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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]
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 ...
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 ...
Force Publique soldiers photographed in 1900 Two Force Publique soldiers at Fort Shinkakasa.Shown are the blue and red uniforms worn until 1915. To command his Force Publique, Leopold II was able to rely on a mixture of volunteers (regular officers detached from the Belgian Army), mercenaries [4] and former officers from the armies of other European nations, especially those of Scandinavia ...
Planned in 1909, the day after the death of King Leopold II, the Monument to the Belgian Pioneers in Congo was meant to be a patriotic hommage to the so-called 'civilising mission' of the first Belgian colonials, and more specifically, to the transfer of the Congo Free State by Leopold II to Belgium in 1908. [1]
The Casement Report was a 1904 document written at the behest of the British Government by Roger Casement (1864–1916)—a British diplomat and future Irish independence fighter—detailing abuses in the Congo Free State which was under the private ownership of King Leopold II of Belgium. This report was instrumental in Leopold finally ...