Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In 1904 Leopold II was forced to allow an international parliamentary commission of inquiry entry to the Congo Free State. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the "Belgian Congo".
Leopold II offered to reform his Congo Free State regime, but international opinion supported an end to the king's rule, and no nation was willing to accept this responsibility. Belgium was the obvious European candidate to annex the Congo Free State. For two years, it debated the question and held new elections on the issue.
The colony was founded in 1908 following the transfer of sovereignty from the Congo Free State, which was the personal property of Belgium's king, Leopold II. The violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official ...
Leopold II [a] (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Leopold I and Queen Louise , Leopold succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned ...
The station of Luozi is created at the point where the Luozi River flows into the Congo. [1] 28 April Belgian Chamber of Representatives passes a law that authorized King Leopold II of Belgium to become head of the state founded in Africa by the International Association of the Congo. 30 April The senate ratifies the law creating the Congo Free ...
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]
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 ...
Les Belges dans l'Afrique Centrale roughly covers the period between the 1876 Brussels Geographic Conference and the 1885 Berlin Conference. [14] The first event marks the moment at which Léopold II, king of the Belgians, started financing expeditions to the Congo basin through international associations such as the International African Association or International Association of the Congo. [15]