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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]
From 1885 the creation of a personal colony by King Leopold II, the Congo Free State caused an international outcry over human rights abuses, and forced the Belgian state to annex the region in 1908, forming the Belgian Congo. In 1909, after his uncle's death, Albert I began his reign, which lasted until 1934.
In 1885, Leopold's efforts to establish Belgian influence in the Congo Basin were awarded with the État Indépendant du Congo (CFS, Congo Free State). By a resolution passed in the Belgian Parliament, Leopold became roi souverain , sovereign king, of the newly formed CFS, over which he enjoyed nearly absolute control.
By 1780, more than 15,000 people were shipped annually from the Loango Coast, north of the Congo. [1] In 1870, explorer Henry Morton Stanley arrived in and explored what is now the DR Congo. Belgian colonization of DR Congo began in 1885 when King Leopold II founded and ruled the Congo Free State. However, de facto control of such a huge area ...
As a result, the civilization was able to maintain itself until the 19th century. Also due mainly to its location, even after King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State in 1885, the Kuba were able to sustain their federation, which comprised some 100,000 square kilometers and had a population of approximately 150,000 inhabitants.
From 1908 until 1960, the Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony in Central Africa. In the first 23 years of Belgium’s ruling from 1885 to 1960, it is estimated that up 10 million Congolese died ...
The Indictment Against the Congo Government. Liverpool Press, 1906. E. D. Morel's History of the Congo Reform Movement. Edited by Wm. Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Morel, Edmund Dene. The Black Man's Burden: The White Man in Africa from the Fifteenth Century to World War I. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969.
The book was intended as an exposé of the situation in the so-called Congo Free State (labelled a "rubber regime" by Conan Doyle), an area occupied and designated as the personal property of Leopold II of Belgium and where the serious human rights abuses were occurring. Indigenous people in the region were being brutally exploited and tortured ...