Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor might seem an odd person to feature on the first day of Black History Month. He was white, spoke French and lived in Belgium. In fact, he was its ruler, King Leopold II.
And while Black History Month has always been, quite clearly, American Black History Month, history is by nature expansive. Any honest inquiry should lead you down new and unexpected pathways. History is not restrictive, though you wouldn’t know it in Florida.
I learned all about King Leopold in a shocking 1999 book called “King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa” by Adam Hochschild.
The little Americans know about Congo 125 years ago comes from lit classes teaching Joseph Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness,” whose claustrophobic horrors turn out to be nearly straight reportage. During the 23 years from 1885 to 1908 that Congo was the personal fiefdom of King Leopold — it belonged to the king, not to Belgium — an estimated 10 million Africans died, worked to death harvesting rubber, or slaughtered for resisting being enslaved, or from starvation after their villages were burned.
What does any of this have to do with Chicagoans in 2023? A lot, actually. As jarring as the atrocities are — piles of amputated hands of Congolese who failed to gather their rubber quota, smoked over fires, so they can survive long journeys in the hot climate to collect a bounty — even more jarring, because it is so familiar, is the smokescreen of lies that Leopold sends billowing in all directions. At every step Africans are enslaved, their villages burned, their wives and children held hostage until they produce more rubber in order to acquaint them with Christian duty and the majesty of Western culture.
If we simply must have an American hero in Black History Month debut, there’s a good one with the marvelous name George Washington Williams, “the first great dissenter.” He served in the U.S. Colored Troops of the Union Army, fought and was wounded during the Civil War, then lived an adventurous life that saw him a soldier in Mexico, a minister in Boston, a guest of President Benjamin Harrison and finally a visitor at royal court in Belgium.
Williams met Leopold heading to Congo in 1890 to gather material for a book. The book would have to wait. Shocked by what he found, Williams immediately penned an “Open Letter” to Leopold chronicling the horrors he uncovered. The supposed schools and hospitals being built were non-existent. Women were pressed into service as sex slaves. Belgian officers took target practice at passing Congolese. Land was swindled away from tribal chiefs using magic tricks.
“Every charge which I am about to bring against your Majesty’s personal Government in the Congo has been carefully investigated; a list of competent and veracious witnesses, documents, letters, official records and data has been faithfully prepared,” Williams wrote.
Prying Leopold’s grip from the Congo was the first great modern international humanitarian movement, with Williams joined by tireless allies around the globe. Be forewarned: there is no justice, no upbeat ending. Hochschild observes that while Belgian crimes linger in memory, conditions were almost as bad, though less well known, in regions of Africa run by Germany, by France. The Congo was handed over to the Belgian government, which ran it as a colony until 1960. Independence leader Patrice Lumumba was immediately murdered by a CIA-backed plot for his pro-Soviet leanings, replaced by the wildly corrupt Mobutu Sese Seko.
Jump to today. Now China is the dominating force in Congo, which supplies half the world’s cobalt — an essential component in batteries. In case “King Leopold’s Ghost” hasn’t broken your heart, a brand new book, Siddharth Kara’s “Cobalt Red,” outlines how the iPhone wonder in your pocket right now might involve a child laborer working under inhuman conditions with a pickaxe in a pit mine.
Reading about the Congo made me almost sympathize with those who want to deracinate history and present instead a patriotic tale that flatters themselves. History is hard, or should be. Far easier to ignore or whitewash it. But the devilish thing about history is, try as you might, the past just won’t stay buried. It’ll crawl out of the grave dug for it and sneak up behind us. We can ignore history; that doesn’t mean history will ignore us.
