The Death of 10,000,000 People: King Leopold the ll by Lilly List

King Leopold the ll

835620 — 2025-04-22 16:03:07 UTC

King Leopold the ll of Belgium was one of the most evil people of his time because of what he has done to Africa. His one desire was to claim part of Africa which caused him to attend the Berlin conference. Once there he claimed the Congo Free State as "Berlins" but he only got it for his own possession. He then used the people there to gain power and money through years of work and gaining his own reputation as a humanitarian.

Argument

835620 — 2025-04-22 20:57:43 UTC

King Leopold the ll is responsible for the death of 10,000,000 people for a few reasons. First he lied about his goals as a saying he was a philanthropist, wanting to help the Congolese people living in the Congo Free State at that time. He also funded the entire operation including, weapons, railroads as well as wanting Henry Morton Stanley to work with him in getting chiefs permission of taking rubber out of their community and to be imported into the U.S.

Evidence 1

835620 — 2025-04-22 21:15:43 UTC

"Leopold invited Stanley to Belgium and persuaded the now famous explorer to return to the Congo acting as the king's personal agent." (King Leopold ll Gets His Colony, paragraph 2)

Reasoning 1

835620 — 2025-04-23 14:40:44 UTC

The famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley didn't actually go to King Leopold on his own to then destroy the Congo and take the blame for the killing of 10,000,000 Congolese people. King Leopold persuaded Stanley to work with him to go back to the Congo and do all of these things in Leopold's command. As a result of King Leopold's request for Henry M. Stanley, he went back into the Congo so many people died which caused the entire blame to go onto King Leopold. This is because it all started with Leopold "instructing" Stanley as said in the text, to contain Monopoly control over the entire civilization. Though Henry M. Stanley did many bad things he wouldn't even have been their in the first place if King Leopold didn't request his presence.

Evidence 2

835620 — 2025-04-23 15:27:21 UTC

"You paid off journalists to write newspaper articles about you as a Philanthropist who was interested in the economic development of the Congo." (King Leopold suspect profile)

Reasoning 2

835620 — 2025-04-23 16:06:18 UTC

King Leopold paid off journalists to write false accusations about his goals and entire purpose of getting the Congo Free state. This is showing that he wanted to make himself look like he was completely harmless to the civilization and was even "helping" them and becoming a "Humanitarian or Philanthropist" to the rest of the world to fully gain command and look like you were doing good. But due to mocking the rest of the world you are actually giving orders to kill people, cut off their right hands and fooling African chiefs to cause them to have no authority what so ever.

Evidence 3

835620 — 2025-04-23 20:58:56 UTC

"You funded the expedition of Henry Morton Stanley, a famous explorer who mapped the Congo River and then you paid for the development of the railroad, steamships, and trading stations. These provided the infrastructure and technology you needed to control the country." (King Leopold suspect profile)

Reasoning 3

835620 — 2025-04-23 21:16:21 UTC

King Leopold funded the entire operation making him guilty of the 10,000,000 people being killed. When thinking about it he paid for all of the railways and boats to get back to America. He paid for all of the weapons that were used to kill these millions of people. Then when controlling the entire operation Leopold must have created these horrendous tactics that were used to obtain more rubber than the rest of the world.

Evidence 4

835620 — 2025-04-24 13:11:40 UTC

"By 1905, the Force Publique had grown to a freedoms but poorly disappointed army of 16,000 African mercenary soldiers...They burned villages, cut off the hands of uncooperative chiefs, and slaughtered the women and children of men refusing to collect rubber." (The Heart of Darkness, paragraph 7)

Reasoning 4

835620 — 2025-04-24 13:18:02 UTC

The Force Publique, as said before in the text, was King Leopold's private army meaning he was under their command. This then shows that Kings Leopold gave the Force Publique the command to kill these many people. Though he didn't kill anyone with his own hands the Force Publique would have never actually been a thing without Leopold making it that way. He was the one who made this army, making them slaughter innocent people, adding up to 10,000,000.

Conclusion

835620 — 2025-04-24 15:16:49 UTC

With all of this information one can learn that King Leopold the ll is the main person responsible for the death of 10,000,000 people. But it wasn't just him that contributed to this massacre. There was also Henry M. Stanley killed many people with his own hands along with the Force Publique also killing many people. But also his advisors who were getting paid to make many slaves work to death. And finally the consumers also contributed to this killing because they knew all of this would occur and still wanted more and more rubber.