King Leopold

Paper Summary:

This essay uses Adam Hochschild's book," King Leopold?s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa," in order to explore the role of various people responsible for the mass killings in the Congo in 1979. The author details the conflict, the history of the region, the players, both local and foreign, whose knowledge and decency exposed the massacre and its cover-up by King Leopold.

From the Paper:

"Just as Leopold and his aides were involved in the exploitation of the country, there was one man who actively worked towards exposing this tragedy thereby forcing Leopold to give the people of Congo their independence. His name was Edmund D. Morel, a British shipping company clerk who noticed that ships coming from Congo carried valuables like ivory and rubber but those that went back contained nothing but soldiers and arsenal. This made him suspicious and so he resigned from his job to form the Congo Reform Association (CRA), an organization that made the horrors of the Congo region public. Morel used information smuggled out by missionaries such as William Sheppard and George W. Williams, the former being later involved in a libel suited filed against him by Leopold."

More papers on King Leopold:

• Analytical Essay # 64865 : "King Leopold's Ghost"
• Analytical Essay # 123366 : "King Leopold's Rule of the Congo"
• Analytical Essay # 49401 : "King Leopold's Ghost" and Historical Merit"

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