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Leopold II's effigy on a Congo Free State 5 Franc, with the unabridged and translated lettering of "Leopold II, King of the Belgians, Sovereign of the Independent State of the Congo". In 1894, King Leopold signed a treaty with Great Britain which conceded a strip of land on the Congo Free State's eastern border in exchange for a lifetime lease ...
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 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.
King Leopold II reportedly owned the three skulls that date back to the Congo Free State colonial period. ... From 1908 until 1960, the Belgian Congo was a Belgian colony in Central Africa. In the ...
This way, on 15 November 1908 the Belgian Congo became a colony of the Belgian Kingdom. This was after King Leopold II had given up any hope of excluding a vast region of the Congo from the government's control by attempting to maintain a substantial part of the Congo Free State as a separate crown property.
King Leopold's Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule. New York: P. R. Warren, 1905. Williams, George Washington. "An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of the Congo". Reprinted in Franklin, John Hope. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago ...
King Leopold II of Belgium attempted to persuade the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely uncharted Congo Basin. The Belgian government's ambivalence resulted in Leopold's creating a colony on his own account.
The genocidal regime of Leopold II, the Belgian king who murdered and mutilated as many as 10 million Africans at the turn of the 19th century, was followed by decades of Western-backed ...