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King Leopold’s…

“Now why should a king value the respect of the human race? It is quite unreasonable to

expect it”.1

Although King Leopold II, the monarch of Belgium from 1885-1909 and of the Congo

Free State from 1885-1908, never actually spoke the aforementioned words, his actions as an

imperialist tyrant leave no doubt that they are what he believed. Unfortunately for Leopold, he

did not come to power during an earlier age of imperialism, when conquering as much land as

possible and either slaughtering or enslaving the indigenous population was expected and

venerated by other countries. This tyrant was born instead into a world more inclined to

condemn slavery and the old form of colonialism, a parasitic relationship which benefited only

the colonizer, where imperialist countries were expected to race to obtain the most colonies.

Instead, they worked under the façade of civilizing the local population for their own benefit,

oftentimes through Christian missionary work. Leopold was fairly bored during the time leading

up to his work the acquisition of the Congo for tiny Belgium, whose people and Parliament had

no desire for a colony. He felt he had “too little to do”, and thus set his sights on opportunities

abroad.2 Years before Europe’s “Scramble for Africa” and its manifestation at the Berlin

Conference of 1884-85, King Leopold had his eyes set on a colony to support his miniscule

country, and the still relatively untouched continent of Africa provided the most promising

venture.

Leopold also understood the changing mood of the public as abolitionism and piety swept

across the Western world, so he did everything in his power to paint a mask of philanthropy,

1 Mark Twain, King Leopold’s Soliloquy, (New York: International Publishers, 1970), 34.2 Ruth Sade, King Leopold’s Congo, (London: Oxford University press, 1962), 35.

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devoutness, and anti-slavery rhetoric to gain the support of his peers.3 Once he earned

international recognition for his private ownership of a massive territory in Central Africa, to

become the Congo Free State, his exploitative intentions became increasingly more apparent and

attracted growing attention from the public as one writer or human rights activist after another

started producing accounts of his treachery over the colony he would never once set foot in.4 He

was by no means the first author to produce a critical view of King Leopold’s Congo, but in

1905 Mark Twain jumped on the new anti-imperialist bandwagon with a series of essays, most

relevantly his satirical piece called King Leopold’s Soliloquy (multi-faceted writing piece –

fictional but factual in that it still uses statistics to support the satire (difference between fiction

and satire?)) in which he steps into the role of the king himself and gives a first-person defense

of his rule over the Congo. Twain saw right through King Leopold’s use of the ideology and

rhetoric of his day to advance his agenda, and over a brief forty-page piece, he mocks Leopold’s

humanitarian claims to no end. Twain uses two different defenses for Leopold’s rule in the

Congo: the religious/philanthropist charade and the more transparent argument mentioned in the

opening of this paper - a king’s power is divinely given and thus should not be questioned by

ordinary people. As Leopold, Twain talks of “lifting up” the Congolese population with

Christianity and calls his relative enslavement of the Congolese people “God-approved”.5

Compared with nonfiction works by other authors of Twain and King Leopold’s time and

statistics from the period of Leopold’s rule, Twain’s satire gives a disturbingly accurate account

of the cruelty exerted by Leopold, the suavely deliberate language and relationships the king

used to gain control over the Congo, and the plethora of critics who challenged him.

Additionally, other fictional and firsthand accounts from the late nineteenth – early twentieth

3 Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 1.4 Hochschild, 189.5 Twain, 4-6.

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centuries of the Congo focus on the atrocities faced by the Congolese people and the mystery and

intrigue affiliated with Central Africa, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy gives a more truthful

account of King Leopold’s rule over the Congo Free State and the perseverance and skill

he used to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a colonial power than any other text of the

era (my working thesis).

Before jumping into the particular literary techniques Twain used to bring out the

horrendousness of Leopold’s rule, it is important to understand that when Leopold first set his

sights on making the Congo his own personal investment, it was still completely uncharted

territory, the majority of which had never experienced the presence of a White man. Even the

source of the colossal Congo River was unknown to the entire Western World in the years

leading up to the Berlin Conference and Leopold’s triumph. The abuse and destruction of the

Congo and its people began before Leopold succesfully acquired the area with his enlistment of

an explorer to find a rough idea of what the interior of the African continent even looked like.

Leopold sought after perhaps the most prominent explorer of his age, Henry Morton Stanley,

who already had experience embarking on an expedition through Central Africa when he was

assigned the task of locating his fellow explorer Dr. David Livingston, who had been missing for

some years but turned out to be content living amongst the locals. Stanley was still revered

around the world but was also notorious for his utter disrespect for the land and his superiority

complex. He traveled with boats, guns, and hundreds of escorts making up his posse, most of

whom ended up abandoning the expedition, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, by escaping

into the wilderness or perishing along the way.6 In the hopes of expanding his territory even

farther and under the façade of rescuing the missing Emin Pasha, ruler of Southern Sudan,

Leopold would enlist Stanley’s help again, paying no regard to the death and destruction that

6 Hochschild, 63.

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occurred throughout his previous expedition.7 Leopold’s lust for wealth and land far out-

shadowed his concern for the preservation of the people and territory he coveted. His actions

speak to his intelligence and drive to achieve his ultimate goal, but also the ruthlessness that

Leopold and his fellow ambitious but twisted white colonizers applied to their newly acquired

territories. Leopold and his peers in the Second Age of Imperialism used the now outdated

discipline of phrenology (in Lehman’s terms, the White Man’s Burden) along with religion to

justify the same patterns of brutal colonization they had already been practicing for centuries

(find citation?).

Prior to the Berlin Conference and Stanley’s exploration, Belgium hosted the 1876

Brussels Geographic Conference, during which Leopold made it very clear that he wanted to

acquire a colony for Belgium. The conference would result in the creation of the International

African Association, an organization that would back expeditions through the east coast of

Africa towards the African Great Lakes.8 The Association switched to funding Stanley’s

expedition in 1877. While Stanley was scoping out the territory Leopold increasingly viewed to

be his own, the King continued to focus on the flaming hoop he would have to jump through

before he could acquire the Congo: diplomacy. The two countries Leopold felt could put up

significant competition for control of the Congo were France and Great Britain. Stanley actually

exacerbated Leopold’s fears about Great Britain possibly obtaining the Congo, because although

Leopold gave Stanley the job of scoping out the territory, Stanley was notorious for publicly

speaking of his work towards a British Congo. In order to curb Stanley’s public faux pas,

Leopold actually convinced Stanley to return to his expedition (and out of the public eye) after

he had fallen ill and his doctors advised that he remain away from Africa to recover.9 Once

7 Hochschild, 96.8 Slade, 37.9 Hochschild, 69.

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again, Leopold’s determination and greed drove him to achieve his ultimate goal of procuring the

Congo for himself, even if it meant risking the lives of those people who enlisted to help him.

Leopold was not the only person who feared the possibility of a British Congo; France

had also sent an explorer into Central Africa and was aware of King Leopold’s intentions but felt

tiny Belgian would never be able to obtain or sustain control over a colony as large as the Congo.

France dreaded that when Leopold (inevitably) ran out of money attempting to build a railway

through the Congo, Britain would be able to swoop in and purchase or take over the land.10 As

the Congo’s natural resources became increasingly apparent but Leopold continued to spend the

earnings on developing the colony and his own country on top of personal purchases, the king

would go through a roller coaster ride with his financial situation, but never go fully bankrupt as

France predicted. To finally secure and maintain his colony, Leopold would have to continue to

build upon a philanthropic image for himself and his relationships with countries that could

approve of his claim and were not competing for the territory as well. In 1878, he would form

the Comite d’Etudes du Haut-Congo (Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo), to be

replaced by the International Association of the Congo in 1882. Leopold’s intentions behind the

new association were well hidden; he played it off as a small, non-political, philanthropic

organization, which in fact had very political and economic aims. The association existed so

men including Stanley would trick local Congolese rulers into signing treaties that would give

Leopold sovereignty and a commercial monopoly over their land. Luckily for Belgium, or at

least Leopold, Britain had little interest in the Congo but wanted to keep France away from the

territory, so their lack of enthusiasm for the colony aided the King’s aspirations.11

10 Hochschild, 82.11 Slade, 38-39.

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One country that was pivotal to Leopold’s success in acquiring the Congo territory

acknowledged the Congo’s existence amid the struggle for power in Europe: the United States.

Through the help of General Henry Shelton Sanford, a former plantation owner who helped

Leopold recruit Stanley for the mission and also ran a lobbying campaign in favor of a Belgian

Congo, on April 22, 1884, Secretary of State James G. Blaine declared the United States to be

the first country to recognize King Leopold’s Congo.12 American recognition of the Congo

under Charles Arthur’s presidency was the last step Leopold needed before the Conference of

Berlin to cement his rule over the Congo. Although he did not even attend the Conference,

which lasted form 1884-1885, Leopold was perhaps the most successful player in the settlement

of conflicting claims in Africa. He was able to obtain the seaport of Matadi which sat on the

lower stretch of the Congo River (the area he desired the most) while France and Portugal

received some land they wanted near the river delta. He also managed to win official British

support for his rule of the Congo by insinuating that he would leave Africa completely if he

failed to get the land he coveted, meaning he would likely sell the territory to France, Britain’s

greatest fear. By the time all the necessary signatures had been scribbled and the Conference

came to a close in February 1885, King Leopold’s sharp diplomatic and deceptive abilities had

been proven to be proficient, but his web of fraud would soon be unraveled by Twain and his

contemporaries within and outside the literary field.13

Conclusion: Talk about how satire at times reveals more truth than fiction (credit to Dr.

Gray in his American Politics class after showing a clip from the Colbert Report)

12 Hochschild, 80-81.13 Hochschild, 86.

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Bibliography

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Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964.

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