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End of the Congo Free State, Establishment of Belgian Congo as a Colony, 1908
The Congo Free State was a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians through a dummy non-governmental organization, the Association Internationale Africaine. Leopold was the sole shareholder and chairman. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was on the edge of unexplored Africa, as Europeans seldom ventured into its interior. The rainforest, swamps and attendant malaria, and other diseases such as sleeping sickness made it a difficult environment for European exploration and exploitation. Imperialists were at first reluctant to colonize the area in the absence of obvious economic benefits. King Leopold managed to secure it in 1885 through his private efforts, ruling the state personally until its annexation by the government of Belgium in 1908. Other powers vied with Leopold for the land when natural resources, first rubber, and then copper and other minerals in the upper Lualaba River basin, were discovered.

Under Leopold II's administration, the Congo Free State became the site of one of the most infamous international scandals of the turn of the twentieth century. The report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of white officials who had been responsible for cold-blooded killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903 (including one Belgian national for causing the shooting of at least 122 Congolese natives). Estimates of the total death toll vary considerably. In the absence of a census (the first was made in 1924), it is even more difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. Roger Casement's famous 1904 report set it at 3 million. According to Roger Casement's report, this depopulation was caused mainly by four causes: indiscriminate "war", starvation, reduction of births and tropical diseases. By 1896 the sleeping sickness had killed up to 5,000 Africans in the village of Lukolela on the Congo River. The mortality figures were gained through the efforts of Roger Casement who found only 600 survivors of the disease in Lukolela in 1903.

The European and U.S. press agencies exposed the conditions in the Congo Free State to the public in 1900. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers 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.

From Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State

End of the Congo Free State, Establishment of Belgian Congo as a Colony, 1908

The Congo Free State was a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians through a dummy non-governmental organization, the Association Internationale Africaine. Leopold was the sole shareholder and chairman. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was on the edge of unexplored Africa, as Europeans seldom ventured into its interior. The rainforest, swamps and attendant malaria, and other diseases such as sleeping sickness made it a difficult environment for European exploration and exploitation. Imperialists were at first reluctant to colonize the area in the absence of obvious economic benefits. King Leopold managed to secure it in 1885 through his private efforts, ruling the state personally until its annexation by the government of Belgium in 1908. Other powers vied with Leopold for the land when natural resources, first rubber, and then copper and other minerals in the upper Lualaba River basin, were discovered.

Under Leopold II's administration, the Congo Free State became the site of one of the most infamous international scandals of the turn of the twentieth century. The report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of white officials who had been responsible for cold-blooded killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1903 (including one Belgian national for causing the shooting of at least 122 Congolese natives). Estimates of the total death toll vary considerably. In the absence of a census (the first was made in 1924), it is even more difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. Roger Casement's famous 1904 report set it at 3 million. According to Roger Casement's report, this depopulation was caused mainly by four causes: indiscriminate "war", starvation, reduction of births and tropical diseases. By 1896 the sleeping sickness had killed up to 5,000 Africans in the village of Lukolela on the Congo River. The mortality figures were gained through the efforts of Roger Casement who found only 600 survivors of the disease in Lukolela in 1903.

The European and U.S. press agencies exposed the conditions in the Congo Free State to the public in 1900. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers 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.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State

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