Home » Reference » Humanities » History » King Leopold II of Belgium turned the Congo into one massive slave plantation that resulted in an estimated 10,000,000 deaths, with historians comparing him to Hitler and Stalin.

King Leopold II of Belgium turned the Congo into one massive slave plantation that resulted in an estimated 10,000,000 deaths, with historians comparing him to Hitler and Stalin.

Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909.

Born in Brussels as the second but eldest surviving son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for 44 years until his death – the longest reign of any Belgian monarch. He died without surviving male heirs. The current Belgian king descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I.

Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized h… Continue Reading


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium