King Leopold II’s rule over the Congo Free State, from 1885 to 1908, and his brutal policies of economic exploitation, pillaging of natural resources and perpetration of atrocities against the Indigenous Congolese, epitomised long-standing evil as a catalyst of institutional oppression in political, economic and social spheres. Whilst Leopold II’s rule resulted in positive development and substantial economic growth in Belgium, this progression was subsistent on the abuse of the Congolese people, and founded upon immense cruelties. The Congolese natives never benefitted from the atrocities committed under Leopold’s authority; instead, they were enslaved subjects for a kingdom they never obtained democratic rights from.
Leopold’s establishment of the International African Association in 1876 acted as a front organisation, allowing him to ostensibly further his supposed altruistic and humanitarian projects in the Congo Free State. Leopold; the sole shareholder; was able to use his diplomatic skills to disguise the colonial enterprise and corporate state, as intended for the good and propagation of civilisation, and for scientific and economic developments in Central Africa. Eventually, he was able to gain support from the Belgium government and other European states, and in 1885, private control over a large share of territory in the Congo Basin. Over the next quarter-century, Leopold would go on to deceive the international community and the general public with his duplicitously good intentions, concealing the evils against in the colonised state.
The brutality and humanitarian atrocities associated with Leopold’s rule have a disputed effect of a population decline of between 1 and 15 million people, and have led to open historical debate as to whether the atrocities constitute genocide. Whilst the marked lack of and Leopold’s deliberate destruction of accurate records makes it near impossible to quantify the deaths under his administration, historians agree that there occurred a significant reduction in the size of the Congolese population. Historian Adam Hochschild argued that this reduction owed to the combination of “murder”, “starvation, exhaustion and exposure”, epidemic “disease” and “a plummeting birth rate” due to disruptions, in a humanitarian disaster. In addition, in the early years of the colony when the administration was focused on reinforcing its control, the state killed native Congolese who resisted colonial rule. Leopold’s ruthless exploitation and brutal enslavement, however, constituted only a small percentage of the total deaths, estimated by the historian Jan Vansina to account for less than 5% of the population. The main cause of population decimation was the introduction of new diseases by European colonists. The lack of immunity the Indigenous Congolese had to a number of pandemics with high mortality rates, in particular, sleeping sickness and smallpox, led to the deaths of an estimated 500,000 Congolese by 1901, and the reduction of almost half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River. Leopold, as one of the first few Europeans to venture into the Congo basin during the Age of Imperialism, and his introduction of European administrators into the region, was largely responsible for this transmission of disease.
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The Free State’s ultimate purpose was to be a profitable enterprise for its foreign mercenaries and by extension, Leopold’s personal estate. The costs of acquiring a vast colony over 80 times the size of Belgium were high; Leopold resolved to finance the high costs of expeditions, his lobbying and public relations expenses with other European nations and investments in the economic development of Belgium. These costs were offset by emerging international demand for the abundance of natural rubber due to the spread of automobiles and the invention of rubber tires, the growing market allowing Belgium to gain a prosperous economic advantage. As the export of rubber constituted the majority of the colonial state’s revenues, the “state’s policy towards its African subjects became dominated by the demands which were made – both by the state itself and by the concessionary companies – for labor for the collection of wild produce.” Historian Ruth Slade argues that “the system itself engendered abuses”, with Congolese natives coerced into collect wild rubber to export to Europe and North America for significant Belgian profit. The accumulation of colonial wealth was based on forced labor, which took on aspects of slave labor in the Free State, a political unit ostensibly serving as a humanitarian venture for advancement.
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Natives were abused and killed indiscriminately by the Force Publique, a paramilitary army that mandated rubber extraction through a number of atrocities. Opposition or failure to meet the assigned daily rubber quotas of production for each village was punishable by rape, arson, bodily mutilation or murder. The right hand of the victim served as proof that a killing had occurred, to ensure that the expensive munitions were not being used for hunting; thus rubber quotas were compensated for by the victims’ severed hands. Some soldiers would simply sever the hand of a victim and leave them to live or die, in an attempt to save ammunition. Cases of soldiers shortening their service terms by bringing back more hands than other soldiers led to widespread dismemberment and disfigurement of the Congolese, depopulating entire villages. Severed hands were also collected by villages, to pay off the unrealistic rubber quotas they had to fill, leading to conflicts where villages would attack neighboring villages to gather hands. The historian Peter Forbath states that the “collection of hands became an end in itself”, with “Force Publique soldiers bringing them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber… they became a sort of currency.” Whilst the sales of rubber exports to international markets generated a substantial personal fortune for Leopold II and huge capital flows into Belgium, the country’s beneficial economic growth and development was dependent upon slavery and the evils committed in the Free State in ruthless pursuit of profit.
Severed hands were "the most potent symbol of colonial brutality" in the Congo: Renton, Seddon & Zeilig 2007, p. 30.
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The expropriation of land and resources in the colonial state contributed immensely to the wealth of the mother country. Following the establishment of the colony, a system of ‘free estates’, known as ‘terres vacantes’, was established, deeming land that did not contain inhabitants to belong to the state. Ignoring Indigenous land tenure systems and instead establishing large land holdings from which he could derive huge profits, Leopold declared the majority of the territory vacant, nationalising the land and by extension, natural resources such as rubber. The state was, in essence, a de facto monopoly; it could regulate prices and therefore the amount of income a large proportion of the Congolese population could be paid for their labor, maximising the profit received. Additionally, state-owned territory was distributed as concessions to private mining companies, who were permitted to enforce whichever regulations they wished, with no judicial interference; it was also sold to colonial investors, for equity shares and high dividends in companies in return, and enabling Leopold to finance Belgian development. "The major economic exploitation of the Congolese interior, therefore, lay in the hands of the king and a few privileged concessionaries”, subsisting upon the massive bloodshed among the native population, forced into slave labor through violent coercion.
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In its early stages, the colonial state prioritised the development of efficient transport infrastructure to facilitate natural resource extraction by introducing extensive railway networks. Whilst this infrastructure contributed to the development of the state’s economy, these projects were ultimately intended to increase the ease by which Leopold and international mercenaries could exploit resources at the expense of the Congolese, to further Belgian wealth. Additionally, the systemic exploitation of resources channelled significant amounts of wealth into Leopold’s personal account and the Belgian economy, funding grandiose public works and extensive urban improvement. Belgium benefitted immensely from the economic plundering and cruel labor conditions suffered by the colonised.
Under Leopold’s “ruthless system of economic exploitation”, reports alleging widespread abuses, violence, and brutal conditions faced by the native population emerged at the turn of the century. The Belgian press and public sentiment was one of intense scrutiny, with parliamentarians campaigning against the inhumane practices and the question of the Free State becoming an issue of conflict in domestic politics. Following an international parliamentary inquiry in 1904, intense public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers invoked the end of Leopold II’s personal authority in 1908 and the annexation of Congo as the Belgian Congo, a colony under the official control of the Belgian parliament.
Yet Belgian rule was no better, with major investment companies pushing the government to control Congo and develop the virtually untapped mining sector. In essence, the impact of colonial exploitation was irreversible; the plunder of human and natural resources had already transformed Congo society by subjecting the native people to capitalist means of production and human rights atrocities. As a colony, the Belgian Congo was strongly influenced by the Leopoldian legacy, as a system of economic exploitation, political repression and cultural oppression; the government continuing to operate upon the basis of what had already been administratively established since Leopold’s ascension to power in 1885. According to the historian Roger Antsey, “Belgium inherited not only a colony, but a colony possessed of a certain structure…a sparse population and a battered customary society; a vast territory which had not been properly administered; a system of direct economic exploitation… and, as a consequence, abuse and atrocity.” The Congo was a legacy, and the heavily paternalistic Belgium colonial regime with the church, state and private companies all instructed to oversee the welfare of its inhabitants, had no relevant tradition of beneficial policy to invoke.
Ultimately, whilst the Congo Free State presented immense economic benefit to Belgium’s development, this benefit was mitigated by the evil of imperialism, which was incredibly detrimental to the survival and livelihoods of the Congolese population.