King Leopold II of Belgium represents one of the worst mass murderers in history. Leopold was not content to be the King of Belgium, a territory roughly equating in size to the state of Maryland. Every action taken by Leopold was subjected to the approval of elected officials, since Belgium was a constitutional monarch. Leopold was not interested in Belgium, however. He was interested in possessing absolute power, monumental riches, and monuments of self-glory. Around the time Britain and other European nations were racing to divide up the spoils of the African continent, Leopold realized access to his dreams of power and avarice lay in Africa. The famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley was gaining prominence from his African explorations. As Hochschild (1998) relates, ôNow based in London, Stanley could hear around him the first rumblings of what would before long become known as the Scramble for Africa.ö
The scramble for Africa included the destruction of indigenous lands and peoples as European imperial powers sought to exploit the human and material resources of that as of yet untapped nation. Leopold was a master manipulator of public opinion. He gained financing for his ventures in what would become known as Belgian Congo through such propaganda and manipulation, only to cheat his financiers while keeping enormous wealth for himself. He plundered the Congo in the name of progress, civilization, and Christianity, but his actions there has little to do with any of these reasons. Leopold set about constructing a rule of terror in Belgian Congo that would ultimately be responsible for the deaths of four to eight million indigenous people, (Hochschild 1998). LeopoldÆs officials were brutal. Ivory was the first resource mined in Belgian Congo, but rubber soon replaced it as the most lucrative one. When indigenous workers forced to slave for LeopoldÆs enrichment did not produce expected yields, the
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