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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]
Cartoon by British caricaturist Francis Carruthers Gould depicting King Leopold II, and the Congo Free State A 1906 Punch cartoon by Edward Linley Sambourne depicting Leopold II as a rubber snake entangling a Congolese rubber collector. Leopold ran up high debts with his Congo investments before the beginning of the worldwide rubber boom in the ...
King Leopold II and Princess Clémentine visit colonial celebrations in Antwerp on the occasion of the Congo's annexation to Belgium in 1909. International opposition and criticism at home from the Catholic Party, Progressive Liberals [51] and the Labour Party caused the Belgian Parliament to compel the king to cede the Congo Free State to ...
King Leopold II in the late 1800s. Leopold thought overseas colonies were of critical importance to become a great power, and worked to establish colonial possessions for Belgium. The national legislature did not authorize the colonial enterprise, and Leopold eventually acquired a colony in the Congo for himself with money loaned by the Belgian ...
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".
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 ...
The policies and practices carried out by King Leopold II of Belgium as the absolute ruler of the Congo Free State in the Congo Basin are an extreme example of exploitation colonialism. [2] E. D. Morel detailed the atrocities in multiple articles and books. Morel believed the Leopoldian system that eliminated traditional, commercial markets in ...
Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was fascinated with obtaining a colony and focused upon claiming the interior of Africa—the only unclaimed sizable geographic area. Moving within the European political paradigm existing in the early 1880s, Leopold gained international concessions and recognition for his personal claim to the Congo Free State.