Podcasts about Congo Free State

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa's history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable? With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa (Chicago UP, 2023). She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather's pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans. Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the intersections of caste, religiosities, performances, sacred geographies, and the state, as informing/informed by colonial and postcolonial mobilities and circulatory regimes across modern South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific research interests, his disciplinary interests revolve across anthropology, literature, and the digital humanities. When not reading or writing in the university library, Rounak can be found organizing ambitious culinary ventures for friends and family. On Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa's history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable? With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa (Chicago UP, 2023). She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather's pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans. Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the intersections of caste, religiosities, performances, sacred geographies, and the state, as informing/informed by colonial and postcolonial mobilities and circulatory regimes across modern South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific research interests, his disciplinary interests revolve across anthropology, literature, and the digital humanities. When not reading or writing in the university library, Rounak can be found organizing ambitious culinary ventures for friends and family. On Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa's history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable? With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa (Chicago UP, 2023). She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather's pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans. Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the intersections of caste, religiosities, performances, sacred geographies, and the state, as informing/informed by colonial and postcolonial mobilities and circulatory regimes across modern South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific research interests, his disciplinary interests revolve across anthropology, literature, and the digital humanities. When not reading or writing in the university library, Rounak can be found organizing ambitious culinary ventures for friends and family. On Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa's history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable? With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa (Chicago UP, 2023). She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather's pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans. Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the intersections of caste, religiosities, performances, sacred geographies, and the state, as informing/informed by colonial and postcolonial mobilities and circulatory regimes across modern South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific research interests, his disciplinary interests revolve across anthropology, literature, and the digital humanities. When not reading or writing in the university library, Rounak can be found organizing ambitious culinary ventures for friends and family. On Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa's history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable? With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa (Chicago UP, 2023). She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather's pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans. Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the intersections of caste, religiosities, performances, sacred geographies, and the state, as informing/informed by colonial and postcolonial mobilities and circulatory regimes across modern South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific research interests, his disciplinary interests revolve across anthropology, literature, and the digital humanities. When not reading or writing in the university library, Rounak can be found organizing ambitious culinary ventures for friends and family. On Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

“A secret society of murderers with a king for a ringleader”. In 1885 King Leopold of Belgium; an awkward, ruthless, selfish man, was recognised as the sovereign of the Congo. Long determined to carve out his very own private colonial domain, he had alighted upon the Congo - Africa's vast and unplundered interior. With the help of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who had found a way to circumnavigate the Congo's formerly insurmountable rapids, he concocted a cunning scheme to legally make it his own, while casting himself as a civilising saviour. Yet, despite his ostensibly philanthropic motivations, Leopold's goal was always profit. More specifically, ivory, and later rubber, and before long a thriving hub of industry had been established in the Congo, bustling with soldiers, traders and missionaries. Meanwhile and most significantly, tens of thousands of Congolese people were being beaten, coerced and essentially enslaved into harvesting and carrying the riches of their land for their European oppressors. Their treatment was barbaric, the conditions in which they were made to live grotesque, and their suffering unimaginable. It was there, in King Leopold's Congo, that for years some of the worst violations of human life in all of human history were perpetrated. A terrible, secret heart of darkness, Until, at last, a young shipping clerk in Antwerp stumbled across something that would change the course of history forever... Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss Western history's most brutal and barbaric colonial conquest: King Leopold's exploitation of the Congo Free State and her people. _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Editor: Jack Meek Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The story of King Leopold of Belgium's brutal regime in the Congo Free State, during the late 19th century, is one of the darkest and most important in global history. It is a story of horror - the murky depths of the human soul pushed to its primal limits, European colonialism and the first Scramble for Africa, royalty and politics, celebrity, and modernity. From that pit of depravity, in which the Congolese people endured unimaginable suffering at the hands of their dehumanising western drivers, the first human rights campaign was born, and one of the most seminal novels of all time. So, how was it that the Congo, Africa's as yet unplundered, un-impenetrable, and deeply mysterious core in the late 1870's, became the private financial reservoir of one ambitious monarch, while Europe looked on? What occurred during the reign of terror he unleashed there, and why? And, who was King Leopold himself, the troubled, cunning and utterly twisted individual behind it all? Join Dominic and Tom as they lead us - following in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer who first pierced the shadowy veil of the Congo in Africa's interior, and let it bleed into the hands of King Leopold himself - deep into the heart of darkness. As the curtain is lifted from the Congo's formerly obscuring unknowability, her people's grotesque future of abominable exploitation is revealed, along with man's capacity for evil, and the demonic greed of one man in particular… EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Editor: Vasco Andrade Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this captivating episode of English Plus Podcast, we explore five defining moments where history veered off course. What do the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Munich Agreement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the annexation of Hawaii, and the horrors of the Congo Free State have in common? They all show the dangerous consequences of arrogance, appeasement, brinkmanship, colonial ambition, and unchecked power. Join Danny as we uncover the lessons these events hold for us today—lessons that warn us against the traps of overconfidence, diplomatic missteps, and the dark side of empire-building. To unlock the full episode and gain access to our extensive back catalogue, consider becoming a premium subscriber on Apple Podcasts or Patreon. And don't forget to visit englishpluspodcast.com for even more content, including articles, in-depth studies, and our brand-new audio series now available in our English Plus Podcast's shop!

Within 30 years in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Europe went from controlling 20% of Africa to 90%. It was called "the Scramble for Africa". Find out why Europeans colonized the Americas easily through unintentional germ warfare, but Africa was "the White Man's Grave". Discover how Europe finally conquered Africa; the horrors of the Congo; and the residual problems in Africa which exist today. 

This week we conclude our three-part series chronicling the rise and fall of Belgian King Leopold II and his Congo ‘Free' State. This week, the cracks that began to show last time become impossible for the world to ignore, and the house of cards Leopold built to support his dreams of Empire come crashing down. Please consider donating to our patreon if you are willing and able: www.patreon.com/leftunread Follow us!: @leftunreadpod @poorfidalgo @gluten_yung Email us!: leftunreadpod@gmail.com Theme music courtesy of Interesting Times Gang, who have tons of great music available here: itgang.bandcamp.com

Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 18 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 17 2 weeks ago, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week as well. This week we're going to be diving back into learning about historic genocides as we learn about the Congolese genocide committed by King Leopold II of Belgium. We've talked about the Congolese Genocide previously on Day 11, Free Congo. But for today's episode we're going to go into much greater detail about this particular genocide and not just discuss it within the context of a current conflict. Now, before we get to The Alchemist's Table I wanted to apologize that there wasn't a new episode last week. Sometimes you just don't have the energy, the motivation, the spoons or the spell slots. So, I took a week off. It might happen again. And now on to the booze! Today's libation is called Cherries Jubilee. It's 2 oz of Islay scotch. I'd recommend a Bowmore if you're not a huge fan of the peat. Then 1 oz of creme de cacao. 1 oz of frangelico. Add .75 oz of cherry syrup. Shake and pour overice. Top with ginger beer or a hard cider. Garnish with luxardo cherries and enjoy. Now, with that out of the way let's get into the Congolese Rubber Genocide. In order to understand this genocide we first need to understand European colonialism during this time. Colonialism has taken many forms over the years and in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century it transitioned from the classic form of American colonialism into what we would consider New Colonialism. New Colonialism would rely less on direct military control of an area and would rely more on having governmental institutions in power that would directly benefit those pre existing colonial power structures. So, near the end of the 19th century there was very little European colonial and mercantile presence in Africa. There were some port towns, to be sure, and there was trade, but very little of the African continent was under the control of European powers at this time. But, European greed for gold and, especially, ivory wouldn't allow them to ignore African riches for much longer. The Berlin Conference was organized between November 1884 and February 1885 at the request of King Leopold II of Belgium and was organized by Otto von Bismarck of Germany.   The primary purpose of the Berlin Conference was regulating European colonization and trade during the New Imperialism period. It might seem strange to need to differentiate New Imperialism from the forms of empire building that came before. Afterall, the methodology was largely the same. Conquest. And the reasoning was, mostly the same. Resources and land acquisition. But New Imperialism also came with a good deal of “civilizing” flavor. You might be familiar with the poem White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling. If you're not. You can fully understand the entire mindset of 19th and 20th century colonialism simply by reading that poem. Now, Leopold had been using the explorations of Henry Morgan Stanley, and his own organization, the International African Association to quietly try and create his own private colony in central Africa that would be called the Congo Free State, but France found out and started making moves, and then Britain and Portugal found out and began trying to grab land which led Germany to do the same. War was brewing quickly as these various European powerhouses all sought as much land, wealth, and power as they could grab. This, ultimately, would be why the Berlin Conference was called and why it was so successful. These European powers decided, instead of going to war and killing each other over Africa they'd just all meet and carve it up like a pecan pie and settle it all peaceful like. There were 14 nations/empires in attendance at the Berlin Conference, Germany, Austria Hungary, the International Congo Society (this really means King Leopold II of Belgium), Spain, Denmark, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden-Norway, and the Ottoman Empire. And while all 14 of those countries were in attendance at the Berlin Conference and had a say in the final decisions that were made, only 7 countries were actually going to colonize Africa once it was over. Those countries were Belgium (really just King Leopold II, this would be his own private colony), Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Italy. At the time of the Berlin Conference, in 1885, less than 10% of the African continent was under European control, but by the time World War 1 broke out only Liberia and Ethiopia were still independent. Although, Liberia certainly only existed because of US colonial power, and so doesn't REALLY count as independent.  Wanna know one of the most buckwild things about the Berlin Conference? I ask knowing that there is no way for you to answer or to stop me from telling you short of skipping forward by about 30 seconds. Part of the General Act, the document that was signed and ratified at the conclusion of the Berlin Conference was a commitment from the European powers involved to END AFRICAN AND ISLAMIC SLAVERY. Most of those European powers would go on to enslave the populations they conquered and colonized. This period of New Imperialism is what we tend to call The Scramble for Africa. So far we've been talking about this all in fairly clinical terms, as if these European countries simply sat around a table and calmly decided who would get what land in the second largest continent on the planet and then it just happened, with no additional muss or fuss. Anyone who has studied even the barest amount of human history knows that nothing happens without muss or fuss. There were wars, and battles, and massacres that led to Europe gaining control of African territory. We now need to talk a bit about the Congo Free State, and how King Leopold of Belgium, a frail weakling (compared to the other European powers) managed to worm his way into the conference and into one of the most lucrative colonies in Africa. The Congo Free State was a truly massive colony that was owned personally by Leopold. It was NOT, at least between the years 1885 and 1908, part of the Belgian Empire, it was not owned by the Belgian government and was ruled entirely separately, it just happened to be ruled by the King of Belgium. Leopold was able to gain this massive colony by convincing the monarchs of Europe that he was engaged in humanitarian and philanthropic work, and that the Congo Free State would be an area of free trade in Africa. He also then proceeded to lie to the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, and the US telling them all that he would give them special trade status. Leopold maintained a guise that he was not trying to use the Congo Basin to increase his own wealth and economic and political power. He maintained that his presence in the region was, as was a huge part of the ethos of New Imperialism, to civilize the savages of the Congo Basin and to bring them closer to God and good European cultural supremacy.  Leopold pledged to suppress the east African slave trade; promote humanitarian policies; guarantee free trade within the colony; impose no import duties for twenty years; and encourage philanthropic and scientific enterprises. Beginning in the mid-1880s, Leopold first decreed that the state asserted rights of proprietorship over all vacant lands throughout the Congo territory. In three successive decrees, Leopold promised the rights of the Congolese in their land to native villages and farms, essentially making nearly all of the CFS terres domaniales (state-owned land). Leopold further decreed that merchants should limit their commercial operations in rubber trade with the natives. Additionally, the colonial administration liberated thousands of slaves. Four main problems presented themselves over the next few years. Leopold II ran up huge debts to finance his colonial endeavour and risked losing his colony to Belgium. Much of the Free State was unmapped jungle, which offered little fiscal and commercial return. Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (part of modern South Africa), was expanding his British South Africa Company's charter lands from the south and threatened to occupy Katanga (southern Congo) by exploiting the "Principle of Effectivity" loophole in the Berlin Treaty. In this he was supported by Harry Johnston, the British Commissioner for Central Africa, who was London's representative in the region. The Congolese interior was ruled by Arab Zanzibari slavers and sultans, powerful kings and warlords who had to be coerced or defeated by use of force. For example, the slaving gangs of Zanzibar trader Tippu Tip had a strong presence in the eastern part of the territory in the modern-day Maniema, Tanganyika and Ituri regions. They were linked to the Swahili coast via Uganda and Tanzania and had established independent slave states. So very quickly Leopold began to renege on his promises. The first concession he made to his greed and desire for power was to establish a policy of terres vacantes. Vacant land, which was defined as any land that did not have a house or cultivated garden plot. This was, of course, most of the country. Any terres vacantes was now automatically property of the state to be portioned out to Leopold's cronies and supporters. Next Leopold would decree that any locals harvesting rubber or ivory were only allowed to sell to the state. This was doubly enforced because most of the rubber or ivory harvesting was happening on “state owned land” and so it “mae sense” that they could only sell to the state, which now had a monopoly on those products and could set the prices at whatever they wanted. Trading companies were, obviously, pissed by this as part of the General Act of the Berlin Conference was a promise of Free Trade in Belgium. Now, what made The Congo so special in the history of capitalist exploitation was that it was home to something that would become one of the most important natural resources in the entire world, rubber. There are only two sources of natural rubber in the world. The sap of the Hevea brasiliensis, or rubber tree that grows in the Amazon River Basin, and the sap of Landolphia owariensis, a species of woody vines that grow in the Congo. I mean, technically there are 2500 species of plants that produce natural latex and rubber, but those two are the big ones. Today 99% of natural latex and rubber comes from the Amazon, but Leopold was able to make massive profit off of his colony. By the final decade of the 19th century, John Boyd Dunlop's 1887 invention of inflatable, rubber bicycle tubes and the growing usage of the automobile dramatically increased global demand for rubber. Now, as mentioned previously the rubber in the Congo came from vines. So while the trees in the Amazon basin could be tapped much in the same way we get Maple syrup, the Congolese workers would slash the vines and lather their bodies with the rubber latex. When the latex hardened, it would be scraped off the skin in a quite painful manner, ripping off the workers hair. The economic system in the Congo Free State was known as the red rubber system. It was a slave economy that Leopold enforced through the use of his armed forces known as the Force Publique. The officer corp of the Force Publique was made up entirely of White Europeans, and much of their rank and file was made up of slaves captured by Arabic slavers in the Upper Congo. Many of the other soldiers were children who had been kidnapped from their villages and raised in Roman Catholic missions in conditions very similar to slavery. Each slave in the Congo Free State was required to harvest a regular quota of rubber sap. What that quota was was often arbitrarily decided based purely on profit based concerns. Workers who refused to supply their labour were coerced with "constraint and repression". Dissenters were beaten or whipped with the chicotte, a bullship made of hippo hide, hostages were taken to ensure prompt collection and punitive expeditions were sent to destroy villages which refused. The policy led to a collapse of Congolese economic and cultural life, as well as farming in some areas. One refugee from these horrors described the process: We were always in the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved ... When we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes round their necks and taken away. Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions (imported from Europe at considerable cost) for hunting or to stockpile them for mutiny. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in cut-off hands. A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez, who ran a district along the river 300 mi north of Stanley Pool: “All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator ... From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets ... A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean. As a young man, I saw [Fiévez's] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river ... Rubber causes these torments; that's why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters.” One junior officer in the Force Publique had this to say about the quota system: The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber ... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace ... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected. Within the Congo Free State there was also rampant famine and disease that killed hundreds of thousands of people, a type of residential school where children were sent to learn to be either workers or soldiers. About 50% of the children who entered these schools died. There were also several reputable reports of Congolese people turning to cannibalism in the face of their lack of food resources. With everyone being forced to harvest rubber there was no one to farm or gather or hunt for food. It is generally accepted that over the course of Leopold's rule in the Congo Free State, between 1885 and 1908 that at least 10 million Congolese people were killed. The peak year for the cost of rubber was 1903, with rubber fetching the highest price and concessionary companies raking in the highest profits. However, the boom sparked efforts to find lower-cost producers. Congolese concessionary companies started facing competition from rubber cultivation in Southeast Asia and Latin America. As plantations were begun in other tropical regions around the world, the global price of rubber started to dip. Competition heightened the drive to exploit forced labour in the Congo in order to lower production costs. Meanwhile, the cost of enforcement was eating away at profit margins, along with the toll taken by the increasingly unsustainable harvesting methods. As competition from other areas of rubber cultivation mounted, Leopold's private rule was left increasingly vulnerable to international scrutiny. Missionaries carefully and meticulously documented the many abuses of the Congolese Red Rubber system. This would finally be noted by the international community and by the Belgian government itself as a violation of the 1885 Berlin Act which gave Leopold authority and control of the Congo as long as he: "care[d] for the improvements of their conditions of their moral and material well-being" and "help[ed] in suppressing slavery." After 2 years of international pressure the Belgian government agreed to annex the Congo Free State and make it an official part of the Belgian Empire. The reason the debate lasted 2 years was that no one wanted to take on the responsibility of fixing everything Leopold had fucked up so royally (pun intended). But what happened to Leopold you ask? Did he go to jail? Did he get a slap on the wrist? Was he deposed as king and sent into exile on a small island in the Pacific where he eventually died of stomach cancer? Nah, he did die though, but he died as King of Belgium. He had surgery on December 17, 1909. He had a coronary bridging performed, aiming at correcting insufficient irrigation of the myocardium. ''A few hours after the operation, a failure of the myocardium occurred leading to death the same day''. Leopold had ruled Belgium for 44 years, which makes him, to this day, the longest reigning Belgian monarch. You also might be please to know that his funeral procession was booed by every crowd he passed. His people fucking hated him. Exciting news y'all! We actually DO have some reviews this week! So let's read em! And now for the outro! Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard is brought to you by me, The History Wizard. If you want to see/hear more of me you can find me on Tiktok @thehistorywizard or on Instagram @the_history_wizard. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Have a Day! On your pod catcher of choice. The more you do, the more people will be able to listen and learn along with you. Thank you  for sticking around until the end and, as always, Have a Day.        

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1242, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: The Lyin' King 1: This mythical king whose name now refers to a never-ending task lied to get out of Hades. Sisyphus. 2: The False Dmitrys were 3 men who tried to rule Russia by pretending to be sons of this brutal czar. Ivan the Terrible. 3: One story says this king of Ithaca told Clytemnestra her daughter could marry Achilles, but it was a lie. Odysseus. 4: Leopold II of this country created the Congo Free State, which the world would later realize was anything but free. Belgium. 5: Troubadour Bertran said of this man who tried to steal the throne from crusading brother Richard, "No man may ever trust him". King John. Round 2. Category: A Samantha Bee 1: Elizabeth Montgomery had viewers in a spell as the magical Samantha Stephens on this classic sitcom. Bewitched. 2: Before going "Full Frontal", Samantha Bee was a correspondent for this Comedy Central series. The Daily Show. 3: Samantha, the operating system in this 2013 film, shares a name with Samantha Morton, who was its original voice. Her. 4: After her years as Kelly Bundy, she played the amnesiac title character of "Samantha Who?". Christina Applegate. 5: She played the lusty Samantha Jones on "Sex and the City". Kim Cattrall. Round 3. Category: Books And Their Movies 1: The title of this 2007 film adapted from a novel comes from a Yeats poem that says, "An aged man is but a paltry thing". No Country for Old Men. 2: The first line of Winston Groom's novel about this guy mentions a box of chocolates; the Tom Hanks film mentioned them too. Forrest Gump. 3: The title of this Michael Ondaatje novel and film actually refers to a Hungarian count, badly burned after a plane crash. The English Patient. 4: When Hitler saw this 1940 movie based on a Steinbeck novel, he saw Americans as pushovers; Stalin relished the misery of the proletariat. The Grapes of Wrath. 5: This Ridley Scott film based on Eric Jager's true story of medieval France saw Matt Damon tilting against Adam Driver. The Last Duel. Round 4. Category: Mountain / Man 1: Why ask about this mountain named for a British surveyor in 1865? Because it's there. Everest. 2: A 16,000-foot Venezuelan mountain is known as Pico this last name, honoring a noted liberator. Bolívar. 3: In 1792 George Vancouver named this mountain, the tallest in Wash., after a British navy man who never even saw it. Rainier. 4: In 1792 William Broughton named this mountain, the tallest in Oregon, after a British navy man who never even saw it. Mount Hood. 5: Around 1890 I.C. Russell named this mountain, the tallest in Canada, for a geologist. Logan. Round 5. Category: A Tough Food Category 1: Biltong is a South African version of this tough and salty 5-letter food, thin strips of meat that's been dried. jerky. 2: Eating this organ meat can be tough but does help ward off anemia; an oil is also made from the cod's. liver. 3: Large pods of this gumbo ingredient may be tough and fibrous. okra. 4: It's the Italian name for squid, whose meat is firm and chewy. calamari. 5: Tough and requiring long cooking, it's the lining of beef stomach. tripe. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

July 1, 1885. King Leopold II of Belgium founds the Congo Free State and installs a regime that will become infamous for its brutality.Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An official report on conditions in the Congo exposes the Free State's atrocities to the world. As pressure mounts on Leopold II to relinquish control of his colony, the king became increasingly determined to cling onto it until his dying breath. Email me: perspectivesinhistorypod@gmail.com Podcast Website Follow me on Twitter Facebook Page Buy Some Used Books Bibliography Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963.  O'Siochain, Seamas and O'Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007.  Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020.  Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003. Rutz, Michael. King Leopold's Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:' a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018 Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man. Opening Theme: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 by Antonín Dvořák Closing Theme: Central African tribal chant, date of recording unknown.

This week we return to the Congo River Basin of the late 19th Century to discuss the establishment of the Congo Free State by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Part one of this series, episode 118 of Left Unread, laid the groundwork for Leopold's machinations, and this week we start to see his plans take shape as a swathe of brutal violence engulfs the Congo region, and European profits begin to soar. Content Warning: This episode contains frank discussion of pretty brutal violence, racism, and colonialism. Follow us on Twitter here: @leftunreadpod (also Instagram) @poorfidalgo @gluten_yung Email enquiries of all sorts welcome: leftunreadpod@gmail.com If you are willing and able, please consider donating to our Patreon. This will allow us to continue to produce the show and to devote more time to research and production. www.patreon.com/leftunread Theme music courtesy of Interesting Times Gang. Their entire catalog is available for purchase here: itgang.bandcamp.com

The dictator knock-out tournament continues. The hosts unravel the lives and legacies of two dictators of the Congo; Belgian King Leopold II and Mobuto Sese Seko, the President of the Congo & Zaire. They discuss the Leopold II, his hunger for a colony, his evil plan to create the Congo Free State, severed hands, rubber harvesting and his French prostitute mistress/wife. They also discuss Mobutu's rise to power, his betrayal of his allies, the CIA, his leopard skin hat, unseemly corruption and his fall from power. These two dictators battle it out in the knock-out tournament to determine the single greatest dictator of all time. One of these two dictators will be eliminated from the tournament and the other will remain in contention to be crowned history's biggest dictator.

The exploitation of the Congo and its people greatly intensifies as rubber becomes a valuable trade commodity. As the Free State begins to rake in profits, a few individuals take notice of the rampant human rights abuses in the colony and resolve to put a stop to them. Email me: perspectivesinhistorypod@gmail.com Podcast Website Follow me on Twitter Facebook Page Buy Some Used Books Bibliography Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963.  O'Siochain, Seamas and O'Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007.  Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020.  Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003. Rutz, Michael. King Leopold's Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:' a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018 Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man. Opening Theme: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 by Antonín Dvořák Closing Theme: Central African tribal chant, date of recording unknown.

Content warning for discussion of genocide, torture, mutilation, rape, and slavery Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 11 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 10 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week. This week we're going to be talking about the currently ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the long history of capitalist exploitation, western imperialism, and systemic racism that led to it. But first, as is tradition, let's take a trip over to the Alchemists Table to see what potion we've got for today. Today's libation has a lot going on in it, it's called Underworld Vacation. It starts by adding some strawberries and blueberries to the bottom of your shaker with .75 of an ounce of rose simple syrup before muddling the fruit. Then add one ounce each of pomegranate and elderflower liquor followed by 2 oz of Hendricks Lunar gin, add ice to your shaker and then stir for about 30 seconds before straining into a highball glass and topping with about 4 oz of prosecco. With that out of the way it's time to talk, once again, about the most important part of history. The proverbial devil in the literal details, context. Because to understand what is happening in the DRC today you need to understand the Kivu Conflict, and to understand that you need to understand the Second Congo War, and to understand that you need to understand the First Congo War, and to understand that you need to understand the end of the Rwandan Genocide and the Congo Crisis of the 1960s, and to understand that you need to understand the Scramble for Africa, The Berlin Conference and King Leopold !! of Belgium. So, we've got a lot to cover, and we're going to be doing it in fairly broad strokes, but it might still take us a while, so let's get started with the Berlin Conference. Near the end of the 19th century there was very little European colonial and mercantile presence in Africa. There were some port towns, to be sure, and there was trade, but very little of the African continent was under the control of European powers at this time. But, European greed for gold and, especially, ivory wouldn't allow them to ignore African riches for much longer. The Berlin Conference was organized in 1885 at the request of King Leopold II of Belgium and was organized by Otto von Bismarck of Germany.   Leopold had been using the explorations of Henry Morgan Stanley, and his own organization, the International African Association to quietly try and create his own private colony in central Africa that would be called the Congo Free State, but France found out and started making moves, and then Britain and Portugal found out and began trying to grab land which led Germany to do the same. War was brewing quickly as these various European powerhouses all sought as much land, wealth, and power as they could grab. This, ultimately, would be why the Berlin Conference was called and why it was so successful. These European powers decided, instead of going to war and killing each other over Africa they'd just all meet and carve it up like a pecan pie and settle it all peaceful like. There were 14 nations/empires in attendance at the Berlin Conference, Germany, Austria Hungary, the International Congo Society (this really means King Leopold II of Belgium), Spain, Denmark, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden-Norway, and the Ottoman Empire. And while all 14 of those countries were in attendance at the Berlin Conference and had a say in the final decisions that were made, only 7 countries were actually going to colonize Africa once it was over. Those countries were Belgium (really just King Leopold II, this would be his own private colony), Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Italy. At the time of the Berlin Conference less than 10% of the African continent was under European control, but by the time World War 1 broke out only Liberia and Ethiopia were still independent. Although, Liberia certainly only existed because of US colonial power, and so doesn't REALLY count as independent.  This period of New Imperialism is what we tend to call The Scramble for Africa. Sof ar we've been talking about this all in fairly clinical terms, as if these European countries simply sat around a table and calmly decided who would get what land in the second largest continent on the planet and then it just happened, with no additional muss or fuss. Anyone who has studied even the barest amount of human history knows that nothing happens without muss or fuss. There were wars, and battles, and massacres that led to Europe gaining control of African territory, but that's not the topic of today's podcast. We now need to talk a bit about the Congo Free State, and how King Leopold of Belgium, a frail weakling (compared to the other European powers) managed to worm his way into the conference and into one of the most lucrative colonies in Africa. The Congo Free State was a truly massive colony that was owned personally by Leopold. It was NOT, at least between the years 1885 and 1908, part of the Belgian Empire, it was not owned by the Belgian government and was ruled entirely separately, it just happened to be ruled by the King of Belgium. Leopold was able to gain this massive colony by convincing the monarchs of Europe that he was engaged in humanitarian and philanthropic work, and that the Congo Free State would be an area of free trade in Africa.  Leopold maintained a guise that he was not trying to use the Congo Basin to increase his own wealth and economic and political power. He maintained that his presence in the region was, as was a huge part of the ethos of New Imperialism, to civilize the savages of the Congo Basin and to bring them closer to God and good European cultural supremacy.  Of course, all of that was a lie, and that lie would reveal itself over the intervening years. The Congo was home to something that would become one of the most important natural resources in the entire world, rubber. There are only two sources of natural rubber in the world. The sap of the Hevea brasiliensis, or rubber tree that grows in the Amazon River Basin, and the sap of Landolphia owariensis, a species of woody vines that grow in the Congo. I mean, technically there are 2500 species of plants that produce natural latex and rubber, but those two are the big ones. Today 99% of natural latex and rubber comes from the Amazon, but Leopold was able to make massive profit off of his colony. The economic system in the Congo Free State was known as the red rubber system. It was a slave economy that Leopold enforced through the use of his armed forces known as the Force Publique. Each slave in the Congo Free State was required to harvest a regular quota of rubber sap. What that quota was was often arbitrarily decided based purely on profit based concerns. Workers who refused to supply their labour were coerced with "constraint and repression". Dissenters were beaten or whipped with the chicotte, hostages were taken to ensure prompt collection and punitive expeditions were sent to destroy villages which refused. The policy led to a collapse of Congolese economic and cultural life, as well as farming in some areas. Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions (imported from Europe at considerable cost) for hunting or to stockpile them for mutiny. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in cut-off hands. A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez, who ran a district along the river 300 mi north of Stanley Pool: “All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator ... From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets ... A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean. As a young man, I saw [Fiévez's] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river ... Rubber causes these torments; that's why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters.” One junior officer in the Force Publique had this to say about the quota system: The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber ... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace ... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected. Within the Congo Free State there was also rampant famine and disease that killed hundreds of thousands of people, a type of residential school where children were sent to learn to be either workers or soldiers. About 50% of the children who entered these schools died. There were also several reputable reports of Congolese people turning to cannibalism in the face of their lack of food resources. With everyone being forced to harvest rubber there was no one to farm or gather or hunt for food. It is generally accepted that over the course of Leopold's rule in the Congo Free State, between 1885 and 1908 that at least 10 million Congolese people were killed. Eventually word got out of what was happening in the Congo Free State and a conclave of the European powers of the Berlin Conference was called as, even they, decided that Leopold was going too far. Leopold offered to reform his government and economic system in the Congo, but no one would give him the chance, but also, no one wanted to take on the responsibility of rebuilding the Congo. Eventually, after two years of debate, the Belgian Parliament took over control of the Congo. Leopold would die about a year later in 1909. The Congo would remain under under Belgian control for another 50+ years, and while the abuses and overwhelming violence of King Leopold's rule were curbed. They even added a clause to the new Colonial Charter to outlaw slavery. Article 3 of the new Colonial Charter of 18 October 1908 stated that: "Nobody can be forced to work on behalf of and for the profit of companies or privates", but this was not enforced, and the Belgian government continued to impose forced labour on the indigenous people of the area, albeit by less obvious methods. So, even without King Leopold, the Belgian Congo was still a European colony, which means it was still exploited for profit. African independence movements existed throughout the entirety of European colonialism and imperialism in Africa, excepting Liberia the first country in Africa to gain independence from direct European control would be South Africa which would nominally gain its independence in 1910 after the creation of the Union of South Africa and would formally gain official independence when the last vestiges of British parliamentary control would leave the country in 1931 with the Statute of Westminster, and while there would be other successful independence movements after World War 1, such as Egypt, most African decolonization would come after World War 2, including the Congo's.  Nationalist movements popping up in various African nations and agitating for Independence is, generally speaking, what would eventually cause all of African independence, and this would be no different for the Congo. Though, something that is often also common in the case of independence movements that emerged between the end of World War 2 and the early 1990s is that they would become proxy wars for the US and the USSR during the Cold War. To make a long, complex story very short, the US came out on top in this war. The nationalist movements within the Congo largely emerged amongst a class of people called the évolués, which is a term that was used in French and Belgian colonies for “evolved ones”, people of African descent who had become somewhat Europanized through education.  One of the deciding moments in Congolese independence came in the form of the Leopoldville Riots of 1959. Joseph Kasa-Vubu, who would become the first President of an independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, was the leader of the ABAKO political party, the Alliance of Bakongo. The riots began because many young folks and members or sympathizers of the ABAKO party felt that the government was forbidding them from organizing and protesting. The riots broke out on the 4th of January, 1959. The crowd began throwing rocks at police and attacking white motorists. The initial group of protesters were soon joined by 20,000 Congolese leaving a nearby soccer stadium. At the time press accounts estimated that 35,000 Africans were involved in the violence, which quickly spread as the rioters attempted to enter the European section of the capital. Rioters allegedly smashed and looted storefronts, burned Catholic missions and beat Catholic priests. Many demonstrators chanted "indépendance immédiate" The Belgian Parliament established a commission of inquiry to investigate the cause of the riots. The commission found the disturbances to be the culmination of discontent with racial discrimination, overcrowding, and unemployment. It also concluded that external political events, such as France's decision to grant self-governance to the neighboring French Congo, to be a contributing factor, and criticized the colonial administration's response to the riot. On 13 January the administration went forward with its scheduled announcement of reforms, including new local elections in December, the institution of a new civil service statue that made no racial distinctions, and the appointment of more Africans to advisory bodies. The Belgian King, Baudouin, also declared for the first time that independence would be granted to the Congo in the future. January 4th is still celebrated as an auspicious day in the DRC, it's the Day of the Martyrs and denotes a turning point in the independence movement. Congolese independence was officially declared, as planned, on the 30th of June, 1960, with Kasa-Vubu of the ABAKO elected as president and Patrice Lumumba of the Congolese National Movement appointed as the Prime Minister. Now, despite the DRC formally being declared as independent at this day, they still relied heavily on Belgian colonial institutions that had been in place previously, like the Force Publique and various white technical experts who couldn't be replaced in the face of a lack of ready replacements available amongst the Congolese people. The fact that this lack of available peoples being a result of European colonialism forbidding Congolese people from higher education wound up being somewhat irrelevant, but absolutely caused greater levels of resentment among the newly independent Congolese. In the face of this lack of change and in the face of an address given by Lieutenant General of the Force Publique Émile Janssens, many of the Congolese troops mutinied. The address went as follows: "Independence brings changes to politicians and to civilians. But for you, nothing will be changed ... none of your new masters can change the structure of an army which, throughout its history, has been the most organized, the most victorious in Africa. The politicians have lied to you." Instead of sending in Belgian troops to put down the mutiny, as Janssens wanted, Lumumba fired him and began to institute some reforms, including immediately remaining the Force Publique to the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) and promoting all black soldier by at least one rank. While this had success in Leopoldville and Thysville, it failed in the rest of the country and the mutiny intensified. The government attempted to stop the revolt—Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu intervened personally at Léopoldville and Thysville and persuaded the mutineers to lay down their arms—but in most of the country the mutiny intensified. White officers and civilians were attacked, white-owned properties were looted and white women were raped. The Belgian government became deeply concerned by the situation, particularly when white civilians began entering neighbouring countries as refugees. The international press expressed shock at the apparent sudden collapse of order in the Congo, as the world view of the Congolese situation prior to independence—due largely to Belgian propaganda—was one of peace, stability, and strong control by the authorities. The Congo Crisis would run for 5 years and would end with the torture and assassination of Patrice Lumumba, with Joesph Kasa-Vubu dying while under house arrest, and with the military dictator Mobuto Sese Seko “elected” as the president of the Republic of Congo-Leopoldville. This would note just one in the long string of times that the US helped to install a military dictator in order to overthrow a democratically elected left wing government, just because they had support from the USSR and the US feared (and fears) any threat to their capitalist hegemony. Between 1965 and 1971 Mobutu consolidated his hold on power as much as he could, removing all provincial control over anything and bringing every scrap of infrastructure he could under the control of himself and his central government. In 1971, with his hold on power relatively secure and as part of his policy of Africanization of the Congo's culture and government Mobutu renamed the Republic of Congo Leopoldville to Zaire, a name that was derived from the Kikongo wore nzere, meaning “river that swallows all rivers”. Mobutu would remain as “president” of Zaire all the way until 1997, but his hold on power would begin to crumble with the First Congo War that began in 1993. Now comes the time for more context. What started the First Congo War? Honestly, to a certain extent we can view the First Congo War as an extension of the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide began in 1994 as a final culmination of ethnic tensions that were exacerbated by, first, German and the Belgian colonialism. See, Rwanda used to be a German colony, Rwanda was one of the nations that Germany got as part of the Scramble for Africa, but after World War 1, with the signing of the treaty of Versailles Germany was forced to give up all of its overseas colonies. Belgium gained control of Rwanda. Belgium maintained many of the systems of power and oppression that Germany had put into place, most notably the fact that they put the Tutsi ethnic group in positions of authority and disenfranchised the Hutu and Twa ethnic group. The Twa are the indigenous ethnic group of Rwanda, but by the time the Rwandan genocide occurred they were only about 1% of the population, about 85% were Hutu and the remaining 14% were Tutsi. Still, based on the indicators of European scientific racism and phrenology the Tutsi had more “European features” and so were considered superior to the Hutu ethnic group and placed, exclusively, in positions of authority. The sudden shift in power dynamics after Rwandan independence is what would lead to the Rwandan Genocide as Hutu supremacists decided to vent their fury on the Tutsi people. We won't go into any more detail than that for the Rwandan genocide. Suffice it to say that when it ended hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsi people had fled the nation of Rwanda to neighboring African countries, such as Zaire. Roughly 1.5 million ethnic Tutsi people wound up settling in Zaire. There were also about 1 million Hutu extremists in eastern Zaire who had fled the retaliation of the Rwandan Patriotic Front at the end of the Rwandan Civil War and the Rwandan Genocide. As mentioned previously, the First Congo War, also known as Africa's First World War can most simply be seen as an extension of the Rwandan Genocide. Zaire had been in decline since Mobutu gained power in 1965. He was a terrible leader and the average GDP of Zaire dropped by about 65% during his reign. Eastern Zaire was a region of massive instability that was only made worse by the number of Hutu extremists who fled to the region following the Rwandan Genocide. Rwanda, just fully, invaded Zaire in 1996 in order to put down various Hutu rebel groups that were extant in the region. These rebel groups were actively funded and supported by Mobutu's government leading to this war that lasted for some 6 months. It involved several African nations including Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Burundi, Zambia, ZImbabwe, South Sudan, Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia, Chad, China, Israel, and Kuwait. Following the war Mobutu went into exile in the nation of Togo where he eventually died of prostate cancer in 1997. Zaire came under the rule of the communist aligned Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Kabila had heavy support from Rwandan, Burundian, and Ugandan forces during his rise to power in the form of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. Kabila also came to be seen as an instrument of the foreign regimes that put him in power. To counter this image and increase domestic support, he began to turn against his allies abroad. This culminated in the expulsion of all foreign forces from the DRC on 26 July 1998. The states with armed forces still in the DRC begrudgingly complied although some of them saw this as undermining their interests, particularly Rwanda, which had hoped to install a proxy-regime in Kinshasa. Several factors that led to the First Congo War remained in place after Kabila's accession to power. Prominent among these were ethnic tensions in eastern DRC, where the government still had little control. There the historical animosities remained and the opinion that Banyamulenge, as well as all Tutsi, were foreigners was reinforced by the foreign occupation in their defence. Furthermore, Rwanda had not been able to satisfactorily address its security concerns. By forcibly repatriating refugees, Rwanda had imported the conflict. This manifested itself in the form of a predominantly Hutu insurgency in Rwanda's western provinces that was supported by extremist elements in eastern DRC. Without troops in the DRC, Rwanda was unable to successfully combat the insurgents. In the first days of August 1998, two brigades of the new Congolese army rebelled against the government and formed rebel groups that worked closely with Kigali and Kampala. This marked the beginning of the Second Congo War. The Second Congo War is generally considered to be the deadliest war since World War 2. Over the course of this war some 5.4 million excess deaths took place.  Now comes the time where I need to define what an excess death is. In epidemiology, the excess deaths or excess mortality is a measure of the increase in the number deaths during a time period and/or in a certain group, as compared to the expected value or statistical trend during a reference period (typically of five years) or in a reference population. It may typically be measured in percentage points, or in number of deaths per time unit. To put it more simply, disease, depravation, and starvation were so rampant during the Second Congo War that the overwhelming majority of deaths weren't caused directly by the fighting, but were caused by the residual damage of the fighting. The Second Congo War involved many of the same issues of the First Congo War. It would end with Laurent-Désiré Kabila assassinated in 2001 in his office by an 18 year old former child soldier. Laurent would be replaced as president by his son Joseph Kabila, who was elected unanimously by the Congolese parliament. To further highlight the complexity of the Congolese Wars, In April 2001, a UN panel of experts investigated the illegal exploitation of diamonds, cobalt, coltan, gold and other lucrative resources in the Congo. The report accused Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe of systematically exploiting Congolese resources and recommended the Security Council impose sanctions. All conflicts within Congolese territory will ultimately go back to economic exploitation and capitalist overreach. The Congo Basin is full of some of the most valuable natural resources that exist on the planet, and people will always be fighting over them. This leads us into the Kivu conflict. The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed conflicts in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo which have occurred since the end of the Second Congo War. This includes, but is not limited to Effacer le tableau, which was a genocidal extermination campaign against the Mbuti Pygmy ethnic group. The Bambuti were targeted specifically as the rebels considered them "subhuman", and it was believed by the rebels that the flesh of the Bambuti held "magical powers". There were also reports of cannibalism being widespread. It is estimated 60,000 to 70,000 Pygmy were killed in the campaign, and over 100,000 more were displaced. There are more than 120 distinct rebel groups involved in the Kivu Conflict, including the March 23 Movement, which a UN report indicates was created by the Rwandan government in order to potentially take over the Congolese government. Conflict began in 2004 in the eastern Congo as an armed conflict between the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the Hutu Power group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) has played a large role in the conflict. With 21,000 soldiers in the force, the Kivu conflict constitutes the largest peacekeeping mission currently in operation. In total, 93 peacekeepers have died in the region, with 15 dying in a large-scale attack by the Allied Democratic Forces, in North Kivu in December 2017. The peacekeeping force seeks to prevent escalation of force in the conflict, and minimise human rights abuses like sexual assault and the use of child soldiers in the conflict. In 2007 and 2008, in several news and TV reports, the BBC published own evidence about Pakistani MONUC peacekeepers in Mongbwalu had entered in a gold-for-guns trading relationship with Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) militia leaders, eventually drawing Congolese army officers and Indian traders from Kenya into the deal. Following its own investigations, the UN concluded that there was no involvement of Pakistani peacekeeper in any such trade relationship. Namely Human Rights Watch harshly criticized the UN for the way it handled the investigation, providing detailed information from several UN documents, arguing that serious allegations of wrongdoing by Pakistani peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo were ignored, minimized or shelved by the UN's Organization of Internal Oversight Services. MONUC officials say nothing of substance about mining in Congo, which proceeds in parallel with the bloodletting, arms trading and extortion. For example, Anvil Mining has been involved in massacres in DRC. Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Brown, who served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1987–1989) under George Shultz and George H.W. Bush and Director of Central African Affairs (1980–1981). Interestingly, Brown succeeded William Lacy Swing—head of MONUC in DRC—as Ambassador to the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville). Meanwhile, the former top internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations Observer's Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006. There have been numerous cases of sexual misconduct by UN peacekeeping forces in the Congo. This has been acknowledged by the UN itself (such as the letter of 24 March 2005 from the Secretary-General to the President of the General Assembly). So, basically foreign powers both within Africa and outside of it are actively fighting within the Congo Basin in order to secure control of the vast amount of natural resources that exist within the nation. The DRC currently produces about 70% of the world's cobalt, and 80% of the cobalt mines in the DRC are owned by China. The leading use of cobalt in modern technology is in rechargeable batteries. So your cell phone battery, your laptop batteries, any kind of rechargeable battery you have is likely created using Congolese cobalt, which is a direct cause of the millions of deaths and displacements that are occuring in the DRC.  The DRC is, effectively, the site of a capitalist proxy war as the region is fought over by foreign governments and local rebel groups for control over Congolese natural resources. No one in Europe or the US would even begin to care about an African country if it wasn't for the battery technology resources that are so abundant in the region. Between 1885 and today it is, very easy, to say that roughly 20 million people have been killed by capitalist excess and exploitation.  We can, absolutely call what is happening in the DRC a genocide, though it can be difficult to always pinpoint who, exactly are the victims. Broadly speaking the victims are the Congolese people, all of them, who are being killed over a desire to control the cobalt mines. This has gone far beyond simple ethnic conflict between Hutu and Tutsi, though that conflict, which is still ongoing, definitely added to the fire. This is a genocide of the people of the DRC by capitalism itself. Capitalism has always been, and will always be an inherently genocidal institution. It craves the acquisition of individual wealth at the expense of the working class. You cannot have a system predicated on infinite growth within a closed system. Capitalism will always require that resources and wealth be stolen from people who need them. And when so much of our wealth is tied up in food, water, and housing, the theft of those resources from the working class will lead to our deaths. For the past century and a half the Congo Basin has been subjected to genocide after genocide in the name of capitalism. What is happening right now is only an extension of that, though made far more complicated by the literal hundreds of competing groups and the lack of any international will to see peace achieved. That's it for this week folks. No new reviews, so let's get right into the outro. Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard is brought to you by me, The History Wizard. If you want to see/hear more of me you can find me on Tiktok @thehistorywizard or on Instagram @the_history_wizard. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Have a Day! On your pod catcher of choice. The more you do, the more people will be able to listen and learn along with you. Thank you  for sticking around until the end and, as always, Have a Day, and Free Congo.    

King Leopold II consolidates his control over the Congo. In his efforts to make the colony profitable, he oversees the establishment of a coercive regime of exploitation and moves to ruthlessly eliminate all resistance. Email me: perspectivesinhistorypod@gmail.com Podcast Website Follow me on Twitter Facebook Page Buy Some Used Books Bibliography Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963.  O'Siochain, Seamas and O'Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007.  Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020.  Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003. Rutz, Michael. King Leopold's Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:' a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018 Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man. Opening Theme: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 by Antonín Dvořák Closing Theme: Central African tribal chant, date of recording unknown.

Long a vassal state to its much larger neighbors, Belgium only became independent in 1830, at which time it decided that what it really needed was a (constitutional) monarchy! Its first king, Leopold I, earned the gig by virtue of being born a Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld prince who had cultivated his relationships with Europe's royal houses during a distinguished military career. Like his son, he was not a paragon of family values, which prompted his second wife, Louise of Orleans, to lash out at their children. When Leopold II succeeded his father in 1865, he was hot to trot in acquiring colonial possessions, something that his father had attempted to achieve but never managed to. This led to a world-changing catastrophe and a crime of truly historic proportions. Leopold II engineered a private scheme by which he became the sole owner of the territory that is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he essentially enslaved the population and forced them to pillage their own land - rubber and ivory were especially valuable at the time - for his enrichment. Failure to meet quotas was punishable by death. Rape, mutilations, destruction of settlements, and taking workers' families as hostages to force them to work harder were all common. Leopold was savvy enough to recognize that this state of affairs wouldn't fly with the public in Belgium, so he invested heavily in a propaganda effort to mask the reality on the ground. For the average person in Belgium, the stories of the Christianization of the people of the Congo and the improving social and economic conditions there supported their king's enterprise entirely. Meanwhile, writers and journalists around the world began to realize through their own travels what was really going on. But even millions of deaths, a horrifying population-wide immiseration, and the slimy personal enrichment Leopold had attained through those practices didn't cause the Belgian Parliament to rush to correct the situation. It wasn't until 1908, a year before Leopold's death, and decades into his brutal domination of the Congolese people, that Belgium's elected government took control of what would become the Belgian Congo, and later, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His involvement with the Congo wasn't the only thing damaging Leopold's image at home. He was a terrible husband to his wife, Queen Marie Henriette, and at the age of 65, in 1899, very publicly took a 16-year-old mistress who he lavished with money and properties around Europe, including the famous Villa Leopolda. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maria Fearing was a former slave of retirement age when she left everything she knew to follow God's calling to the Congo Free State. For advertising requests or just to reach out:Contact UsORrevivedthoughts@gmail.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Leopold II, King of the Belgians, continues his efforts to acquire a colony in Africa. As he constructs an elaborate facade to mask his true intentions, he contracts the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley to do the dirty work on his behalf. Email me: perspectivesinhistorypod@gmail.com Podcast Website Follow me on Twitter Facebook Page Buy Some Used Books Bibliography Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963.  O'Siochain, Seamas and O'Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007.  Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020.  Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003. Rutz, Michael. King Leopold's Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:' a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018 Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man. Opening Theme: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 by Antonín Dvořák Closing Theme: Central African tribal chant, date of recording unknown.  

In the mid-19th century, new technological advances and the emergence of large industrial economies usher in the age of ‘New Imperialism.' As the world's ‘great powers' search for new territories to conquer, their eyes turn towards a region previously thought to be uninhabitable: Sub-Saharan Africa.  Email me Follow me on Twitter Like the show on Facebook Watch the show on YouTube Visit the eBay store Bibliography Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963.  O'Siochain, Seamas and O'Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007.  Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020.  Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003. Rutz, Michael. King Leopold's Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:' a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018 Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man. Opening Theme: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 by Antonín Dvořák Closing Theme: Central African tribal chant, date of recording unknown.

This week, in part one of a new series, we discuss one of the greatest cons ever perpetrated in the modern age: The 19th century formation of the Congo ‘Free' State under King Leopold of the Belgians. While in Europe Leopold was lauded as a progressive, modernist monarch, his legacy in Central Africa is one of brutality, suffering, and the wanton slaughter of millions; all in the singular pursuit of profit and financial gain. Buckle up, buckaroos. We're in for a rough one. Please consider joining our Patreon to support future development of the LU listener experience :) www.Patreon.com/leftunread Follow us here: @leftunreadpod @poorfidalgo @gluten_yung Email: leftunreadpod@gmail.com Theme music courtesy of Interesting Times Gang. Find their entire catalogue here:  itgang.bandcamp.com  

This week we talk about the Rwandan genocide, the First and Second Congo Wars, and M23.We also discuss civil wars, proxy conflicts, and resource curses.Recommended Book: Everyday Utopia by Kristen R. GhodseeTranscriptThe Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, was previously known as Zaïre, a name derived from a Portuguese mistranscription of the regional word for "river."It wore that monicker from 1971 until 1997, and this region had a rich history of redesignations before that, having been owned by various local kingdoms, then having been colonized by Europeans, sold to the King of Belgium in 1885, who owned it personally, not as a part of Belgium, which was unusual, until 1908, renaming it for that period the Congo Free State, which was kind of a branding exercise to convince all the Europeans who held territory thereabouts that he was doing philanthropic work, though while he did go to war with local and Arab slavers in the region, he also caused an estimated millions of deaths due to all that conflict, due to starvation and disease and punishments levied against people who failed to produce sufficient volumes of rubber from plantations he built in the region.So all that effort and rebranding also almost bankrupted him, the King of Belgium, because of the difficulties operating in this area, even when you step into it with vast wealth, overwhelming technological and military advantages, and the full backing of a powerful, if distant, nation.After the King's deadly little adventure, the region he held was ceded to the nation of Belgium as a colony, which renamed it the Belgium Congo, and it eventually gained independence from Belgium, alongside many other European colonies around the world, post-WWII, in mid-1960.Almost immediately there was conflict, a bunch of secessionist movements turning into civil wars, and those civil wars were amplified by the meddling of the United States and the Soviet Union, which supported different sides, funding and arming them as they tended to do in proxy conflicts around the world during this portion of the Cold War.This period, which lasted for about 5 years after independence, became known as the Congo Crisis, because government leaders kept being assassinated, different groups kept rising up, being armed, killing off other groups, and then settling in to keep the government from unifying or operating with any sense of security or normalcy.Eventually a man named Mobutu Sese Seko, usually just called Mobutu, launched a real deal coup that succeeded, and he imposed a hardcore military dictatorship on the country—his second coup, actually, but the previous one didn't grant him power, so he tried again a few years later, in 1965, and that one worked—and though he claimed, as many coup-launching military dictators do, that he would stabilize things over the next five years, restoring democracy to the country in the process, that never happened, though claiming he would did earn him the support of the US and other Western governments for the duration, even as he wiped out any government structure that could oppose him, including the position of Prime Minister in 1966, and the institution of Parliament in 1967.In 1971, as I mentioned, he renamed the country Zaïre, nationalized all remaining foreign owned assets in the country, and it took another war, which is now called the First Congo War, to finally unseat him. And this conflict, which began in late-1996, spilled over into neighboring countries, including Sudan and Uganda, and a slew of other nations were involved, including but not limited to Chad, the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Eritrea, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, alongside foreign assistance granted to various sides by France, China, Israel, and covertly, the United States.The conflict kicked off when Rwanda invaded Zaïre, more neighboring states joined in, all of them intending to take out a bunch of rebel groups that the Mobutu government was no longer keeping in line: Mobutu himself having long since fallen ill, and thus lacking the control he once had, but still profiting mightily from outside influences that kept him as a friendly toehold in the region.So these other nations sent military forces into Zaïre to handle these groups, which were causing untold troubles throughout the region, and the long and short of this conflict is that it only lasted a few months, from October 1996 to May 1997, but the destruction and carnage was vast, everyone on both sides partnering up to take out rebels, or in the case of those rebels, to join up against these government militaries, and all of them using the opportunity to also engage in violence against ethnic enemies with whom they had long-simmering beefs.This led to the collapse of Mobutu's government, the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo when a new government was installed, but very little changed in terms of the reality of how that government functioned, so all the same variables were still in place a year later, in 1998, when what's now called the Second Congo War kicked off, informed by basically the same problems but bringing even more African governments into the fighting, many of them pulled into things by alliances they had with involved neighbors.And just as before, a variety of groups who felt aggrieved by other groups throughout the region used this conflict as an excuse to slaughter and destroy people and towns they didn't like, including what's been called a genocide of a group of Pygmy people who lived in the area, around 70,000 of them killed in the waning days of the war.In mid-2003, a peace agreement was signed, most of the warring factions that had fought in Congolese territory were convinced to leave, and it was estimated that up to 5.4 million people had died during the conflict.What I'd like to talk about today is what's happening in the DRC, now, at a moment of heightening tensions throughout the region, and in the DRC in particular, amidst warnings from experts that another regional conflict might be brewing.—A transition government was set up in the DRC in 2003, following the official end of that Second Congo war, and this government, though somewhat weak and absolutely imperfect in many ways, did manage to get the country to the point, three years later, in 2006, that it could hold an actual multi-party election; the country's first ever, which is no small thing.Unfortunately, a dispute related to the election results led to violence between supporters of the two primary candidates, so a second election was held—and that one ended relatively peacefully and a new president, Joseph Kabila, was sworn in.Kabila was reelected in 2011, then in 2018 he said he wouldn't be running again, which helped bring about the country's first peaceful transition of power when the next president, from the opposing party, stepped into office.During his tenure in office, though, Kabila's DRC was at near-constant war with rebel groups that semi-regularly managed to capture territory, and which were often supported by neighboring countries, alongside smaller groups, so-called Mai-Mai militias, that were established in mostly rural areas to protect residents from roaming gangs and other militias, and which sometimes decided to take other people's stuff or territory, even facing off with government forces from time to time.Violence between ethnic groups has also continued to be a problem, including the use of sexual violence and wholesale attempted genocide, which has been difficult to stop because of the depth of some of the issues these groups have with each other, and in some cases the difficulty the government has just getting to the places where these conflicts are occurring, infrastructure in some parts of the country being not great, where it exists at all.That 2018 election, where power was given away by one president to another, peacefully, for the first time, was notable in that regard, but it was also a milestone in it marked the beginning of widespread anti-election conspiracy theories, in that case the Catholic Church saying that the official results were bunk, and other irregularities, like a delay of the vote in areas experiencing Ebola outbreaks, those areas in many cases filled with opposition voters, added to suspicions.The most recent election, at the tail-end of 2023, was even more awash with such concerns, the 2018 winner, President Tshisekedi, winning reelection with 73% of the vote, and a cadre of nine opposition candidates signing a declaration saying that the election was rigged and that they want another vote to be held.All of which establishes the context for what's happening in the DRC, today, which is in some ways a continuation of what's been happening in this country pretty much since it became a country, but in other ways is an escalation and evolution of the same.One of the big focal points here, though, is the role that neighboring Rwanda has played in a lot of what's gone down in the DRC, including the issues we're seeing in 2024.Back in 1994, during what became known as the Rwandan genocide, militias from the ruling majority Hutu ethnic group decided to basically wipe out anyone from the minority Tutsi ethnic group.Somewhere between a 500,000 and a million people are estimated to have been killed between April and July of that year, alone, and that conflict pushed a lot of Hutu refugees across the border into the eastern DRC, which at the time was still Zaïre.About 2 million of these refugees settled in camps in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, and some of them were the same extremists who committed that genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and they started doing what they do in the DRC, as well, setting up militias, in this case mostly in order to defend themselves against the new Tutsi-run government that had taken over in Rwanda, following the genocide.This is what sparked that First Congo War, as the Tutsi-run Rwandan government, seeking justice and revenge against those who committed all those atrocities went on the hunt for any Hutu extremists they could find, and that meant invading a neighboring country in order to hit those refugee groups, and the militias within them, that had set up shop there.The Second Congo War was sparked when relations between the Congolese and Rwandan governments deteriorated, the DRC government pushing Rwandan troops out of the eastern part of their country, and Kabila, the leader of the DRC at the time, asking everyone else to leave, all foreign troops that were helping with those Hutu militias.Kabila then allowed the Hutus to reinforce their positions on the border with Rwanda, seemingly as a consequence of a burgeoning international consensus that the Rwandan government's actions following the genocide against the Tutsis had resulted in an overcompensatory counter-move against Hutus, many of whom were not involved in that genocide, and the Tutsis actions in this regard amounted to war crimes.One of the outcomes of this conflict, that second war, was the emergence of a mostly Tutsi rebel group called the March 23 Movement, or M23, which eventually became a huge force in the region in the early 20-teens, amidst accusations that the Congolese government was backing them.M23 became such an issue for the region that the UN Security Council actually sent troops into the area to work with the Congolese army to fend them off, after they made moves to start taking over chunks of the country, and evidence subsequently emerged that Rwanda was supporting the group and their effort to screw over the Congolese government, which certainly didn't help the two countries' relationship.Alongside M23, ADF, and CODECO, a slew of more than 100 other armed, rebel groups still plague portions of the DRC, and part of the issue here is that Rwanda and other neighboring countries that don't like the DRC want to hurt them to whatever degree they're able, but another aspect of this seemingly perpetual tumult is the DRC's staggering natural resource wealth.Based on some estimates, the DRC has something like $24 trillion worth of natural resource deposits, including the world's largest cobalt and coltan reserves, two metals that are fundamental to the creation of things like batteries and other aspects of the modern economy, and perhaps especially the modern electrified economy.So in some ways this is similar to having the world's largest oil deposits back in the early 20th century: it's great in a way, but it's also a resource curse in the sense that everyone wants to steal your land, and in the sense that setting up a functioning government that isn't a total kleptocracy, corrupt top to bottom, is difficult, because there's so much wealth just sitting there, and there's no real need to invest in a fully fleshed out, functioning economy—you can just take the money other countries offer you to exploit your people and resources, and pocket that.And while that's not 100% what's happened in the DRC, it's not far off.During the early 2000s and into the 20-teens, the DRC government sold essentially all its mining rights to China, which has put China in control of the lion's share of some of the world's most vital elements for modern technology.The scramble to strike these deals, and subsequent efforts to defend and stabilize on one hand, or to attack and destabilize these mining operations, on the other, have also contributed to instability in the region, because local groups have been paid and armed to defend or attack, soldiers and mercenaries from all over the world have been moved into the area to do the same, and the logic of Cold War-era proxy conflicts has enveloped this part of Africa to such a degree that rival nations like Uganda are buying drones and artillery from China to strike targets within the DRC, even as China arms DRC-based rebel groups to back up official military forces that are protecting their mining operations.It's a mess. And it's a mess because of all those historical conditions and beefs, because of conflicts in other, nearby countries and the machinations of internal and external leaders, and because of the amplification of all these things resulting from international players with interests in the DRC—including China, but also China's rivals, all of whom want what they have, and in some cases, don't want China to have what they have.In 2022, M23 resurfaced after laying low for years, and they took a huge chunk of North Kivu in 2023.For moment that same year, it looked like Rwanda and the DRC might go to war with each other over mining interests they control in the DRC, but a pact negotiated by the US led to a reduction in the military buildup in the area, and a reduction in their messing with each other's political systems.In December of 2023, though, the President of the DRC compared the President of Rwanda to Hitler and threatened to declare war against him, and UN troops, who have become incredibly unpopular in the region, in part because of various scandals and corruption within their ranks, began to withdraw—something that the US and UN have said could lead to a power vacuum in the area, sparking new conflicts in an already conflict-prone part of the country.As of March 2024, soldiers from South Africa, Burundi, and Tanzania are fighting soldiers from Rwanda who are supporting M23 militants in the eastern portion of the DRC, these militants already having taken several towns.Seven million Congolese citizens are internally displaced as a result of these conflicts, having had to flee their homes due to all the violence, most of them now living in camps or wandering from place to place, unable to settle down anywhere due to other violence, and a lack of sufficient resources to support them.Rwanda, for its part, denies supporting M23, and it says the Congolese government is trying to expel Tutsis who live in the DRC.Burundi, located just south of Rwanda, has closed its border with its neighbor, and has also accused Rwanda of supporting rebels within their borders with the intent of overthrowing the government.Most western governments have voiced criticisms of Rwanda for deploying troops within its neighbors' borders, and for reportedly supporting these militant groups, but they continue to send the Rwandan government money—Rwanda gets about a third of its total budget from other governments, and the US is at the top of that list of donors, but the EU also sends millions to Rwanda each year, mostly to fund military actions aimed at taking out militants that make it hard to do business in the region.So changes in political stances are contributing to this cycle of violence and instability, as are regular injections of outside resources like money and weapons and soldiers.And as this swirl of forces continues to make the DRC borderline ungovernable, everyday people continue to be butchered and displaced, experiencing all sorts of violence, food shortages, and a lack of basic necessities like water, and this ongoing and burgeoning humanitarian nightmare could go on to inform and spark future conflicts in the region.Show Noteshttps://archive.ph/lk0mNhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kabilahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocidehttps://gsphub.eu/country-info/Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Congohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congohttps://www.reuters.com/world/africa/why-fighting-is-flaring-eastern-congo-threatening-regional-stability-2024-02-19/https://archive.ph/lk0mNhttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/21/a-guide-to-the-decades-long-conflict-in-dr-congohttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_23_Movementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kivu_conflicthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_Statehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Sekohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo_coup_d%27%C3%A9tathttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Congo_Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

George Washington Williams was one of the first people to publicly describe the atrocities being carried out in the Congo Free State under King Leopold II of Belgium. But so much happened in his life before that. Research: Berry, Dorothy. “George Washington Williams' History of the Negro Race in America (1882–83).” The Public Domain Review. 9/12/2023. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/history-of-the-negro-race-in-america/ BlackPast, B. (2009, August 20). (1890) George Washington Williams's Open Letter to King Leopold on the Congo. BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/primary-documents-global-african-history/george-washington-williams-open-letter-king-leopold-congo-1890/ Book, Todd. “What Tarzan Taught Me about Ohio History.” 10/1/2017. https://www.ohiobar.org/member-tools-benefits/practice-resources/practice-library-search/practice-library/2017-ohio-lawyer/what-tarzan-taught-me-about-ohio-history/ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "John Hope Franklin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hope-Franklin. Accessed 31 January 2024. Elnaiem, Mohammed. “George Washington Williams and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism.” JSTOR Daily. 6/10/2021. https://daily.jstor.org/george-washington-williams-and-the-origins-of-anti-imperialism/ Franklin, John Hope. "Williams, George Washington." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, edited by Colin A. Palmer, 2nd ed., vol. 5, Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, pp. 2303-2304. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3444701308/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=f3d8c89e. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024. Franklin, John Hope. “Afro-American Biography: The Case of George Washington Williams.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , Jun. 18, 1979. https://www.jstor.org/stable/986218 Franklin, John Hope. “George Washington Williams and the Beginnings of Afro-American Historiography.” Critical Inquiry , Summer, 1978, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Summer, 1978). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1342950 Franklin, John Hope. “George Washington Williams, Historian.” The Journal of Negro History , Jan., 1946, Vol. 31, No. 1. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2714968 Franklin, John Hope. “George Washington Williams: A Biography.” University of Chicago Press. 1985. "George Washington Williams." Notable Black American Men, Book II, edited by Jessie Carney Smith, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1622000481/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=718fd3c3. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024. Hawkins, Hunt. “Conrad and Congolese Exploitation.” Conradiana , 1981, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1981). https://www.jstor.org/stable/24634105 John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. “Dr. Franklin & Lea Fridman: George Washington Williams.” Via YouTube. 10/10/2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WC5l2unNA McConarty, Colin. “George Washington Williams: A Historian Ahead of His Time.” We're History. February 26, 2016. https://werehistory.org/williams/ O'Reilly, Ted. “In Search of George Washington Williams, Historian.” New York Historical Society Museum and Library.” 2/24/2021. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/in-search-of-george-washington-williams-historian O'Connor, A. (2008, January 23). George Washington Williams (1849-1891). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/williams-george-washington-1849-1891/ Ohio Statehouse. “George Washington Williams.” https://www.ohiostatehouse.org/museum/george-washington-williams-room/george-washington-williams Simmons, Willam J. and Henry McNeal Turner. “Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising.” Geo. M. Rewell & Company, 1887. https://books.google.com/books?id=2QUJ419VR4AC& See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

rWotD Episode 2455: Order of Leopold II Welcome to random Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a random Wikipedia page every day.The random article for Tuesday, 23 January 2024 is Order of Leopold II.The Order of Leopold II is an order of Belgium and is named in honor of King Leopold II. The decoration was established on 24 August 1900 by Leopold II as Sovereign of the Congo Free State and was in 1908, upon Congo being handed over to Belgium, incorporated into the Belgian awards system. The order is awarded for meritorious service to the sovereign of Belgium, and as a token of his personal goodwill. It can be awarded to both Belgians and foreigners, and is seen as diplomatic gift of merit. The order has become a long service order for people in the civil service and is awarded alternatively with the Order of the Crown, as the Order of Leopold is awarded under rarer circumstances. The order currently stands third after the Order of Leopold (1st) and the Order of the Crown (2nd) in the Belgian honors hierarchy. The Order of Leopold II is awarded by royal decree.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:56 UTC on Tuesday, 23 January 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Order of Leopold II on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Raveena Standard.

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon. The story centres on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the dark side of European colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters: the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the Europeans' cruel treatment of the African natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil. Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. In the story, Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. (Summary by Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/librivox1/support

In this episode of Long Story Short, host Liwa delves into the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State during the reign of King Leopold II of Belgium. The episode begins with a reflection on the saying "If you throw a stone in a river, you don't know where the ripples would reach or end," emphasizing the far-reaching consequences of actions.Liwa takes us back to the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, where European powers divided Africa for their own interests. The Congo Free State was established during this conference and granted to King Leopold II as his personal possession. The vast territory, exceeding 2.6 million square kilometers, became a source of exploitation, particularly for rubber.However, the labor policies implemented to extract rubber were brutal, involving forced labor and violent coercion by the state's military force, the Force Publique. Workers who refused to collect rubber were killed, and entire villages were destroyed. The soldiers accounted for each bullet fired by severing the hands of workers. These policies had a devastating impact on the Congolese population, leading to a decline estimated between 1.5 million to 13 million due to disease, famine, violence, and social disruption.Christian missionaries working in the region exposed the atrocities to the international community, causing outrage. The campaign against the Congo Free State gained momentum under the leadership of British activist E. D. Morel. Eventually, in 1908, under international pressure, the Belgian government annexed the Congo Free State and put an end to many of the abusive systems.The episode highlights the ongoing effects of Belgian colonization in the Congo. Decades of dictatorship, civil war, and economic decline have left the region struggling with extreme poverty, political instability, and conflict. Liwa mentions that while King Philippe of Belgium expressed regret for the "acts of violence and cruelty" during the Congo Free State's rule in 2020, some activists argue that a full and proper apology has not been made to the Congolese people.In conclusion, the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State under King Leopold II's reign were a dark chapter in Congolese history, with long-lasting effects. The legacy of Belgian colonization continues to impact the country today, and it is crucial to acknowledge and address the ongoing issues faced by the Congolese people.

We break away in this episode from our account of events in Britain's ever-troubled relationship with Ireland, to look instead at Africa, where things were about to get a lot worse even than they were for the Irish. From 10% of the landmass being controlled by European colonial powers in 1870, by 1914 the figure had grown to nearly 90%. Some of the drive to extend European possessions had been driven by individuals, such as Cecil Rhodes in British South Africa, or the even more extraordinary character, Leopold II, not a private individual, since he was king of the Belgians, but acting in a private capacity in Africa. He eventually controlled as his own personal domain the whole of what he called the ‘Congo Free State' (there's an unintended irony in the word ‘free'), a territory 75 times larger than Belgium where he was king. We follow the exciting events that led to his incorporating the still-troubled region of Katanga into his holdings, as a telling example of how the Europeans behaved in that unfortunate Congo. Leopold's rule over the Congo was particularly appalling, but the other colonial powers (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain), though less awful than he was, had little enough to be proud of either. Illustration: Cartoon by François Maréchal in Le Frondeur, (Liège, Belgium), 20 December 1884, showing Leopold II carving up the Congo with Bismarck to the right and a crowned bear for Russia on the left. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Unwind with "Heart of Darkness," Joseph Conrad's classic tale of imperialism, race, and the darkness of the human psyche. This Chillbook is narrated by Bob Neufeld, accompanied by relaxing music and captivating visuals to help you stay engaged. Whether you're a fan of classic literature or just looking for something new to listen to, this Chillbook is the perfect way to experience "Heart of Darkness" in a fresh and engaging way. #audiobook #reading #relaxing About Joseph Conrad: Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. (Wikipedia) About Heart of Darkness: Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and economically important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition. Chapters: 00:00 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 00:12 Chapter 1 1:40:30 Chapter 2 3:07:30 Chapter 3 More Relaxing Audiobooks: - Chillbooks Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6wZrAjRwk7dVtEMejaRJpmeHdFuVoy52 Special thanks to Bob Neufeld and Librivox.org: https://librivox.org/reader/3912 --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/chillbooks/support

This week we bring you an in depth literary analysis of Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella "The Heart of Darkness" inspired by his time as a sailor in the Congo Free State in the 19th Century. An exploration deep into the dark side of the human psyche, we dissect it at length with signature History Homos precision and style. Don't forget to join our Telegram channel at T.me/historyhomos and to join our group chat at T.me/historyhomoschat The video version of the show is available on Rokfin ,Youtube, bitchute & odysee. For weekly premium episodes or to contribute to the show subscribe to our channel at www.rokfin.com/historyhomos Any questions comments concerns or T-shirt/sticker requests can be leveled at historyhomos@gmail.com Later homos --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/historyhomos/support

This week we are joined by friend and comedian Chris from Brooklyn to discuss perhaps the worst genocide in history. The Congo Free State was an open air labor camp with horrific conditions that existed between 1885 and 1908, was a wholly owned possession of the King of Belgium and was home to some of the most vicious human suffering in all of human memory. We get to the bottom of it in signature History Homos fashion. Follow Chris across social media @chrisfrombklyn and check out his podcasts Notes of a Goon and High Society Radio wherever podcasts are found. Don't forget to join our Telegram channel at T.me/historyhomos and to join our group chat at T.me/historyhomoschat The video version of the show is available on Youtube, bitchute, odysee. For weekly premium episodes or to contribute to the show subscribe to our channel at www.rokfin.com/historyhomos Any questions comments concerns or T-shirt/sticker requests can be leveled at historyhomos@gmail.com Later homos --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/historyhomos/support

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021), Dr. Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era. In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife. Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

William Henry Westcott, whose 65 pieces of written ministry we have preserved here, was a Christian of great faith and faithfulness. The Church of the Living God. The pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). W. H. Westcott, Inkongo, Congo Free State. Extracted from Scripture Truth magazine Volume 2, 1910, page 353.

Underground Feed Back Stereo - Brothers Perspective Magazine - Leopold of Belgium - Atrocities in the Congo Severed Hands Small Pox Red Rubber Sleeping Sickness During the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, Europeans colonized the Congo Basin region to a private charitable organization run by Leopold II, who had aspirations of being a colonizer. This land under Leopold's seizure was more than 1,000,000 square miles; The stolen land colony was considered profitable. The Europeans infatuated demand for natural rubber, which was plentiful in the Congo, created the perfect storm of more European Greed in the 1890s. To help facilitate the thievery and stealing of rubber, all Parts of the land in the Congo was nationalized, with the majority distributed to private companies as concessions. The Hells on Earth in a Red Rubber System designed by the Belgium helped to create its own forced labor system or a new Slave Society in the Congo. The Belgian Dutch ran Free State administration were able to use virtually any rules they wanted to increase production and profits without state interference. abuses became the law of the land due to ruthless tyrant behavior placed upon the Congolese people by the Belgian Dutch Outsiders. The duration of service by the enslaved was out of control because nothing was regulated by any laws and left to the Belgian colonizers on the land. From 1885 to 1908, well-documented atrocities were perpetrated in the Congo Free State (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo) during this time the Nation was labeled a colony because of forced individual control by Leopold II of Belgium. This control was in place to steal natural rubber for monetary export. The Belgian Colonizers forced epidemic disease, famine, and a falling birth rate caused by these disruptions, the atrocities contributed to a sharp decline in the Congolese population. The scale of the population estimates range to more than 15 million African people. The Congo Free State was a corporate state controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization called the International African Association.This state included all of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo that existed from 1885 until 1908. The Belgium government reluctantly gave up the area. #diabetes #75dab #guncontrol #birthcontrol #gentrification #stopviolence #blackmusic #chicago #southsidechicago #blackart #redlining #maumau #biko70 #chicago #soldout #PersonalOpinionDataBase #protest #blackart #africanart #gasprices #undergroundfeedbackstereo #blackpeople #race #brothersperspectivemagazine brothersperspective.com undergroundfeedbackstereo.com joelefthandrecords.com feat. art by instagram.com/nappy9folics www.nappy9folics.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brothersperspectivemag/message

From 1885-1908, Leopold II (constitutional monarch of Belgium) was also the autocratic ruler of over 2 million square kilometers of what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the two decades they spent under his ruthless forced labor policies, the population of the Congo was reduced by 50% - the equivalent of up to 15 million people. Who was this absolute creep known as Leopold II of Belgium? How did he manage to gain absolute control over the Congo, with the blessing of all the other major powers in the world at the time? What exactly was the Congo Free State...and how "free" was it, really? What actually happened there under Leopold's rule that would lead George Washington Williams to coin the term "crimes against humanity" in attempting to describe the horror? Allow me to take a break from our regular episode format and introduce you to a man you've probably never heard of, but with his ruthless "red rubber" policies, was directly responsible for the deaths of millions in a country he would never even bother to visit. Join me to learn about This Creep in History, a special presentation of Creeptastic! See visuals for this episode on https://www.instagram.com/carolinesayang/ (Instagram)! Become a https://www.patreon.com/creeptastic (Patreon) of Creeptastic to access bonus weekly and monthly content! Contact me and find links to social media at https://creeptastic.com/ (Creeptastic.com)!

In the 1890s, a British shipping clerk named Edmund Morel noticed the Belgians were shipping vast quantities of rubber from the Congo, then a Belgian colony, but the only thing they were sending in return were guns, explosives, and chains. Morel uncovered a scandal that shook the world, as it turned out Belgian King Leopold II was running Congo as his own private plantation, using horrific violence to keep the population working. Washington D.C.-area journalist Orrin Konheim joins us to talk about how one of history's greatest atrocities was covered up, and then brought to light.

Here we find the people of the Congo living for the first time under one ruler in todays DRC borders. This man was King Leopold II of Belgium, and he called his territory The Congo Free State. The land people and people were ruthlessly exploited for ivory and rubber with scant regards to their own interests. Under this regime brutality and control new depths of humanity were reached ... This is often referred to as the age of Red Rubber.

This is the second part of the short series on the Belgian king and his rule of the Congo Free State

Award-winning author, queer visionary, and Val's wife Carmen Maria Machado reads us fascinating old-timey articles she found while searching for answer to a seemingly simple question: when was the first tiger brought to America? On this long and winding road, we learn about a very old tiger named Jim, two historical badass 70-year-olds in a fight with a big cat, menagerie hippos with very Irish names, and the “panda-monium” of Washington D.C. in 2004. I promise Tiger King is only referenced once. SHOW NOTES: Tigers are known to live roughly 8-10 years in the wild. They can live up to 25 years in captivity because of the lack of natural predators. So Jim the Tiger was indeed very old. (Source: KidsFeed.com) Here is Carmen's twitter thread about the tiger: https://twitter.com/carmenmmachado/status/1404089399453831172 Titles of articles Carmen read aloud during this episode: “Fight with an American Tiger,” January 29th, 1853. Found via the New York Times Article Archive. “A Dying Bengal Tiger,” December 28, 1885. Found via the New York Times Article Archive. “Jim the Tiger Dies of Old Age,” January 15, 1886. Found via the New York Times Article Archive. “Boy Killed by Tiger: Lion Cub Keeper in Indianapolis Absentmindedly Enters the Wrong Cage,” February 16th, 1901. Found via the New York Times Article Archive. “A Baby Hippopotamus: Mr. and Mrs. Caliph Murphy Are to Be Congratulated,” December 3, 1889. Found via the New York Times Article Archive. The baby hippopotamus turned out to be male and was named McGinty, but he died seven days after his birth of pneumonia. (Source: New York Times Article Archive.) Fatima and Caliph did breed several more times and Fatima bore about ten offspring total, though not all survived. You can find an article on the old Central Park menagerie and the controversy over its practice of giving its animals Irish names on a blog called The Hatching Cat: True and Unusual Animal Tales of Old New York. Book recommendation from both Val and Carmen: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler Dad's infographic on zoos was originally printed on the website Treehugger. PETA & racism: I didn't do a deep dive, but I found an article on USA Today called “PETA ridiculed, criticized for comparing 'speciesism' with racism, homophobia and ableism” and an article on CivilEats called “Is the Vegan Movement Ready to Reckon with Racism?” There is an article in Mental Floss about the young black man held captive in the Bronx zoo in 1906. His name was Ota Benga, and he was a member of the Mbuti pygmy tribe from what was then known as the Congo Free State. We can't tell you about Carmen's story yet, but I will upload this note once she is able to announce it! Stay tuned.

A reading of "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the Heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames" The book was adapted into the movie "Apocalypse Now".  Support the podcast on Patreon and join our secret book club, longer episodes + an extra episode EVERY WEEK (Exclusive readings and continued Alice in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and more) Patreon: https://www.Patreon.com/DownToSleep Website: https://www.DownToSleepPodcast.com Down To Sleep is a podcast to fall asleep to. Turn on & drift off. If you need help sleeping or just want to relax listening to classic tales as bedtime stories. Come gently nod off to sleep with me, a new episode every Monday. You can listen on Spotify, Google, Apple, and most podcast apps. 

The scramble for Africa accelerated after the 1884 partition of the continent where European nations agreed to divvy up Africa in a meeting arranged by the Germans. Soon afterwards, King Leopold II of Belgium became frustrated by Belgium's lack of international power and prestige. He tried to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. But Brussels was ambivalent so Leopold created the colony on his own setting up the Congo Free State in 1885. Eventually by the early 19th Century, the violence of Congo colonial officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgiums government to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo. What these privateers had done in the Congo features in Joseph Conrads’ great work – Heart of Darkness. The large scale mistreatment of the locals included mutilations and the mass murder of men women and children on rubber plantations. Entire villages were razed to the ground. But the most notorious method used by these privateers was chopping off the hands of those who refused to work. We also hear about the formation of Angolan nationalist and separatist groups would be important in in the coming Border War.

The scramble for Africa accelerated after the 1884 partition of the continent where European nations agreed to divvy up Africa in a meeting arranged by the Germans. Soon afterwards, King Leopold II of Belgium became frustrated by Belgium's lack of international power and prestige. He tried to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. But Brussels was ambivalent so Leopold created the colony on his own setting up the Congo Free State in 1885. Eventually by the early 19th Century, the violence of Congo colonial officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgiums government to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo. What these privateers had done in the Congo features in Joseph Conrads’ great work – Heart of Darkness. The large scale mistreatment of the locals included mutilations and the mass murder of men women and children on rubber plantations. Entire villages were razed to the ground. But the most notorious method used by these privateers was chopping off the hands of those who refused to work. We also hear about the formation of Angolan nationalist and separatist groups would be important in in the coming Border War.

Leopold’s Ghost explores the exploitation and colonization of the Congo Free State by King Leopold of Belgium from inception to the King’s death, an area now separated into the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo. It recounts the terrifying greed and lack of empathy of Leopold in his single desire to own and command a “piece of the African cake”. Unlike the non-fiction of my history class, the book highlights specific people within the timelines of this terror, creating an enthralling read that underscores how history is told, and the many small steps needed to keep the atrocities of this time quiet.

One of three episodes that is going to help us understand events that characterized and shaped the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Do Investors Care About Odious Debts? The Tsarist Russian government used borrowed funds to repress domestic political movements. Vichy France borrowed while collaborating with the Nazis. King Leopold used borrowed funds to engage in horrific exploitation and repression in the Congo Free State, and these debts were later assumed by Belgium. There are nearly endless examples of truly odious sovereign debts. Do investors care about any of this? And if so, why? Our guest Kim Oosterlinck (Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Solvay Brussels School of Econ. & Mgmt.) is perhaps the foremost expert on such questions. We talk with Kim about odious debt, with a sidebar on efforts to recover looted art. Producer: Leanna Doty

The terrible story of the exploitation and mass murder in the Congo Free State concludes this week in an episode that took a lot out of Shooey. As long as we have been doing this show, the amount of greed and cruelty these degenerates can display is still staggering. Learn what Belgium doesn't want you to know!

Check out this latest episode from Strangeful Things, as Acadia, Mells, and Shooey discuss the forgotten genocide in the Congo Free State and the people responsible for the deaths of 10 million people.

In the late 19th century exploration and colonization was all the rage, but Europeans were downright depressed that there was basically nowhere left to brutally subjugate for their own gain. Enter King Leopold II of Belgium who realized that no one was taking advantage of the tribal people living in central Africa. And so, the Congo Free State was born and upwards of 10 million natives were killed through disease, starvation, or old fashioned murder so that the world could have cheap tires. It's another fun story from the hell that his human history so grab a drink and enjoy this episode of Hundred Proof History titled King Leopold II: Gotta Hand it to Him! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/100proofhistory/message

Leopold II was King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and the Sovereign of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. During his absolute rule of the Congo, an estimated 10 million Africans died and conditions led to the first use of the term "crime against humanity."

King Leopold II ruled over Belgium from 1865 to 1909. Today, the memory of his reign still lives on, and he is glorified with golden statues of his likeness in every major city in Belgium. In history classes, each generation is taught that he was a humanitarian who brought Christianity and the wonders of civilization to The Congo Free State. However, the truth has been kept away from the Belgian people. The reality is that King Leopold II is responsible for the murder and mutilation of 10 million Congolese people. This just may be the biggest cover-up in European history.

SUMMARY of Episode 11 – Cold War Pawns – Enter CongoThis is our very first episode of the Cold War Pawns’ series that delves into anAfrican country. And that African country is The Democratic Republic of theCongo. On this episode we begin discussing the history of The DRC.Starring: The Berlin Congress; Scramble for Africa; Leopold the Second;Congo Free State; Belgian Congo; and much much moreImage to be used: The Blue Flag of The Congo Free State and Map ShowingWere DRC is located, and surrounding countries. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The compete recording may be purchased at Audible.com: https://adbl.co/2Z2Zncw Heart of Darkness By Joseph Conrad Narrated by Graham Scott "The horror! The horror!" In Conrad's haunting novella, narrator Marlow recounts his experiences in the Congo Free State, and his chilling and perilous quest upriver in search of visionary ivory trader, the enigmatic Mr Kurtz. His journey, culminating in his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex Marlow, and lead him to question his own nature and values, and the whole concept of "civilization".

The Africa Museum in Brussels reopened at the end of 2018 after a 5 year renovation. Tiffany Jenkins and Fiammetta Rocco, culture correspondent at The Economist,  tour the museum with its Director-General, Guido Gryseels, and assess its attempts to come to terms with a horrific past.  The Africa Museum (officially called the Royal Museum for Central Africa) grew out of the Brussels International Exposition of 1897. The Colonial Pavilion, located at King Leopold II of Belgium’s estate, formed the basis of the museum. It was intended to celebrate his achievements in what was then the Congo Free State, which he ran as his private estate. In 1909, when Leopold died, the museum was transferred to the Belgian state, and opened a year later as the Museum of Belgian Congo.  Tiffany, Fiammetta and Guido talk about the museum’s attempt to tell the story of Belgian rule in the Congo, which was unparalleled in its cruelty and mass killing. Under the reign of terror instituted by Leopold, as many as 8 million Africans (perhaps even 10 million, according to Adam Hochschild) lost their lives.  ► GUESTS    Fiammetta Rocco’s article on the Africa Museum The Struggle to Tell the Story of Colonialism  Follow her on Twitter @FiammettaRocco Guido Gryseel’s biography  The website for Africa Museum  Twitter: @africamuseumbe YouTube: channel   ►  FEATURED ARTISTS Take a look at Freddy Tsimba’s website and see more of his artwork:  Here, Aimé Mpane talks about his installation Congo: Shadow of the Shadow (2005), on loan to the LACMA from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art. The piece uses the play of light and shadow, to explore the re-shaping of power during the colonial period in Congo  ►  FURTHER INFORMATION  Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa is the book on the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period. ► MUSIC  Signature tune: Nick Vander, "Galaxy I" from the album Black Kopal  1.  "Congo Spirit" (Underscore version) - By Abbas Premjee Licensed from ShockwaveSound.com   2. “Mupepe” from the album Adventures in Afropea Performed by Zap Mama Written by Marie Daulne (p) 1991 Crammed Discs   3. Tim Hart Track 38 - January's Dream Number Five Album: Royalty-Free Music Large Collection - (100+ Tracks)   4. Tim Hart Track 89 - Velvet Carpet Clouding Album: Royalty-Free Music Large Collection - (100+ Tracks)   5. “Mupepe” Performed by Zap Mama Written by Marie Daulne (p) 1991 Crammed Discs    ► PICTURES AND SOCIAL MEDIA  Behind the Scenes at the Museum is on Twitter & Instagram: @BehindtheMuseum  --- Behind the Scenes at the Museum is written and presented by Tiffany Jenkins and produced by Jac Phillimore. 

Arguably the worst act of colonialism in history were up to 10 million Congolese people died in 2 decades. Main Sources:   Red Rubber - ED Morel Five Years With The Congo Cannibals - H Ward Leopold to lumumba: a history of the belgian congo, 1877-1960 - G Martelli King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa - A Hochschild https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/belgiums-genocidal-colonial-legacy-haunts-the-country-s-future-a7984191.html https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/649600217/where-human-zoos-once-stood-a-belgian-museum-now-faces-its-colonial-past https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/1458736/Belgian-fury-at-film-on-Leopolds-Congo-terror.html https://www.britannica.com/place/Congo-Free-State https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/30/congo-belgium-brussels-kinshasa

Recounting the atrocities that took place in the Congo Free State during the reign of King Leopold II is a daunting process. It was a state where sadism was the norm and severed human hands became a grizzly form of currency. Still, a proper accounting of these horrors is essential to getting to truth of Leopold's regime. How bad did things get in the Congo Free State? What did it take to end the crimes against humanity? Tune in and find out how the first African-American historian, Bob Marley, and the greatest act of pimpery in history all play a role in the story.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Recounting the atrocities that took place in the Congo Free State during the reign of King Leopold II is a daunting process. It was a state where sadism was the norm and severed human hands became a grizzly form of currency. Still, a proper accounting of these horrors is essential to getting to truth of Leopold's regime. How bad did things get in the Congo Free State? What did it take to end the crimes against humanity? Tune in and find out how the first African-American historian, Bob Marley, and the greatest act of pimpery in history all play a role in the story. 

The creation of the Congo Free State was one part cheap hustle and one part military occupation. King Leopold II managed to convince Europe he was a noble humanitarian while he was secretly building one of the most exploitative colonial states in Africa. With the help of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley and a well placed endorsement from the President of the United States the Congo Free State came into being. Sadly for the natives of the Congo river basin, this new regime would prove to be uniquely sadistic. Tune in and find out how red toilet paper, fake names, and the Goodyear tire guy all play a role in the story.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The creation of the Congo Free State was one part cheap hustle and one part military occupation. King Leopold II managed to convince Europe he was a noble humanitarian while he was secretly building one of the most exploitative colonial states in Africa. With the help of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley and a well placed endorsement from the President of the United States the Congo Free State came into being. Sadly for the natives of the Congo river basin, this new regime would prove to be uniquely sadistic. Tune in and find out how red toilet paper, fake names, and the Goodyear tire guy all play a role in the story.   

There are few colonial enterprises as infamous as the Belgian King Leopold II's Congo Free State. While most people have a vague understanding of the atrocities that took place there, many don't know the strange story of international fraud that led to the founding of the state. King Leopold successfully convinced the world that he was a great humanitarian and anti-slavery advocate, while he was secretly operating one of the planet's most brutal slave states. In this episode we look at colonialism in the late 19th century and try and set the scene for one of the era's most audacious cover-ups. Tune in and find out how murderous cyclops explorers, infamous poetry, and a guy who hates music in general all play a role in the story.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There are few colonial enterprises as infamous as the Belgian King Leopold II’s Congo Free State. While most people have a vague understanding of the atrocities that took place there, many don’t know the strange story of international fraud that led to the founding of the state. King Leopold successfully convinced the world that he was a great humanitarian and anti-slavery advocate, while he was secretly operating one of the planet's most brutal slave states. In this episode we look at colonialism in the late 19th century and try and set the scene for one of the era’s most audacious cover-ups. Tune in and find out how murderous cyclops explorers, infamous poetry, and a guy who hates music in general all play a role in the story.  

https://www.bittermedicineblogs.com – On today’s show we have a discussion with Karl Hezekiah, Curator of the Bitter Medicine Book Club, about the June reading “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hochschild. About the Book: King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period. The book succeeded in increasing public awareness of these Belgian colonial crimes. –Wikipedia You can still join the discussion! Purchase the book on Amazon: Paperback: https://amzn.to/2Kp8KzP Kindle: https://amzn.to/2z0Z4pK Listen to learn more. DONATE 2 THE SHOW: https://goo.gl/pTFiAC Follow Us on: Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bittermedz Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BitterMedicineShow/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bittermedicine Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bittermedz Website: https://goo.gl/DywnPr Follow KWAZ RADIO: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KWAZRADIO/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kwazradio Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kwazradio YouTube: https://goo.gl/a6eXJZ Website: https://www.kwazradio.com

Learn about the Congo Free State; then learn about refrigeration. 

Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-born Canadian physician who specialises in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology, as well as the study and treatment of addiction. In Dr. Maté's approach to addiction focuses on the trauma his patients have suffered and looks to address this in their recovery,with special regards to indigenous populations around the world. His book In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, close encounters with addiction, Dr. Maté discusses the types of trauma suffered by addicts and how this affects their decision making in later life. He is also widely recognised for his perspective on attention deficit disorder and his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health. He has authored four books exploring topics including attention deficit disorder, stress, developmental psychology and addiction.   Chapters: 00:00 Trailer. 02:43 Brian’s thoughts on the episode. 05:51 Brian’s introduction. 06:27 What Gabor learned about addiction from 12 years in a downtown Vancouver clinic. 14:20 Can addiction be cured? 19:08 Gabor asks Brian if he has any type of an addiction. 33:17 The kind of society behind the war on addicts in the Western World. 41:40 Society’s reaction to Gabor’s views on the causes of trauma and addiction. 47:53 Will there not always be childhood trauma or something in peoples’ lives, to explain addiction? 52:08 Is addiction a modern phenomenon? 56:38 Post traumatic syndrome disorder (PTSD) stems from trauma in childhood. 59:35 Bold statement from Gabor that childhood trauma manifests itself in chronic diseases. 1:07:04 Explanation of Brian’s Ayahuasca experience. 1:11:20 Why Gabor experimented in plant medicine, what he learned and its use in helping people. 1:18:14 Research renaissance into psychedelics science and their usage. 1:20:21 Gabor talks about his own childhood trauma. 1:25:45 Optimism for future of healing looking at people’s body and life experience as a whole. 1:27:36 The rational solution for combatting drug use and providing better addiction treatment. 1:33:58 What parents can do to give their child the inner strength to avoid trauma. 1:40:29 Success secrets. 1:41:15 Gabor’s plans for the future. 1:44:40 Phone call to the 20 year old Gabor. 1:46:35 Best advice ever received. 1:48:56 Advice to the 20 year old listening who wants to make the changes Gabor has talked about. 1:50:35 Brian’s summing up.     Notes: Dr Gabor Maté website https://drgabormate.com/ Dr Gabor Maté on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/drgabormate/ Dr Gabor Maté TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jRLVD43u4A Dr Gabor Maté on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabor_Mat%C3%A9_(physician)     Books: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction https://www.amazon.co.uk/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Gabor-Mate/dp/0676977413 When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Body-Says-Stress-Disease-Connection/dp/0470923350 Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Scattered-Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Originates-What-about/0452279631 Hold On to your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hold-Your-Kids-Parents-Matter/dp/0375760288     Topics discussed: The Culture High (film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_High 13th (film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film) Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inglorious-Empire-What-British-India/dp/1849048088 Congo Free State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State

The Tale of today's Democratic republic of Congo is so  long that we had to split it into two episodes. In the first installment we briefly talk about the Pre-European Colonization Kingdom of Kongo. Then we talk about the horrific Congo Free State and the slightly less horrific Belgian Congo.

In 1906, an African native known as Ota Benga was displayed in a cage in the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo. Thousands came to view the sensational exhibit. They shouted, pointed fingers, and laughed at the man, who stood 4 feet 11 inches in height and weighed 103 pounds. A sign outside the cage described him as an African Pygmy from the Congo Free State, and announced that he would be exhibited each afternoon during September. An orangutan shared the space with Benga, at times perching on his shoulder. The cage was littered with bones to suggest cannibalism, even though Benga was not a cannibal.

Podcast: African American Explorers 1   Hi and welcome to rememberinghistory.com where we are remembering history and we’re making it. Today we begin our great and groundbreaking podcast series about Black explorers! And we also have a very special guest who will introduce them: Frederick Lofton who is known as the Lawyer Explorer. Frederick has made many incredible explorations and today he is on the Big Island of Hawaii making even more discoveries. We are so lucky that he is taking the time to tell us about explorations made by other African Americans. You might not have heard of these great people—which is very sad—but hopefully they will one day become household names because there is so much that we can learn from them and their stories are so inspirational. Let’s do a bit of housekeeping then let’s hear from Frederick, the Lawyer Explorer.   As you may know, October 12, 2015 is Columbus Day in the United States. Columbus is celebrated for his explorations in the 15th century. Although he set out for a short route to India, he landed in present day Bahamas, convinced that it was India. Today, we know that he didn’t actually land in the East Indies but instead landed in the Americas. We don’t want to discuss what he did in the Americas, but there is no denying that Christopher Columbus was an explorer. Of course, there have been (and still are) many people who show the courage to leave their own shores in search of distant lands and adventure. We hear their stories of courage (and sometimes conquest) in history classes and on the Discovery Channel or PBS. But we don’t often learn about African American explorers or women explorers and their burning desire to discover strange new lands and go boldly where no one has gone before.   This month’s podcast series will introduce you to more African American explorers and show you that while the world is getting smaller and smaller, the adventures and explorations are getting bigger and bolder. The boundaries are endless. The only limit is your imagination, your courage, and your willingness to test your personal limits.   What is your limit? How far are you willing to go for glory?   These stories will show that exploration is not about finding gold or conquest (many explorers, including Columbus, forgot that golden rule.) Exploration is a test of your limits and transcending them. And that’s about more than finding new lands…it is about finding yourself. And this applies to any new endeavor like taking a new job or following a new career, getting an education or going back to school, learning a new language or studying a new subject, moving to a new city or country or, like some of our explorers, even searching for new planets!   The people in this podcast series on African American explorers challenged themselves in many ways. They went beyond their perceived limits and ultimately expanded their life, their worlds, and themselves. And this continued long after they “returned home” from their journeys.   You might remember that last October (2014), we began this podcast series by introducing Matthew Henson who was the first African American to reach the North Pole, some say he was the first person of any race to reach the North Pole. And we mentioned George Gibbs who was the first African American to reach the South Pole. We also discussed the many heroic and distinguished Black astronauts, like Ronald McNair and Mae Jemison. So impressive. And, of course, we can never forget Sophie Danenberg who, in 2004, became the first African American to climb Mount Everest. Her story is incredible and so inspirational. Actually, all of these stories are amazingly inspirational. You can find these podcasts at the rememberinghistory.com website or on Stitcher Radio. You will be impressed and inspired!   These history makers faced difficulties, obstacles and hurdles like the North Pole and Mount Everest and they kept going. They kept pushing. They kept digging deeper and aiming higher. And they reached their goals.   So, if you’re up to the challenge, let’s begin our next exploration into uncharted territory. Let’s begin our journey with an African American man who endured many obstacles and hardships to explore what used to be called “the dark continent” and, in doing so, save millions of people from modern day slavery!   Without further ado, let’s hear from Frederick Lofton, the Lawyer Explorer. Frederick, welcome to the show!   ****   Thanks, Robin, I’m really happy to be here to present a great explorer and a great human rights activist. He is not so well known yet but he deserves a place right at the table with many of the greatest explorers and humanitarians.   So, who is this great explorer and activist? I’m glad that you asked. His name is William Henry Sheppard. His story is both inspirational and incredible so sit back and get ready to be impressed!   William Sheppard was born in Waynesboro, Virginia on March 6, 1865. Now many listeners might know that Virginia in March of 1865 was still part of the Confederacy. Virginia was still a slave-owning state—but only for a short while longer. On December 31, 1865, slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment. Now I digressed away from William Sheppard for a moment to discuss this important development. You see, Sheppard was NOT born into slavery. His mother was a free woman of mixed race ancestry and his father was a barber and the sexton at a predominantly white Presbyterian church. Sheppard attended Waynesboro’s “colored” school and learned basic reading and technical skills. At the age of 12, Sheppard left home and worked as a servant for a dentist from the Presbyterian Church and improved his literary skills by reading books that had been discarded by the dentist’s children. At the age of 15, he attended Hampton University and attended classes by Booker T. Washington. After graduating from Hampton, Sheppard took classes at the Tuscaloosa Theological Institute (now called Stillman College) where he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Sheppard became pastor of Zion Presbyterian Church in Atlanta but had a burning desire to become a missionary in Africa. He submitted numerous applications but they were all rejected because church leaders were not comfortable with an African American pastor travelling to Africa, especially without the supervision of a white minister. However, Sheppard boarded a train and personally confronted the Church board to demand that a position as a missionary in Africa. In 1890, Sheppard’s application was accepted and he was allowed to travel to Africa under the supervision of a white pastor named Samuel Lapsley. And Sheppard’s real adventures began!   The following year, Sheppard and Lapsley arrived at the mouth of the Congo River in what is today called the Democratic Republic of Congo. They established a mission in a village called Luebo. The first Africans to meet Sheppard thought that he was a rubber trader but Sheppard explained that he was there to teach about God. Because of his work and partnership with Lapsley, Sheppard had a dubious position with the local population to whom he was known as a “Black white man.”   But William Sheppard was a true explorer. He got to know and learn about the Bakuba people. He studied their crops, textiles and music. He studied the way that the Bakuba people worshipped their ancestors. He learned to hunt and killed snakes and large game to help feed the villagers. He even killed a hippopotamus and learned to dry the meat to trade and share with the villagers.   Sheppard learned to speak the Kuba* language, which helped him to discover parts of the Congo region where no American or European had ever gone. Sheppard and his local Bakuba guide would go from village to village buying eggs at different markets. For three months, he would buy and eat eggs and preach the gospel at every village where he stopped. For years, he stayed and studied the culture and, because of his excellent language skills, he was welcomed into the villages by the local leaders.   In 1893 (after an extended trip to London where he met with Queen Victoria), Sheppard returned to the Congo where new challenges faced him from Belgium’s King Leopold II who was the Congo’s colonial ruler at the time. The colonial government of the Congo Free State was using Africans as slaves to harvest rubber and build railroads, setting one African group against another in order to find traders with whom they could deal in the traffic of human lives. The Presbyterian Church in the United States opposed these activities and especially the atrocities that were occurring against the local people. The Church aimed to bring international attention to this situation.   Sheppard visited villages and people whom he had met years before upon his arrival in the Congo region. He was dismayed to witness the enslavement of the people, destruction of villages and food sources and the torture and killings of African men, women and children by the Belgians and their African allies known as La Force Publique. He was determined to bring international attention to this terrible situation. One of the most common forms of punishment imposed on the Congolese and Belgians was to sever the hands of any person who failed to meet their daily quota of rubber. Sheppard painstakingly made an exact count of severed right hands, noting 81 of them in a report that was later presented to colonial authorities.   Sheppard, together with two other missionaries, formed the Congo Reform Association, which was one of the world’s first humanitarian organizations. Through the Congo Reform Association, Sheppard continued to document and report on the atrocities committed in the Congo.   Back in the United States once more, Sheppard began to publicize his findings and wrote articles about them for church magazines. His allegations gained international attention and Sheppard quickly became well known around the United States and Europe as a human rights activist. In 1908, Belgium’s state-owned rubber company (the Kasai Rubber Company) sued Sheppard for libel and slander but the suit was later dropped because of Sheppard’s international acclaim as an explorer and humanitarian.   In 1910, William Sheppard returned to the United States, to settle with his family in Kentucky. He worked as a writer, speaker and pastor at Grace Presbyterian Church. He brought the courage that he displayed in the Congo to his work in the racially segregated state of Kentucky where, for the next 17 years, he spoke about equality and human rights to audiences throughout the American South.   You know, many people refer to William Sheppard as the “Black Livingstone”. But I take exception to that. (Of course, you know that they are referring to the explorer, David Livingstone. Remember, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”) While David Livingstone did make many important explorations and discoveries in Africa, William Sheppard approached Africa and the Africans in a different way. He was a humanitarian, a man of God and an African American man (remember a “black white man”) who opened his mind and heart to learn and observe. He was an explorer in the truest sense of the word.   Sheppard’s story is filled with courage and determination. He used his experiences, opportunities and innate curiosity and drive to become one of the earliest Black missionaries in Africa, a respected and multi-lingual explorer, an avid collector of African art and a human rights activist. That’s a lot for anyone to accomplish but particularly an African American man in the American South during the Reconstruction era.   But he persisted and demanded. He fought crocodiles. He persisted through 22 bouts of malaria. He researched and wrote about the sufferings of the people. He spoke to kings in their languages. And he followed his dream of going to Africa. As a boy, he often said of Africa, “When I grow up, I shall go there.”   That’s exactly what he did. William Henry Sheppard “went there.”   Where do you want to go? What will you do to “go there”?   That is what this Black explorers series is all about: having the courage to “go there”.   William Sheppard did it. And you can too!   So, that’s all for this first show in this great and groundbreaking podcast series. It’s a lot and there is more coming. I hope that you enjoyed this show and brief story of William Sheppard—explorer, humanitarian, activist, and art collector. I hope that you see that he followed his dreams, overcame terrible hardships and improved his life and the lives of many others. His legacy lives on.     Thanks so much, Frederick for that interesting and enlightening discussion of William Sheppard. There is so much that we can learn from his story and I hope that his story will be told in schools and other learning circles, great and small. He deserves it. And we all benefit from it.   In the next podcast, we will focus on Black women explorers who also “said that they “shall go there”. And they did! They had a dream and they followed it. I won’t ruin the surprise but I will just say that these women went in many directions in their explorations. They definitely “went there”. Spoiler alert: one of these women explorers “went there”--to the North Pole, that is--at the age of 75! You won’t want to miss her exciting story—or the other inspirational stories.   So, that is all for now. I do want to remind all the listeners that you can get additional information and pictures of the William Sheppard on the Remembering History Podcast Page on Facebook. There is a great community of fun and friendly historians there who love to discuss these great people and their even greater adventures. And I would love to hear your comments and thoughts about today’s podcast or really any history topic that you’re interested in. I really enjoy hearing from you!   Oh and I almost forgot to mention that rememberinghistory.com website has a great store where you will find books, DVDs, and lots of other fun and educational products, including two amazing books about William Sheppard.   So, thanks for listening to the first part in the great and groundbreaking podcast series on Black Explorers. I hope to “see” you at part II of the series where we will focus on Black women explorers. We are doing fantastic work here and I’m glad that you’ve joined us for this great adventure.   Again, a big thanks to Frederick, the Lawyer Explorer whose adventures you can follow at thelawyerexplorer.com. I encourage you to visit his exciting website and follow his great adventures. The lawyer Explorer goes to many uber-interesting places and collects, learns and shares fascinating facts, legends and stories of the people and places in his adventures.   See you next time at rememberinghistory.com where we are remembering history and we’re making it.   Bye for now.    

In 1909, famed mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published The Crime of the Congo, an exhaustive book cataloguing the evils of Congo Free State. On the first page, Doyle included unsettling photographs of African women with severed hands, cut off in the course of forced labor or punitive acts. Doyle's ruthless critique of King Leopold II was published in the context of mounting international criticism against Belgian colonialism, which resulted in the annexation of the territory in 1908. Dur: 29mins File: .mp3

This is the first of a two part series in which Pod Academy's Paul Brister looks at the fundamentally new approach the UN appears to be taking to the crisis in the Kivu provinces in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In it he speaks to Dr Phil Clark, Reader in Comparative and International Politics, with reference to Africa, from The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), to consider the causes behind the conflict; why the UN is changing tack and deploying an aggressive intervention Brigade; and what this brigade’s chances of success are. But first Paul explains the context.... The paradoxically named Congo Free State was famously the setting for Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. The country has changed its name four times since then, but the title of Conrad’s novella seems as apt a description of the DRC today as it was then. Sat astride the equator and covered in jungle, the country receives high rainfalls – and has the highest frequency of thunderstorms in the world. Beset on all sides by countries that have themselves been ravaged by conflict – including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and South Sudan – armed rebel groups have repeatedly strayed across its porous borders, spilling conflict into the DRC and igniting war there. Following the Rwandan genocide in 1994 – which was perpetrated by the Hutu Interahamwe and republican guard – the Hutu regime in Rwanda was overthrown by the Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Around two million Hutu refugees fled into neighbouring countries, including Zaire, as the DRC was then known. These refugees included many Hutu troops and militia members who had participated in the genocide, and who promptly proceeded to militarise refugee camps, which they used as bases to make incursions into Rwanda to bring down the new RPF-dominated government. This led to the First Congo War. By 1996, the RPF’s patience had run out. Allied with Uganda, Rwanda launched an invasion of Zaire in support of their favoured proxy force, the AFDL [Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo] led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The border refugee camps were rapidly flushed out and the fleeing Hutu militants pursued westwards. The regime of longstanding dictator Mobutu Sese Seko crumbled and Kinshasa was taken. In May 1997 Kabila pronounced himself president of the retitled Democratic Republic of Congo. Before long however, fearing that they were planning a coup, Kabila turned on his erstwhile military backers, ordering all foreign forces out of the country and forming an alliance with the very Hutu rebels he had previously fought. Withdrawing to the East, Rwanda and Uganda each established a new rebel group – [the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RCD) and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC)]. The following year these two rebel groups and their backers attacked the DRC army igniting the Second Congo War. The ensuing conflict sucked in a further six African nations and as many as twenty non-state armed groups were involved, leading some to describe it as the African World War. Over five million people were killed, mostly from preventable diseases, and there was widespread use of rape and torture. By the time the war had officially ended in 2003, the country was on its knees. Despite its huge wealth in untapped mineral resources – which at some estimates are in excess of US$24 trillion – the DRC has the second lowest nominal GDP per capita in the world. The DRC also takes joint last place with Niger on the Human Development Index scale, scoring just 0.304. Measured in terms of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life, the lot of the Congolese is the most miserable in the world. So in this most troubled region, the DRC stands out among its peers as the most troubled. And in this shattered country, the provinces of North and South Kivu in the far east of the country stand out as the most woebegone.

Kevin adds to your list of evilest countries and Belgium kings to ever exist.

Racial injustice is an ever-looming shadow that clings to our world. It has been happening since the first of mankind gained sentience and even with all of the time and history to learn better. Ignorance and racism still exist.We are all of one Earth, and it sickens me that imaginary lines that have been created to divide us from one another.There have been countless people throughout history and today who feel the opposite, and we've covered some of them here.Today's lesson is about the deadliest king in all of history, and that's saying something.His crimes against humanity are on par with that of Hitler, but I had never heard about him.His name was King Leopold II, and he was the King of Belgium from 1865 to 1909. During that time, he was responsible for the murder of over ten million people in the Congo Free State, and it made him the richest man in the world during his lifetime.Grab those lanterns, and let's learn about how money is the root of all evil.Support the show at http://Patreon.com/itsrottentothecoreVisit us online at: Rotten to the CoreEpisode Sponsor:Head to FACTORMEALS.com/Rotton50 and use code Rotton50 to get 50% off!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy