6. A False Philanthropist
In 1885, Belgium’s King Leopold II, painting himself as a humanitarian philanthropist, convinced the European powers to award him the Congo. It was the start of the darkest chapter in that country’s history. Leopold promised to develop the region and uplift its residents, but instead subjected the locals to atrocities that contemporaries described as the “Congo Horrors”.
It began when Leopold consolidated his power in the new colony by allying with a slave trader named Tippu Tip. He appointed the slaver governor of the eastern Congo, and gave him a free hand there, in exchange for Tippu’s promise not to interfere in the western Congo. Tippu immediately ramped up his slaving activities, until European public opinion forced Leopold to hire a mercenary army, with which he expelled Tippu. The Belgian king then reorganized his mercenaries into an occupation army named the Force Publique, and turned it loose to visit a reign of terror upon the natives.