Today we talk about Leopold II, King of Belgium from 1865-1909, and his personal empire in the African Congo. This is the story of a man who put his pocketbook ahead of a people, the nation he enslaved, and the global cast of writers and advocates that worked to bring him down.

Image

In The Rubber Coils. Scene - The Congo 'Free' State" Linley Sambourne depicts King Leopold II of Belgium as a snake attacking a Congolese rubber collector. Published on 28 November 1906

Edward Linley Sambourne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, United States, 1999.

David Renton; Seddon, David; Zeilig, Leo. The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. London: Zed Books, 2007.

“General Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa, 26 February 1885”. Signed by the representatives of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the United States of America, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden-Norway, and Turkey (Ottoman Empire). Berlin, February 26, 1885.

George Washington Williams. “Appendix 1: An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo.” Stanley Falls, Central Africa, July 18th 1890.

George Washington Williams. “Report upon the Congo-State and country to the President of the Republic of the United States of America, ” 1890.

“In the Rubber Coils.” Punch, 1906 from King Leopold’s Ghost, 120.

“The Guilt of Delay.” Punch, 1909. In King Leopold’s Ghost, p. 120.

Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness. Originally published 1899. Independently published, December 9, 2019

Inventory of the Stanley Archives. “Henry Morton Stanley: correspondence.”

Maps from the Belgian Congo and Congo Free State. 1921. Internet Archive.

Mark Twain. King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule. Boston: The P.R. Warren Co., 1905. In King Leopold’s Soliloquy.The University of New Orleans Press Edition, 2016.

David Renton; Seddon, David; Zeilig, Leo (2007). The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. London: Zed Books.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Crime of Congo. New York Doubleday, Page & Company, 1909.

Vachal Lindsay (1914). The Congo and Other Poems. New York: The Macmillian Company. OCLC 40402773

Accounts and Papers: Sixty-Five Volumes. (14) Colonies and British Possessions—continued. Africa—continued. Session: 2 February 1904-15 August 1904. Vol. LXLL. Correspondence relating to the Recruitment of Labour in the British Central Africa Protectorate for Employment in the Transvaal. [In continuation of “Africa No 2 (1903.] “Correspondence and Report from Hist Majesty’s Consul at Boma Respecting the Administration of the Independent State of the Congo.” Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty. February 1904. London: Printed for His Majesty’s Stationary Office, by Harrison and Sons, 1904. Found in Project Gutenberg eBooks.