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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]
Belgian Mission - Congo Genocide: 1890 to 1910 10/15 Millions Deaths By King Leopold II, the constitutional monarch of Belgium against African Congolese people. In the 19th century, Leopold II, tried to persuade the governance to colonize certain areas of Africa. Under the pretext of humanitarian purposes, he managed to legally own the Kongo ...
Leopold was born in Brussels on 9 April 1835, the second child of the reigning Belgian monarch, Leopold I, and of his second wife, Louise, the daughter of King Louis Philippe of France. [7] His eldest brother, Louis Philippe, Crown Prince of Belgium , died in infancy in 1834.
The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo (new ed.). London: Granta. ISBN 1-86207-290-6. Forbath, Peter (1977). The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic River. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-122490-4. Gann, Lewis H.; Duignan, Peter (1979). The Rulers of Belgian Africa, 1884 ...
Although few African scholars seriously question that large numbers died in Leopold's Congo, the subject remains a touchy one in Belgium itself. [4] The country's Royal Museum for Central Africa , founded by Leopold II, mounted a special exhibition in 2005 about the colonial Congo; in an article in the New York Review of Books , Hochschild ...
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 ...
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 ...
After World War II, the colonial state became more active in the economic and social development of the Belgian Congo. An ambitious ten-year plan was launched by the Belgian government in 1949. It put emphasis on house building, energy supply, rural development and health-care infrastructure. The ten-year plan ushered in a decade of strong ...