Q1.
- The book, King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild is indeed a great expose of the atrocities committed on the people of Africa's Congo under the greedy rule of King Leopold II of Belgium. Notably, there are quite a number of personalities who played a critical role in exposing Leopold’s Congo activities through various methods that in turn worked out well. The personalities included, among others: First and foremost, George Washington Williams way back in 1890. Being a black American missionary from the United States, he was astounded by the revelations he found out in the process. Noteworthy, the book alludes that he used his sources to retrieve information and subsequently published significant exposés about life in the Congo and a Report to the US President (Hochschild, 112). Nevertheless, the book posits that he died in 1891 without having totally advanced his work to his personally determined extent. But still, his contribution to this effect must be recognized as it laid a formidable foundation for quite a number of subsequent interested persons in King Leopold’s atrocities.
Secondly, was a fellow black American missionary, William Sheppard, who had the backing of a US congressman, Senator John Tyler Morgan. It must be noted that the senator believed he could use the missionary to advance his interest of shipping all black Americans to Africa. Sheppard was quite young, just 25 years of age. He was also a reformist writer and engaged in substantial anthropological work. His coming to Congo was coincidental with King Leopold’s operational changes from ivory to rubber being the overriding source of Leopold’s gold. It was as a result of his supply of rubber to 1885 Dunlop in Belfast because they had invented the inflatable rubber bicycle tire, so the demand was significantly huge. To replenish this demand, Sheppard noted that King Leopold’s men employed use of forced labor in gathering the wild rubber from vines within the rain forests of Congo (Hochschild, 164). What is more, is that they even assigned quotas with which they chopped off the native Congolese’s arms or heads to enforce it.
All the above were entailed in the articles published by Sheppard concerning the practices of Force Publique, which was Leopold’s police/military force (Hochschild, 261). Subsequently; they formed subject of deliberations and quoted in Europe and the US. Further, they formed the basis of other missionaries as an account for witnessing the practices, and led to protests.
Third, was Colonel Henry I. Kowalsky, who coupled up as a shrewd San Francisco lawyer. He had been hired by King Leopold II to propagate positive propaganda within the US in a bid to counteracting the growing activism of those calling for reform. Ironically, King Leopold underrated and castigated his work. It did not go well with him, so he sold the complete secret correspondence on the Congo that he had prepared to Randolph Hurst. Consequently, Hurst ran streams of anti-Congo news items and stories within his paper (Hochschild, 210). Ideally, this was an acute catastrophe for Leopold as it even assumed the defining moments in the propaganda effervesce. Despite the counteractive mission by Leopold through the report by the commissioned three-bench European judges, the die had been cast by Kowalsky.
Fourth is the principal figure to this eminent group of personalities who was Edmund Dene Morel. Having worked for the Elder Demister Shipping Line, which had a foremost contract with Leopold in availing shipping services to and from the Congo, he discovered three impetuses that boggled his mind (Hochschild, 181). These were: 1) a lot of military goods and weapons being regularly shipped to the Congo, but not subjected to invoice . 2) Acute profit skimming demonstrated by disproportion in records of ship displays and the reported income to the Congo Company. 3)Evidence in significantly few trade goods being shipped in, out only. Armed with the above revelation and due supposition of forced labor with stealing of natural resources, he initiated his work of exposing these practices in the Congo. He did this through his journal, the West African Mail.
As a matter of fact, his accuracy was boosted by the missionaries present in the Congo basin at the time and even some military personnel as his reliable source. The journal was circulated in many parts of Europe and the US. Moreover, his efforts received a boost from the British consul in Congo, Roger Casement, who personally travelled interior to probe Morel’s claims (Hochschild, 197).Successively, Casement prepared a report, with accompanying interviews that trickled ample material, which ensured the British government’s release of the report. All these shed a lot of light regarding King Leopold's atrocious management of the Congo Free Trade Area.
Likewise, Morel delivered around fifty lectures as from the book. All these solidified their suppositions on the state of affairs in the Congo. Arguably; he was an excellent publicist and he achieved his objective well. He even engaged other orators with empirical Congo experience such as John and Alice Harris, who were former missionaries to the Congo and made approximately six hundred 600 public appearances in just two years (Hochschild, 240).
Finally, Hezekiah Andrew Shanu, who was a Nigerian, is also alluded to in the book. He had worked in Leopold’s service up to 1893 and was pro-Leopold though he transformed his thinking later on. He disseminated to Casement and Morel vital though detrimental information concerning Leopold’s Congo system. Leopold’s underlings influenced his suicide upon being discovered as a key informant. Nonetheless, his role cannot go unnoticed in respect to the topic under focus.
- The outrage over the Congo did not develop into a widespread movement against all types of imperialism due to the following: 1) King Leopold's public relations machine was equivocally strong. It ran a well-calculated propaganda, more so to the countries that they deemed to be experiencing activism against their activities. An example is the solicitation of the services of the shrewd lawyer, Kowalsky to ensure propaganda is entrenched around the U.S. to counter the growing crusading.2) King Leopold had a reputation throughout Europe and the US; such that some people never believed in some of the articles, which were written to the effect of his greed and atrocious operations in the Congo. Doubtfully; very limited follow-ups were made to the contents of the articles.
3) Most of the European countries had vested interests in the continent of Africa, especially imperialistic philosophies. Arguably, they were less interested in meddling with the affairs of a fellow interested partner. Moreover people like George Grenfell, a British missionary stated that he was not willing to publicly question the state (Hochschild, 114). 4) The media underdeveloped in most countries at the time than it is today. Information was available only to the few media firms, missionary societies; journals and even lectures. 5) Racism is a factor that cannot be ignored. It is due to the common notion that most of the European countries did not consider Africans as human beings. Hence; were to be treated as beasts.
Work Cited
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. New York: A Mariner Book-Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999. Print
