Buzz
From 1885 to 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium took control of the Congo, exploiting its resources like ivory and rubber while building immense wealth from the forced labor of its people.
What began as a system to force labor soon spiraled into a reign of unimaginable cruelty, resulting in the deaths of around 10 million individuals in just a few short years.
Living in the Congo Free State was like enduring a perpetual nightmare, one that the world had never encountered before. Let’s hope it remains a dark chapter in history.
10. Thirty-Two Villages Were Annihilated During the Mapping of the Congo
King Leopold II enlisted British explorer Henry Morton Stanley to assist in establishing the Congo Free State. Stanley had already mapped much of the Congo River and had prior experience with its people.
Stanley himself was not malevolent; his goal was merely exploration. However, his men and the local tribes had starkly different cultures, leading to misunderstandings that quickly escalated into violence.
During the expedition, seven tribes gathered to confront Stanley, having witnessed him writing in his journal. They believed his actions were witchcraft and demanded that he destroy his notebook, or face death.
Stanley retaliated by opening fire on the Congolese upon seeing them. By the expedition's end, he had destroyed 32 of their villages. His soldiers, however, were even more horrific. Men in the rear column descended into chaos, kidnapping and raping African women or flogging men to death for the smallest offenses.
This marked the beginning of the Congo Free State. Leopold II employed these men to transform the region into a labor camp, and they achieved this by enslaving the population. Their brutality set the tone for the state's future and the darkness that would soon engulf the Congo.
9. The Entire Population Was Enslaved
Once King Leopold gained legal control over the Congo, he began exploiting it for profit. Stanley had reported ivory temples and rubber caches, so Leopold was determined to capitalize on them. He appropriated two-thirds of the country as his private property, where the people were forced to labor for him.
Initially, workers were paid a penny per pound of rubber, but Leopold soon eliminated even that. He redefined rubber harvesting as a tax that every person on the land was obligated to pay. The locals had no idea that their land had been sold, and now they were being coerced into working it to survive.
The quotas were immense. The average person was required to work 20 days each month to meet their rubber quota, without any pay. Only after fulfilling their quotas could they work for their own survival, hoping to find time to feed their families.
8. Workers Who Failed to Meet Their Quotas Were Dismembered and Executed
Rubber profits soared. By the 1890s, King Leopold was selling far more rubber than he could actually produce. For the people of the Congo, this meant that their quotas increased, and fulfilling the rubber tax became almost impossible. This was a serious issue—failure to meet the quotas could lead to death.
African soldiers were recruited to enforce the quotas, but this posed a danger for the Belgians. These soldiers could either show mercy to the victims or waste ammunition on unnecessary actions. In response, the Belgians implemented a brutal law: Whenever a worker was killed, the African soldiers were obligated to sever and deliver his hand.
The soldiers carried out their orders out of fear for their own survival. They were expected to fill their quotas by collecting hands in baskets, sometimes even those belonging to their own mothers.
After witnessing an African soldier kill an elderly man in front of a missionary, the soldier explained his actions. “Please don’t be too upset,” the soldier told the missionary. “They kill us if we don’t gather the rubber. The commissioner promised that if we deliver enough hands, our service will be shortened. I’ve already brought in many hands, and I hope my time will be over soon.”
7. Harvesting Rubber Was a Deadly Task
Even with the constant threat of death hanging over them, gathering rubber was an arduous task. It had to be collected from vines that were often hard to locate, dangling high in the trees. The easier-to-reach vines were quickly harvested, forcing workers to scale greater heights for the remaining supply. This was perilous, with many falling to their deaths.
Frequently, the workers couldn’t fulfill their quotas, leaving them terrified. The very real possibility of being killed or mutilated for their failure loomed over them. In desperation, some workers would cut up the vines to extract a bit more sap. While effective, this method destroyed the vines, making them unusable. If caught, the workers faced severe punishment or even death.
After discovering a worker cutting a vine, one commissioner wrote a note stating: “We must fight them until their absolute submission has been obtained,” he wrote, “or their complete extermination.”
6. Workers Endured Brutal Beatings
Not every worker who failed to meet his quota was killed immediately. The treatment varied by commissioner. Some were content with severing the workers’ hands, while others chose to administer brutal beatings.
The villagers were given numbered discs to wear around their necks so overseers could monitor their quotas. If workers failed to meet their targets by a small margin, they were punished with 25 lashes from a whip. In more severe cases, they could receive up to 100 lashes. The whips, made from hippopotamus hide, were strong enough to tear through the skin. Many of the victims did not survive these beatings.
When other Europeans began visiting the Congo and witnessing the atrocities, they were horrified. However, the locals were unmoved. One European officer reported that he had expressed his outrage to Mr. Goffin, the secretary of the Railway Company in the Congo, after seeing men being kicked, whipped, and shackled by their necks.
To Mr. Goffin, this was merely part of the daily routine. “Mr. Goffin shrugged his shoulders,” the officer wrote, “and said that was nothing.”
5. Millions Perished from Disease
In the Congo Free State, one of the leading causes of death was disease. The Belgian authorities neglected the welfare of their workers, providing them with inadequate food, often just enough to keep them alive, but sometimes it was spoiled meat that led to illness.
A devastating plague struck due to the harsh working conditions. The men, tasked with harvesting rubber, were forced to work in areas overrun with tsetse flies, which transmitted diseases. These illnesses rapidly spread through the Congo and beyond, affecting much of Africa.
Among the deadliest diseases was sleeping sickness, which often proved fatal. The disease spread from the workers to the local villagers and across the nation. In certain areas, a third of the population was infected, and it is estimated that 500,000 people perished in the Congo alone.
4. Entire Villages Were Destroyed
If a village failed to meet its quota or refused to pay the rubber tax, soldiers were dispatched. A military force would march in, slaughter the inhabitants, and set the village on fire. This was a common occurrence. One Swedish missionary reported that 45 villages had been destroyed in his region alone since his arrival.
Some villages were wiped out for reasons that seemed arbitrary. One such village was decimated by soldiers, with 50 men killed and 28 taken captive. The women were forced to walk with chains around their necks, dragged out of the village. Despite meeting their quota, their offense was listed as 'the rubber brought by the villagers to the State was not of the best quality.'
Another village was targeted because they couldn’t deliver their rubber. A nearby war made the journey too dangerous for the villagers. A missionary wrote to the commissioner to advocate for them, but instead of mercy, the commissioner sent in his soldiers. While the missionary pleaded for clemency, the soldiers set the town ablaze.
3. All This Was Done By A Humanitarian Organization
King Leopold II didn’t enter the Congo as an invading army; he went in as a charity. He founded a group that was originally called the International African Association. They were a humanitarian organization that promised to make life better in Africa, and they received donations from around the world.
Most people who donated to the International African Association thought they were helping to fund public works in the Congo and putting an end to slavery in East Africa. King Leopold did nothing to dissuade them.
In an attempt to secure donations, Leopold delivered an emotional address: “To open to civilization the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress.”
However, behind closed doors, Leopold was far more candid. The organization that people were supporting was ultimately designed to exploit and profit from the African population. In private, he confided to an ambassador, “I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake.”
Thus, Leopold took his metaphorical knife and carved up the Congo—funded by the generous donations of concerned citizens.
2. Overseers Cannibalized Their Workers
In certain areas, cannibalism was employed as a means of control. It's challenging to determine exactly how frequently this occurred. However, one individual noted that when a person was officially recorded as being “shot,” it also implied that the victim had been consumed.
The Zappo Zaps were the most notorious in this practice. They were a brutal tribe that the Belgians enlisted as soldiers. They enforced authority by consuming the bodies of their victims.
Following a massacre, reports stated, “Some of the victims were eaten by cannibals. [ . . .] The bodies of all the slain were desecrated, their heads severed. [ . . .] From three bodies, the flesh was carved and devoured.”
Nsala, a man interviewed after a photo was taken of him gazing at his five-year-old daughter's severed hand, shared that his daughter lost her hand because he had failed to meet his rubber quota for the day. His overseer had severed her hand and foot, murdered her along with the man's wife, and cannibalized both of the victims.
The soldiers handed the body parts to the man as a grim reminder that he needed to fulfill his quota next time, serving as a warning of the consequences for failure.
1. Women and Children Were Subjected to Cruel Torture
The atrocities in the Congo Free State were not without purpose—they were intended to intimidate people into compliance. The Belgians didn’t aim to simply exterminate Africans. Their goal was to exploit the labor of the Congolese without compensating them. The Belgians employed psychological terror as a tool to force the Africans into work. In some regions, this meant subjecting the workers' families to unspeakable horrors.
In some villages, women were often abducted as a punishment for failing to meet rubber production quotas. These women were kept captive until the village chief had fulfilled the required amount. However, even after the quota was met, the women frequently remained imprisoned. To release them, the men of the village had to offer livestock in exchange for their wives' freedom.
The situation could be even more brutal than one could imagine. One African soldier, after being sent to raid a village for its failure to meet the rubber quota, shared a chilling account. His European commander had ordered the soldiers to make an example of the village. “We were commanded to sever the heads of the men and display them on the village palisades, along with their genitals,” the soldier recounted. “The women and children were also hanged on the palisade, arranged in the shape of a cross.”
