Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold Louis-Philippe Marie Victor of Saxe-Coburg (April 9, 1835 – December 17, 1909), succeeded his father, Leopold I of Belgium, to the Belgian throne in 1865 as Leopold II, King of the Belgians and remained king until his death. Outside of Belgium, however, he is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken by the King to extract rubber and ivory, which relied on slavery and was responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans.

Leopold and the Belgians

Leopold II is perceived by many Belgians as the "King-Builder" ("le Roi-Bâtisseur" in French, "Koning-Bouwer" in Dutch) because he commissioned a great number of buildings and urbanistic projects in Belgium (mainly in Brussels, Ostend and Antwerp). The buildings include the Royal Glasshouses at Laeken (in the domain of the Laeken Royal Castle), the Japanese tower, the Chinese pavilion, the Musée du Congo (now called the Royal Museum for Central Africa) and their surrounding park in Tervuren, the Jubilee Triple Arch in Brussels and the Antwerp train station hall. He also built an important country estate in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera in France, including the Villa des Cèdres, which is now a botanical garden. He was able to satisfy his megalomania and erect these buildings with the wealth provided by Congo exploitation.

Related Topics:
French - Dutch - Brussels - Ostend - Antwerp - Royal Glasshouses - Laeken - Laeken Royal Castle - Japanese tower - Chinese pavilion - Royal Museum for Central Africa - Tervuren - Jubilee Triple Arch - Country estate - Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat - French Riviera - France - Botanical garden

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There has been a "Great Forgetting", as Adam Hochschild puts it in King Leopold's Ghost, after Leopold's Congo was transferred to Belgium. In Hochschild's words:

Related Topics:
Adam Hochschild - King Leopold's Ghost

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:The Congo offer a striking example of the politics of forgetting. Leopold and the Belgian colonial officials who followed him went to extraordinary lengths to try to erase potentially incriminating evidence from the historical records. (Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost).

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Remarkably the colonial Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren Museum) did not mention anything at all regarding the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State. The Tervuren Museum has a large collection of colonial objects but of the largest injustice in Congo, "there is no sign whatsoever" (in Hochschild's words again). Another example is to be found on the sea walk of Blankenberge, a popular coastal resort, where a monument shows a colonialist with a black child at his feet (supposedly bringing him "civilisation") without any comment, further illustrating this "Great Forgetting".

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