for transport. Porters frequently starved, died from exhaustion, and were whipped brutally for any perceived transgressions, which included being unable to proceed due to illness, physical weakness, and lack of food and water.
As Leopold–who never once set foot in the Congo–exploited the Congo for ivory and eventually rubber, the atrocities grew. It is estimated that 10 million Congolese died under his reign. While continuing his front of anti-slavery sentiment, free trade and wise government, he in fact forced the Africans to slave for him. His men would take villagers hostage and force the tribal leader to give them up for labor, labor which caused countless cruel deaths and mutilations. Women were captured and raped, villages were razed to the ground, the villagers’ food all taken to feed Leopold’s men. Men and women were worked to death, beaten to death, and tortured to death.
There were also reformers who got the word out to the world about the Congo and Leopold’s atrocities. Two were Black men, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard. Williams was the first writer to really see the violation of human rights in the Congo, and wrote the famous “Open Letter to Leopold” revealing the horrors. Other activists included white men and women who wrote pamphlets, papers and books and held large gatherings to show the world what was happening in the Congo. For a time they were very successful in publicizing the violations and managed to attract many followers. Some of the most tireless agitators were Roger Casement and E.D. Morel. Native Africans who died for the cause include Andrew Shanu and rebel leaders like Nzansu, Mulume Niama, and Kandolo.
Leopold’s legacy is one of violence, death, and exploitation. The book recounts the history of the Congo under his tyranny, before and after his death. To this day, the Congo, now known as Zaire, remains a land with a history wracked by poverty and oppression. There are many brave African activists who have worked tirelessly to help their people, refusing to bend under the weight of their colonial burden.
