Belgium’s King Leopold II: The Man Responsible For The Death Of 15 Million People In The Congo
Updated: Apr 19
Belgium may not be the first European country that most people think of when they hear the words “blood-soaked colonial tyranny.” Historically, the little country has always been more famous for beer and chocolate than epic crimes against humanity.
During the zenith of European imperialism in Africa, a historical period marked by Belgium's prominent role, King Leopold II presided over an extensive and ruthlessly governed personal empire. This dominion, widely recognized as the Congo Free State, was distinguished by its magnitude and severity, surpassing, and even eclipsing, the transgressions committed by some of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century.
Leopold II, holding an unquestionable position as its sovereign, operated as the de facto master of the Congo Free State. Spanning nearly three decades, this entity differed substantially from conventional colonies governed by European powers, such as South Africa or the Spanish Sahara. Instead, the Congo functioned as the exclusive possession of Leopold II, administered for his individual aggrandizement rather than under the auspices of a broader governmental authority.
Leopold II's early life offered no indications of his future role as a perpetrator of mass atrocities. Born in 1835 as the heir to Belgium's throne, he engaged in customary activities befitting a European prince poised for ascension to the leadership of a minor state. These pursuits included acquiring skills in equestrianism and marksmanship, participating in state ceremonies, securing a military appointment, marrying an Austrian princess, and adhering to other expected royal protocols.
Assuming the throne in 1865, Leopold II governed with a gentle approach, aligning with the expectations of the Belgian populace following the series of revolutions and reforms that had ushered in democratization in the preceding decades. Notably, the young king primarily exerted influence on the senate in his persistent endeavours to involve Belgium in the establishment of an overseas empire, mirroring the pursuits of larger nations.
This aspiration evolved into an obsession for Leopold II, who, like many statesmen of his era, subscribed to the belief that a nation's eminence correlated directly with the wealth extracted from equatorial colonies. He sought to amass as much colonial influence for Belgium as possible before rival nations could intervene.
His initial attempt in 1866 to acquire the Philippines from Queen Isabella II of Spain proved unsuccessful due to the political upheaval that led to Isabella's overthrow in 1868. Subsequently, Leopold II turned his attention to Africa, initiating discussions on the prospect of Belgian involvement in the continent.
In 1878, Henry Stanley presumed to meet Dr. Livingstone deep inside the Congo rainforest. The international press made both men out to be heroes – bold explorers in the heart of darkest Africa. What went unsaid in the breathless newspaper accounts of the two men’s famous expeditions is what they were doing in the Congo in the first place.
Several years before the convergence of the two expeditions, King Leopold II established the International African Society with the aim of coordinating and financing exploratory endeavours across the continent. Ostensibly, this endeavour was presented as a precursor to an ostensibly benevolent international philanthropic initiative, wherein the altruistic monarch purported to bestow upon the indigenous populations the benefits of Christianity, crisply laundered garments, and steam-powered machinery.
The expeditions led by Stanley and Livingstone played a pivotal role in facilitating the penetration of the rainforest by the king's agents. The deceptive notion that King Leopold II was diligently striving to usher Africans into spiritual salvation endured for an extended period, surpassing its warranted credibility. Consequently, the king's assertion over the ironically labelled "Congo Free State" gained formal recognition at the Congress of Berlin in 1885.
In all fairness, it is plausible that Leopold II, an discerning adherent of the Belgian Catholic faith, genuinely aspired to impart Christian teachings to his newly acquired subjects. However, his approach to this objective was exceedingly literal and ruthlessly executed: he orchestrated the mass killing of a substantial number of individuals, rendering life insufferable for the remaining populace. Their existence was marked by arduous labour in gold mines, the relentless pursuit of elephants for ivory, and the systematic clearance of native forests to establish rubber plantations across the entire region.
For this ostensibly "humanitarian" initiative, Leopold II received the essential initial capital from the Belgian government. Remarkably, once he discharged this debt, every iota of the ensuing profits funnelled directly to his personal coffers. Contrary to the conventional notion of a Belgian colony, this territory was the sole possession of one individual, and he demonstrated an unwavering determination to extract maximum yield from his dominion while the opportunity persisted.
King Leopold II’s Vicious Rule Over The Congo Free State
In a general sense, the establishment and sustenance of colonial control typically necessitate the utilization of some form of violence, and the degree of exploitation prevalent on the ground tends to correlate with the level of violence exerted by the rulers to achieve their objectives. Throughout the 25-year existence of the Congo Free State, a paradigm of cruelty emerged that elicited consternation even among the imperial powers of Europe.
The conquest initiated with Leopold fortifying his relatively precarious position through strategic alliances with local authorities, most notably with the Arab slave trader Tippu Tip. Tippu Tip's substantial influence on the ground facilitated regular shipments of slaves and ivory to the Zanzibar coast, thereby positioning him as a competitor to Leopold II. The Belgian king's ostensible commitment to ending slavery in Africa complicated negotiations, but eventually, Leopold II appointed Tippu Tip as a provincial governor in exchange for noninterference in the king's colonization efforts in the western regions.
Exploiting his newfound position, Tippu Tip intensified his activities in slave trading and ivory hunting, drawing scrutiny from the generally anti-slavery European public. Under mounting pressure, Leopold II severed ties with Tippu Tip in a manner of utmost destructiveness. The king raised a proxy army comprising Congolese mercenaries to engage in conflict against Tippu Tip's forces in densely populated areas near the Great Rift Valley.
After a span of several years and an indeterminable death toll, Tippu Tip and his fellow Arab slavers were expelled, solidifying Leopold II's unchallenged control through imperial subterfuge.
Having eliminated competitors from the scene, King Leopold II systematically restructured his mercenary forces into an unyielding entity known as the Force Publique, deploying them to assert his authority throughout the colony.
Each district was assigned quotas for the extraction of various resources, including ivory, gold, diamonds, rubber, and any other yield the land could offer. Personally selecting governors for specific regions, Leopold II bestowed upon them dictatorial powers over their respective domains. These appointed officials operated on a commission-based compensation structure, providing a considerable incentive to exploit the land to its maximum potential.
A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez, who ran a district along the river 500 kilometers (300 mi) north of Stanley Pool:
All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator…From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets…A village that refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean.
As a young man, I saw [Fiévez’s] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river…
Rubber causes these torments; that’s why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters.
Governors coerced substantial numbers of native Congolese into agricultural labour, conscripting an unknown quantity to toil underground in mines until their demise. Through the labour of their enslaved workforce, these governors efficiently plundered the natural resources of the Congo.
Massive hunts, employing a method known as a battue, were orchestrated wherein hundreds or thousands of local beaters drove game past elevated platforms occupied by European hunters armed with multiple rifles each. This Victorian-era technique, scalable to the point of depleting entire ecosystems of large animals, was ruthlessly employed in the pursuit of ivory-bearing elephants.
Under the reign of Leopold II, the unique wildlife of the Congo became fair game for sport killing, accessible to virtually any hunter capable of securing passage and obtaining a hunting license.
In other regions, instances of violence transpired within rubber plantations, as the maintenance of these establishments demanded considerable effort. The cultivation of rubber trees on a commercial scale within an old-growth rainforest posed inherent challenges, particularly regarding the extensive process of clearing the forest, which proved labour-intensive and delayed crop yields, consequently impacting profits.
In an effort to expedite operations and minimize costs, agents of the king routinely depopulated villages, where a significant portion of the clearance work had already been completed, to create space for the lucrative cash crop mandated by the monarch. By the late 1890s, as economic rubber production shifted to India and Indonesia, the abandoned villages, resulting from the exploitative practices, left their surviving inhabitants to fend for themselves or seek refuge in other villages deeper within the forest.
The avarice of the Congo's overlords demonstrated an unrestrained reach, with their actions reflecting extreme measures. Analogous to Christopher Columbus's directives in Hispaniola four centuries earlier, Leopold II imposed production quotas on every man within his realm for the extraction of raw materials.
Men failing to meet their quotas for ivory and gold, even on a single occasion, faced the severe consequence of mutilation, with the amputation of hands and feet being the most prevalent sites for such punitive measures. In instances where the man eluded capture or required both hands for work, the Forces Publique personnel resorted to dismembering the hands of his wife or children.
The king's horrifying regime inflicted devastation on a scale comparable to the Mongol conquests in Asia. The population of the Congo Free State in 1885, an area three times the size of Texas, was estimated to be as high as 20 million before colonization. However, by the 1924 census, that number had dwindled to 10 million. Central Africa's remoteness and challenging terrain prevented significant refugee movements to other European colonies.
Various factors collectively contributed to the high death rate; the prevalent fatalities primarily resulted from a confluence of factors, including starvation, disease, excessive labour, infections stemming from mutilations, and systematic executions targeting those perceived as slow, rebellious, or associated with fugitive families.
Over time, accounts of the harrowing conditions in the Free State reached the international community, prompting denunciation of these practices, particularly in the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands. Coincidentally, these nations also possessed significant rubber-producing colonies, placing them in direct competition with Leopold II for economic gains.
In 1908, confronted with mounting scrutiny and pressure, Leopold II reluctantly relinquished control of the territory to the Belgian government. Immediate reforms were implemented, including the prohibition of arbitrary killings of Congolese civilians. The administrative structure shifted from a quota-and-commission system to a remuneration model where officials received payment only upon completing their terms, contingent upon a judgment of "satisfactory" performance. Additionally, the government altered the colony's designation to the Belgian Congo.
However, despite these ostensibly corrective measures, acts of corporal punishment and mutilation persisted in the Congo for several years. Profits continued to be systematically extracted until the attainment of independence in 1971.
In the subsequent years, attention towards the atrocities waned, leading to the erection of statues in King Leopold II's honour during the 1930s, initiated by Albert I. Meanwhile, the Belgian government continued to laud his achievements within Belgium.
The publication of Adam Hochschild’s "King Leopold’s Ghost" in 1999 briefly reignited debate in Belgium, which resurfaced intermittently over the next two decades.
In 2005, a motion presented to the British House of Commons by Andrew Dismore called for the acknowledgment of the Congo Free State's atrocities as a "colonial genocide" and urged the Belgian government to issue a formal apology.