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The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (French: État indépendant du Congo), was a large state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by King Leopold II , the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium .
King Leopold II, whose rule of the Congo Free State was marked by severe atrocities, violence and major population decline.. Even before his accession to the throne of Belgium in 1865, the future king Leopold II began lobbying leading Belgian politicians to create a colonial empire in the Far East or in Africa, which would expand and enhance Belgian prestige. [2]
Colonial officials, including the Governor-General, Pierre Ryckmans, in Léopoldville in 1938. Following World War I, Belgium possessed two colonies in Africa: the Belgian Congo, which it had controlled since its annexation of the Congo Free State in 1908, and Ruanda-Urundi, which was formerly the Northwestern portion of German East Africa that had been taken over by Belgium in 1916 and was ...
The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state, privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the International African Association. [14] The state included the entire area of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, and existed from 1885 until 1908, when the government of Belgium reluctantly annexed ...
The Colonial Charter on the Belgian annexation of the Congo Free State (French: Charte coloniale de 1908) was approved by the Belgian Parliament on 18 October 1908. On 15 November 1908, Belgium assumed sovereignty over the territories comprising the Congo Free State, officially making the Belgian Congo a colony of Belgium.
Chaired by Stanley, it promised to abide by the IAA's goals set forth by Leopold. Location of the Congo Free State. The area of the Congo Free State. During the spring of 1884, Leopold started a campaign to convince the Great powers that the Congo Free State should be a sovereign nation and he its head of state.
Léon Auguste Théophile Rom was born on 2 April 1859 to a poor family in Mons, Belgium, and joined the Belgian Army at the age of 16. [1] He subsequently worked as a customs officer before leaving Belgium for the Congo Free State in 1886 as one of the few hundred whites working in the colony's administration. [1]
In Belgian public discourse, King Leopold II of Belgium (r. 1865–1909), who ruled the Congo Free State as his private property from 1885 to 1908, is generally held to bear the primary responsibility for the atrocities committed there in that colonial period. In the early 21st century, statues of Leopold II have been regularly defaced or ...