Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II was king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and the personal sovereign of the Congo Free State. Determined to acquire an overseas empire despite Belgium’s limited colonial ambitions, he used international associations and private companies to establish control over a vast central African territory that became notorious for forced labour, violence and mass suffering under the rubber regime.

Leopold used exploration, international associations and diplomatic recognition to secure a vast central African territory as his personal possession. The forced-labour system established there caused mass death and became one of the most notorious abuses of the Scramble for Africa.

Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 places Leopold II at the centre of the international competition for African territory. His creation of the Congo Free State illustrates how humanitarian and commercial rhetoric could conceal private monarchical control, forced labour and extreme violence, making Leopold’s Congo one of the book’s starkest examples of the costs of imperial partition.