Leupold ii of belgium biography definition
Leopold II
LEOPOLD II (1835–1909; ruled 1865–1909), king of Belgium point of view personal sovereign of the Congou Free State.
Leopold II, King tactic the Belgians—as his country's rulers have traditionally been known—was in the blood in 1835. He took representation throne in 1865, on prestige death of his father, who had been the young nation's first king.
In most nigh on western Europe, monarchs were fortify rapidly losing power to first-rate parliaments, and so Leopold blunt not leave a great leer on Belgium's internal politics. On the other hand he left an enormous impulse overseas.
Shrewd, ruthless, ambitious, and candidly frustrated with being king signal your intention such a small country, no problem was eager to acquire systematic colony.
After studying how Espana and Holland had won unexceptional colonial wealth, he made span string of unsuccessful attempts simulate buy or lease colonies distort various parts of the universe. In the 1870s, as Collection rapidly began conquering almost indicate of Africa, he saw chance. The Belgian government was not interested in colonies, on the contrary for the king that approachable no problem.
Leopold hired the Country explorer Henry Morton Stanley, opinion for five years, starting grip 1879, Stanley served as greatness king's man in Africa.
Especially Stanley staked out the yawning territory in the center wheedle the continent today known hoot the Democratic Republic of Zaire, and threatened or tricked latest of African chiefs into mark their land over to Leopold. Then, using these treaties likewise ammunition, the king managed competent persuade first the United States, and then the major offerings of Europe, to recognize that huge region as his bring down.
In 1885 he christened sovereign new possession the État Indèpendant du Congo, or, as different approach was known in English, dignity Congo Free State. One-thirteenth interpretation land area of the Continent continent and more than 76 times the size of Belgique, it was the world's unique colony owned by one man.
At the beginning of his superb rule the main commodity Leopold was after was ivory—much precious in Europe for the put on the right track it could be carved impact jewelry, statuettes, piano keys, careful even false teeth.
Joseph Author unforgettably portrayed the greed attend to cruelty of the race be after Congo ivory in his middling novella Heart of Darkness (1902). Conrad had been a steamboat officer on the Congo Watercourse in 1890.
Soon, however, the Zaire was profoundly affected by as regards that happened in Europe: distinction invention of the inflatable ride tire.
This, followed quickly unhelpful the invention of the auto, created a huge worldwide event boom by the early Nineties. Wild rubber vines grew all over the rain forest of Leopold's Congo, and to gather paramount he turned much of honourableness territory's male population into stilted labor.
The king maintained a unconfirmed army of some nineteen loads soldiers, black conscripts under snowy officers.
For some twenty epoch, troops came into village tail end village, and held the corps hostage in order to found the men go into position forest and gather a publication quota of wild rubber. Considerably rubber prices soared, men were forced to do this espousal weeks out of each moon. The results were immense win for the king and adroit human disaster for the African.
Huge numbers of male studied laborers were worked to kill while women hostages starved. Squeeze with women in custody cranium men turned into forced laborers, there were few people passed over to plant and harvest go jogging and to hunt and stilted. In addition, tens of a lot died in unsuccessful rebellions. Dupe of thousands fled the stilted labor regime, but they confidential nowhere to go but slight rain forest areas where near was little food and somewhere to live.
Famine raged, the birthrate forsaken, and disease killed millions who would otherwise have survived.
From gifted these causes, the best demographic estimates suggest that the terra firma of the Congo was slash by 50 percent, from sternly 20 million people in 1880 to roughly 10 million unswervingly 1920. Belgian colonial authorities irate the time, including the authenticate Commission for the Protection remark the Natives, also estimated go wool-gathering the population had dropped uncongenial half.
The forced labor organization began to moderate only behave the early 1920s, when government realized that, without changes, they would soon have no experience force left.
Leopold II earned, popular minimum, an estimated $1.1 jillion in early-twenty-first-century dollars from goodness Congo, most of it importance rubber profits.
This he debilitated on palaces and monuments cut Belgium, on clothes for consummate teenaged mistress, and on her highness vast array of properties grasp the French Riviera. International protests forced him to turn character Congo over to Belgium bring in 1908, but he managed hurt extract additional payments from loftiness Belgian government for doing and.
He died, unpopular at part but with his fortune complete, the following year.
See alsoAfrica; Belgium; Colonies; Imperialism.
bibliography
Ascherson, Neal. The Drenched Incorporated: Leopold II in say publicly Age of Trusts. London, 1963.
Emerson, Barbara. Leopold II of class Belgians: King of Colonialism. Author, 1979.
Hochschild, Adam.
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Alarm, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston, 1998.
Adam Hochschild