Explanation: The major colonial holding of Belgium was in the Congo, where their behavior was… abhorrent, even by the already extremely low standards of 19th century European colonists. Mutilation and abuses of a scale and type that are… not pleasant even just to recount. And with little justification for their atrocities.
I think there’s a Behind the Bastards episode on this too.
There sure is!!
If you’re more of a textual person, one of the main sources for that episode is King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
I remember finding that book in the school library in the 9th or 10th grade! My introduction to the immensely fucked issue.
That’s what I came here to post about lol. Listened to it like two weeks ago.
A Congolese man, Nsala, looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, cooked, and cannibalised by members of the Force Publique in 1904
My. Fucking. God.
I’m Belgian and I didn’t know a whole lot of details about the “Free State” (because of course this was brushed over in school…)
I’m split between surprised and not surprised that the atrocities were made by companies when the administration said “oh yea, there’s no law btw, knock yourselves out”. A libertarian dream in the end.
The Rest is History episode on King Leopold was pretty horrifying. Like, horrifying for the time, because he was trying to cover up all the nasty shit he was doing from the press then.
