What was the Congo free state?

Answer 1

A large part of Africa personally controlled by King Leopold II of Belgium. Work in the Congo began in the mid 1870's as King Leopold was able to slowly take control of the area while hiding behind various humanitarian and philanthropic organizations (in other words, Leopold was basically able to take over the Congo by pretending to fund and coordinate organizations to help improve the conditions in the uncivilized Congo). Through doing this, Leopold was able to gain the trust of Europe that what he was doing in the Congo was for the good. Finally, in 1885 Leopold took complete control over the Congo while still maintaining that what he was doing in the Congo was for the good of the natives. He renamed the land the Congo Free State, and it was literally his personal colony. It soon became obvious, however, that Leopold was a harsh and brutal ruler. He quickly abandoned the work of modernizing and educating the Congo and turned to plundering the land (something that would not be possible in the Government-controlled European colonies, but was very easy for Leopold to do in his personal colony). He basically enslaved millions of the Congolese and if they didn't meet their quotas they would be brutally punished (villages may be burnt, people may have their limbs or even heads cut off). Body parts became a morbid sort of currency as they could be traded for services or used to pay debts. By 1901 the outside world became aware of the terror in the Congo Free State, and pressure quickly mounted on Leopold to stop. He was not ready to do so, but several international committees were able to explore the deplorable conditions in the Congo and prove that what he was doing was not in any way acceptable. In 1908 the matter was taken out of Leopold's hands when the enraged Belgian government annexed the Congo Free State from their king. It was quickly turned into a Belgian colony (the Belgian Congo), and the atrocities quickly ceased as the conditions improved.