![]() Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was at the heart of independent Africa, as European colonialists seldom entered the interior. ( February 2013) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)ĭiogo Cão travelled around the mouth of the Congo River in 1482, leading Portugal to claim the region. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. In addition, a number of major Belgian investment companies pushed the Belgian government to take over the Congo and develop the mining sector as it was virtually untapped. It became known thereafter as the Belgian Congo. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to the end of Leopold II's absolutist rule the Belgian Parliament annexed the Congo Free State as a colony of Belgium. ![]() ![]() Also active in exposing the activities of the Congo Free State was the author Arthur Conan Doyle, whose book The Crime of the Congo was widely read in the early 1900s. During the Congo Free State propaganda war, European and US reformers exposed atrocities in the Congo Free State to the public through the Congo Reform Association, founded by Casement and the journalist, author, and politician E. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths caused by the exploitation and the lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists. The highest estimates state that the widespread use of forced labour, torture, and murder led directly and indirectly to the deaths of 50 per cent of the population in the rubber provinces. Debate has been ongoing about the high death rate in this period. The loss of life and atrocities inspired literature such as Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and raised an international outcry. The Casement Report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of officials who had been responsible for killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903. Under Leopold's administration, the Free State became one of the greatest international scandals of the early 20th century. In reality, Leopold II's administration extracted ivory, rubber, and minerals from the upper Congo basin for sale on the world market through a series of international concessionary companies that brought little benefit to the area. Ostensibly, the Congo Free State aimed to bring civilization to the local people and to develop the region economically. Leopold's reign in the Congo eventually earned infamy on account of the atrocities perpetrated on the locals. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the Belgian Federal Parliament reluctantly annexed the state as a colony belonging to Belgium after international pressure. ![]() The Free State was privately controlled by Leopold from Brussels he never went there. ![]() On, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at the Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. Via the International Association of the Congo, he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo Basin. Leopold was able to seize the region by convincing other European states at the Berlin Conference on Africa that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work and would not tax trade. The Congo Free State was not a part of, nor did it belong to Belgium. In legal terms, the two separate nations were in a personal union. It was privately owned by King Leopold II, the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium. The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo ( French: État indépendant du Congo), was a large state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. ![]()
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