If you ask which people in history are the most miserable, then black people must occupy a place.
As early as the first century AD, Arabs, Europeans, and even chiefs exchanged their people for things to sell.
At the stage of the black slave trade to the Americas, the number of black slaves trafficked was about one hundred million, and at least one-third of the blacks would be thrown out to feed the fish because of the disease.
In modern society, black people are still looked down upon by people who wear "colored glasses", such as the United States!
Because of the injustices suffered by blacks, there were demonstrations everywhere. In 2020, for example, British protesters tore down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century black slave trader, and threw it into the river.
British protesters pushed down the statue
And among the many colonists, there is one person who can be said to be one of the most hated people in black people! Not only did he kill nearly ten million black people, but he also chopped his hands and feet at every turn, as if they were just a bunch of animals.
Congolese life
This is the King of Belgium, Leopold II.
survival in Belgium
Leopold was born in Brussels on April 9, 1835, and Belgium is a country of great rivals all around! Britain, France and Germany were all around, and no one could afford to mess with themselves.
After the February Revolution in France in 1848, Napoleon's France made Leofeld I very uneasy at the time, and in order to get the protection of The anglo-Austrian powers, he forced Leopold Jr. to marry Marie Henriette, the eldest princess of the Habsburg family.
Couple of two
The Belgian state was small and small, and the cunning and treachery of capitalism taught Leopold the Younger a vivid lesson. At this time, he already had the heart of a rich country and a strong army, and completely got rid of this national situation of looking at other people's faces...
The old king died in 1865 and at the age of 30 he became king of Belgium. In order to realize his childhood dreams, he formulated many reform national policies!
Internally, in order to alleviate social contradictions, he established workers' associations and implemented a policy of free trade. While stabilizing the country, these policies also allowed Belgium to catch up with the second industrial revolution, and industrial development progressed by leaps and bounds.
At this time, Belgian-made steam engines, diesel engines and other equipment began to appear frequently in the world's major markets! Belgium in this period can be said to be the "factory of Europe", which also greatly enhanced the country's economic and military strength.
Belgium, a rich country and a strong country, has accumulated original funds, and in this capitalist "big casino", with the initial bet, it can find the direction of expansion in the world and join the colonial powers in dividing the world.
King of the Congo
Leopold II had the idea of colonization very early on, believing that colonies could smoothly export domestic goods and at the same time obtain imports of cheap raw materials, and this "scissor difference" trade was the foundation of a strong country.
Leopold looked at the map divided up by the great powers, and he set his sights on central Africa.
Although they have a goal, their capital is too small compared to other powers, and they dare not directly reach out and grab it. To this end, he disguised himself as a "slave liberator" and sent people there to investigate.
In 1875, Leopold II held a parliament in Brussels, inviting the surrounding European powers to carry out expansion plans under the name of the "International Association for the Investigation and Development of Central Africa".
Leofeld then sent a man named Henri Morton Stanley on an expedition in Africa, a trip that made the king aware of the rich mineral resources of congo, which gave him the first glimpse of the country.
In 1877, Leopold convened the first plenary meeting of the International Association for Africans in Brussels, established the "Upper Congo Research Council" and funded Stanley's expeditions with the king's support.
In June 1884 Stanley returned to Europe to survey the vast expanse of the Congo Basin. And under his coercion and inducement, he established about 20 strongholds, forced the local chiefs to conclude more than 450 "protection" treaties, and transferred large areas of land to the International Congolese Association.
However, Stanley's behavior made Britain, France and other countries feel that they had suffered losses and were boycotted.
In 1884, the countries discussed the confluence of Congolese interests in Berlin, at which Leofeld lobbied and courted, and let Belgium pick up a big bargain (mainly Because Germany and other powers had a strong desire to expand abroad, belgium was cheap in order to reach an agreement).
Finally, in 1885, Leopold II's dominion over the southern bank of the Congo estuary was recognized, and it was stipulated that any country acquiring land in Africa in the future must notify other countries to carry out "effective occupation".
The conference also plunged Africa into a frenzy of partition, with countries establishing their colonial positions through parliaments.
Cruel tyrants
Since the question of the Congo in Parliament was carried out in the name of Leopold II personally, the Belgian Parliament also recognized the Congo as the king's private domain.
Leopold II established the Congo Free State and became King of the Congo until 1908, when the Belgian parliament was allowed to make congo a colony of the country.
Leopold II, as the only colonist in the name of a private individual, colonized 70 times the size of Belgium (Belgium's territory is about 30,500 square kilometers).
At first, the king was very fond of the ivory of the land, but he found that the Congo was the best place in the world to grow rubber trees, and the tires derived from the Industrial Revolution made rubber important.
So he went crazy selling rubber to the outside world, making hundreds of millions of francs, which is roughly equivalent to $1.1 billion today.
Behind these high profits was a personal blood bun who continued to package himself as a liberator, but privately he plundered villagers everywhere for intense manual labor.
In addition, he never regarded these indigenous people as human beings, personally ordered his men to massacre the Congolese residents, and he liked to order the cutting off of people's hands, feet and genitals at any time, and then use whips to kill these lost creative values.
But there are no impermeable walls, and the atrocities in the Congo were discovered by a missionary and began to tell the outside world what they had witnessed: Leopold II had succeeded in enslaving almost all the men, women, and children of the country. Under his rule, entire villages were burned down and people were displaced. In order to force the local men to work for him, he took their wives hostage and tortured them.
The whole Congo is full of hunger, torture, murder... If the oppressed resisted, they were immediately suppressed and subjected to even more brutal reprisals.
notorious
In 1906, a famous photograph of an adult black man staring at a hand and a foot discarded on the ground. Those were the hands and feet of his five-year-old daughter, who was brutally murdered by the white administrators only because the man had not completed the rubber harvest that day.
Strong opposition forced the king to abandon his private rule and sell his colony to the Belgian government at a high price in 1908.
In February 1909, Leopold II died of illness at the age of 74, and less than a year after his death, his young mistress married her ex-boyfriend with his large inheritance. And the three daughters born to him and Queen Mary were empty-handed at this time...