Monarchs From Belgium

"The committee is to travel throughout the country into all the districts covered by Mr Casement in his recent tour of inspection, besides visiting many places Mr Casement never saw. In brief, the committee is to hold inquiry wherever evidence can be obtained. Where native witnesses give evidence of a nature prejudicial to white men, the committee will see that such witnesses are protected from the possibility of suffering at the hands of officials against whom they may bear witness. The Government of the Congo holds itself responsible for the safety and well-being of such witnesses. On the latter point King Leopold has expressed himself in the strongest possible terms."

"There were severed hands in the Congo, at the time of the Independent State... by the Officers of the Force Publique, to prevent the waste of ammunition to which their soldiers willingly let go, demanded that they provide proof that they had used their cartridges correctly. The proof was the severed hand of the killed enemy ... Severed hands, it will be noted, never constituted a form of punishment. ... By emphasizing, as they did, on the theme of severed hands - a theme which, we realize, easily provoked emotion -, Morel and his friends gave birth to the ambiguity which finally spread and lasted until our days: the idea that Leopold II had his hands cut off in the Congo, that it was a question of torture inflicted on the population, and even of torture most characteristic of the regime."

"I did not fail to refer to the "abuses and other undeniable deficiencies that this report rightly stigmatizes. Leopold II, of course, also carefully read this report. He reacted to it very quickly, with an honesty, insight and efficiency worthy of this visionary King. Despite the damning conclusions, he did not hesitate to have it published - in extenso - in the Official Journal of the EIC (Independent State of Congo). He had the perpetrators of the abuses prosecuted and, above all, taken a series of radical measures to put an end to them, by issuing no less than 24 Decrees to this effect."

"Seldom has such a character assassination been committed in Belgium, seldom has the press reached such lows as in the time of Leopold II."

"I accuse Leopold's officials of tyranny, i accuse Leopold's government of excessive cruelty, ox chains eaten to the necks of prisoners and produce sores about which flies circle, the courts are aborted unjust and delinquent, not one state official knows the language of the natives, your majesties' government is engaged in slave trade, wholesale and retail."

"Leopold's Congo state is guilty of crimes against humanity."

"Several of the little girls were so sickly on their arrival that our good sisters wouldn't save them, but all had the happiness of receiving holy baptism, they are now little angels in heaven who are praying for our great king."

"The Belgians built the railways, schools and hospitals there and boosted economic growth. Whether Leopold II also turned Congo into a gigantic labor camp? Not really. At the time, that was just the way of doing things."

"We are easily tempted to exaggerate when it comes to Congo. It is quite lewd and simple to now posthumously condemn Leopold II. I instinctively feel that he was a hero, a hero with ambition for a small country like Belgium."

"Using the word genocide in Congo is absolutely unacceptable, nor appropriate! Colonization was not a silly undertaking. And yes, it was perhaps rather dominate, discovery and even acquire pure power. But at a certain point civilization did come."

"Call Leopold II a great visionary? You can't do that. What happened there then is shameful. If we took into account the standards of the 21st century, there is a good chance that Leopold II should now have appeared before the International Criminal Court in The Hague."

"Hitler, Stalin, Men who need no introduction. King Leopold of Belgium, that's right Everyone thinks he's so great Well, he owned the Congo, He tore it up too, Took the diamonds, Took the silver, Took the gold, You know what he left 'em with? Malaria."

"Leopold, aware of the high responsibilities he had to bear towards Belgium and determined to liberate the African peoples from their crushing material and moral living conditions, wanted to bring civilization to the very heart of the black continent in order to put an end to to the shameful slave trade and the enslavement that resulted from it, to fight against the deadly plagues and to put an end to ignorance and lead the peoples to the good to which they were entitled."

"When Leopold II began his great work, which today finds its culmination, he presented himself to you not as a conqueror but as a bringer of civilization."

"2008 commemorates the centenary of Congo becoming a colony in 1908. This colony ceased to exist in 1960. But as is well known, since 1885 there have been close ties between Congo and Belgium, in particular through the Belgian King Leopold II, who in 1885 after the Berlin Congress, in fact, acquired Congo as his "personal property"."

"The history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is also that of the Belgian missionaries, officials and entrepreneurs who believed in King Leopold II's dream of building a State in the center of Africa. At this precise moment, we want to pay homage to the memory of all these pioneers."

"The independence of the Congo is the crowning of the work conceived by the genius of King Leopold II undertaken by him with firm courage, and continued by Belgium with perseverance. Independence marks a decisive hour in the destinies not only of the Congo herself but- I don't hesitate to say-of the whole of Africa."

"When the State of Congo was called to economic life by the King of the Belgians, trade was only possible on the ribs. Now, thanks to the activity of His Majesty, he is done safely above the cataracts. This is the result of the peace and order which were introduced by the King of the Belgians incountries where no white merchant could have shown himself before."

"I do not believe in the accusations made in England against King Leopold II, the Congo and I do not share the feelings of those who inspire them. No state would be willing to spend the money spent by the King of the Belgians and Belgium in the most dark places of darkest Africa. When I consider the few years that have passed since the Congo became a state, I believe that the work accomplished is a great honor to Belgium. You can be sure that the King of the Belgians is interested in every detail of his administration. I do not claim that he can monitor all the actions of each individual, what Government could? The stories of the atrocities that have been spread are almost all gossip. The English note of month of August is based on biased reports. I am convinced that Leopold II has been doing his best to prevent any crime in the Congo, he is not responsible for the crimes anymore that could be committed there than those that are sometimes committed in Belgium. The reason of all these slanders? Jealousy! The Congo is doing better than any other African state. Those stories of atrocities will not stop, they will persist with the little basis they had, this was never anything but pure invention."

"To my beginnings in colonial life, almost forty years ago, I found my first major lesson in studying the work of King Leopold II in the Congo: model of creation, practical organization and director, broad and liberal initiative, understanding the material, moral and social needs of natives, from whom all colonial works should be inspired and which, for so many years and over so many points, served as a guide."

"Tackling Leopold in Africa has set in motion a big movement – it must be a movement of human liberation all the world over."

"The apology cult must stop. But that does not mean that the atrocities of the past should be denied. This applies to Leopold II, but also to other culprits. And certainly for crimes that continue to this day in certain areas of the world such as slavery."

"England would not have managed the Congo better than King Leopold has done if she had been mistress of it, as she might have become in 1877."

"I crossed Africa from East to West and from West to East, and I never saw any excesses committed. I do not think that from this point of view there is a single sovereign living who has done so much for humanity as Leopold II.""

"The change which has occurred in the political condition of the African Coast, today calls for common action on the part of the Powers responsible for the control of that Coast. That action should tend to close all foreign slave markets and should also result in putting down slave hunting in the interior. The great work undertaken by the King of the Belgians, in the constitution of the Congo State, and the lively interest taken by His Majesty in all questions affecting the welfare of the African races, lead Her Majesty's Government to hope that Belgium will be disposed to take the initiative in inviting the Powers to meet in Conference at Brussels, in order to consider the best means of attaining the gradual suppression of the slave-trade on the Continent of Africa and the immediate closing of all the outside markets which the slave-trade daily continues to supply."

"The prevailing opinion at court was that the founding of a colony was beyond the strength of the Sovereign of a small state and that he would swallow up his private fortune, unable to create anything lasting. The King sought for the execution of his designs collaborators possessed of the faith which he himself had and which lifts mountains."

"By the end of 1892, all the King's collaborators during the first and second phases of Belgian work in the Congo had therefore ceased to participate. M. van Eetvelde, who had increasingly isolated himself from them, remained alone in possession of the sovereign's confidence, with the sole program of being the passive instrument of his designs. This third phase of the administration of the state of Congo affected all signs of impending dissolution."

"It would be difficult to imagine a more centralized organization than that which has been achieved in the central government of the Independent State of Congo. The Secretary of State is its absolute head, although he himself remains in the most absolute dependence of the Sovereign."

"Leopold II was able to push through his imperial wish and obtained that the fate of what would then be called the Congo Free State was linked to his own. He gave Congo its shape and dimensions, as well as a financial-capitalist structure. However, the debt burden that had become too heavy meant that the king handed over his colony to Belgium, a gift that the parliament was hesitant about but did not dare to refuse."

"In 1885, the whole of Africa was colonized or placed under trusteeship, but Congo climbed to the podium of the three existing sovereign countries. The borders that have been, since 1894, the crucible of Congolese identity were acquired, by treaty, by Leopold II. Thus, Congo has absolutely no debt to Belgium for its international existence. Later, it was through a bilateral treaty, between two sovereign states, regularly ratified, that the Kingdom of Belgium became the metropolis of the Belgian Congo (1908-1960). The little-known truth is that in 1960, Belgium did not grant Congolese independence, but it returned it."

"What does the greatness of a monarch consist in? I fit is the extent of his territory, then the Emperor of Russia is the greatest of all. I fit is the splendour and power of military organization, then William II [of Germany] takes first place. But if royal greatness consists in the wisdom and goodness of a sovereign leading his people with the solicitude of a shepherd watching over his flock, then the greatest sovereign is your own."

"As a constitutional monarch, Leopold II had no possibility of becoming a tyrant in Belgium. He could dismiss Parliament, but had to sign the bills it submitted to him, and to rule in consultation with his ministers. He did not even have a coronation, but an inauguration where he swore before Parliament to obey the Constitution. Yet Leopold had tremendous ambitions. He dreamed of a Belgium that could stand among the European powers, and for that he deemed colonies a necessity. By clever and stealthy means, he managed to gain control of a vast realm in Africa, the Congo, much of which became his personal property. Here, he indulged his desire for profit by exploiting the native population more ferociously than anyone before him. His excesses finally became so notorious that Belgium took control of the colony, giving the country the empire Leopold desired, but also blackening his memory."

"By 1891, six years into the attempt to build the EIC, the whole project was on the verge of bankruptcy. It would have been easy for Léopold to raise revenues by sanctioning imports of liquor that could be taxed or by levying fees on the number of huts in each village, both of which would have caused harm to the native population. A truly “greedy” king, as Hochschild repeatedly calls him, had many fiscal options that Léopold did not exercise."

"Young trees need stakes to support them, but the stakes must be removed once the trees begin to grow, precisely so not to hinder their growth."

"How can we explain the fact that Leopold II distinguished between his personality as the assignee of the removed Crown Foundation assets and the Free State, to the point that he felt he had to transfer all or part of these assets to the Free State, by a subsequent formal provision of the decree? In the simplest way in the world. By the fact that the King, who had only rather vague notions on the exact legal scope of his sovereignty, believed in the possibility of a disjunction, a duality between the absolute state that was the Congo Free State and the personality of his sovereign, whereas such a disjunction was contrary to the most elementary principles of public law."

"The Committee of the British Baptist Missionary Society, of London, desire most respectfully to address Your Majesty as Sovereign of the Congo Free State, and to express their grateful acknowledgments for Your Majesty's gracious and helpful sympathy with all wisely considered efforts put forth for the enlightenment and uplifting of Your Majesty's native subjects living within the territories of the Congo Free State."

"In the prosecution of these labours, the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society desire gratefully to acknowledge the many signal and helpful proofs they have received of Your Gracious Majesty's approval and support; and very specially at this juncture they are pleased to express to Your Majesty their respectful appreciation of the great boon granted "to all religious, scientific and charitable institutions," by the reduction of direct and personal taxes by 50 per cent, from, on, and after the first day of July last, as proclaimed by Your Majesty's command in the May and June issues of the Bulletin officiel de I'Etat independant du Congo, which the Committee regard as a further and significant proof of Your Majesty's desire to promote the truest welfare of Your Majesty's Congo subjects, and to help forward all institutions calculated to produce enduring and beneficent results.""

"There is no longer a single government that colonizes. There is only individual colonization."

"We went to live in full Portuguese territory without the permission of Portugal. I don't quite understand our claim."

"I think sire, that you would be wrong to give the slightest publicity to this writing, and even to communicate it to the person who asked you for it."

"I am not telling you this, Monsignor, in the interest of the project that I am going to defend in the chamber and in front of the country, but in your personal interest. Believe me, Monsignor, we are entering an era where a Prince cannot be too circumspect and cautious. Avoid getting into our discussions and our controversies, avoid taking sides in our struggles."

"The ivory issue worries me more and more. I am not forgetting any of the considerations that Your Majesty has deigned to point out to me, but commerce will want to be reassured as to the limits of competition."

"You may want to, Sire, but then you will find someone other than me to carry out such a will."

"I will be more and more concerned with giving you sound and true political ideas, few people are better able to do this than I; since the age of 16 I have been involved in the big affairs of Europe."

"The abuses were first reported by an American missionary in The Times of London in 1895 and quickly brought Léopold’s censure: “If there are these abuses in the Congo, we must stop them,” he warned EIC officials in 1896. “If they continue, it will be the end of the state.” For the next ten years, reforming the Congo’s rubber industry absorbed an inordinate amount of attention in the British and American press and legislatures, not to mention within Belgium and the EIC itself, leading to formal Belgian colonization in 1908. Hochschild thus takes a very limited, unintentional, unforeseen, and perhaps unavoidable problem of native-on-native conflict over rubber harvesting and blows it up into a “forgotten Holocaust” to quote the subtitle given to the French edition of his book. Inside this great invention are many more perfidious Russian dolls."

"I have only one goal and one desire, namely to give myself a practical instruction, to get to know the world and its inhabitants. There will come times when this knowledge will be of use to me."

"I sleep poorly. This long abstinence is destroying me. My nature needs frequent contacts with the beautiful gender. I don't understand how priests can live like this."

"Excuse me, dear niece, for this letter, which is really just a health bulletin. Especially concerned with a health so dear to me, I am almost unable to speak of anything else."

"Whoever has a cold is stupid, because he just had to avoid catching a cold."

"I am very satisfied with my invention. With this pocket, the rain can fall, and i'm not afraid: my beard will stay dry. You laugh, but you don't laugh when a woman, after washing her hair, dries it and wraps it in a towel. You are not laughing, and yet it is the same. Women drying their hair, and I guaranteeing my beard from the rain, we are only keeping us from colds!"