Portal:Belgium/Selected article/2007/February

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Congo Free State was a kingdom privately and controversially owned by King Leopold II of Belgium that included the entire area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Leopold II began laying the diplomatic, military, and economic groundwork for his control of the Congo in 1877, and ruled it outright from early 1885 until its annexation by Belgium in 1908.

Under Leopold II's administration, the Congo Free State was subject to a terror regime, including atrocities such as mass killings and maimings which were used to subjugate the indigenous peoples of the Congo region and to procure slave labour, although it was not called slavery at the time. Estimates of the death toll range depending on the source.

Beginning in 1900, news of the conditions in the Congo Free State began to be exposed in European and U.S. press. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to the end of Leopold II's rule, and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.