Editing Belgian Congo (section)

==Congo Free State==
{{Main|Congo Free State}}
[[File:Leopold2-.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Leopold II of Belgium|Leopold II]], [[Monarchy of Belgium|King of the Belgians]] and ''de facto'' owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908]]
[[File:MutilatedChildrenFromCongo.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule]]
Until the later part of the 19th century, few Europeans had ventured into the [[Congo Basin]]. The [[rainforest]], [[swamps]] and accompanying [[malaria]] and other tropical diseases, such as [[African trypanosomiasis|sleeping sickness]], made it a difficult environment for European exploration and exploitation. In 1876, King [[Leopold II of Belgium]] organized the [[International African Association]] with the cooperation of the leading African explorers and the support of several European governments for the promotion of the exploration and colonization of Africa. After [[Henry Morton Stanley]] had explored the region in a journey that ended in 1878, Leopold courted the explorer and hired him to help his interests in the region.<ref name=Hoch61_67>Hochschild 61–67.</ref>

Leopold II had been keen to acquire a colony for Belgium even before he ascended to the throne in 1865. The Belgian civil government showed little interest in its monarch's dreams of empire-building. Ambitious and stubborn, Leopold decided to pursue the matter on his own account.

European rivalry in Central Africa led to diplomatic tensions, in particular with regard to the [[Congo Basin]], which no European power had claimed. In November 1884, [[Otto von Bismarck]] convened a 14-nation conference (the [[Berlin Conference]]) to find a peaceful resolution to the Congo situation. Though the Berlin Conference did not formally approve the territorial claims of the European powers in Central Africa, it did agree on a set of rules to ensure a conflict-free partitioning of the region. The rules recognised (''inter alia'') the Congo Basin as a [[free-trade zone]]. But Leopold II emerged triumphant from the Berlin Conference<ref name=Hoch84_87>Hochschild 84–87.</ref> and his single shareholder "philanthropic" organization received a large share of territory ({{cvt|2344000|km2|sqmi}}) to be organized as the [[Congo Free State]].

The Congo Free State operated as a [[List of trading companies|corporate]] state, privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the [[International African Association]].<ref name=WDL1>{{cite web |title=Map of the Belgian Congo |year=1896 |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/59/ |publisher=World Digital Library |access-date=21 January 2013 |archive-date=5 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205192519/https://www.wdl.org/en/item/59/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The state included the entire area of the present-day [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]], and existed from 1885 until 1908, when the government of Belgium reluctantly annexed the area. Under Leopold II's administration, the Congo Free State became a humanitarian disaster. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths caused by the ruthless exploitation and the lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists – like the [[1889–1890 pandemic|1889–1890 influenza pandemic]], which caused millions of deaths on the European continent, including Prince [[Prince Baudouin of Belgium|Baudouin of Belgium]], who died in 1891.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8DSa_viBgsgC John D. Fage, ''The Cambridge History of Africa: From the earliest times to c. 500 BC''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200531010955/https://books.google.com/books?id=8DSa_viBgsgC |date=31 May 2020 }}, [[Cambridge University Press]], 1982, p. 748. {{ISBN|0-521-22803-4}}</ref> [[William Rubinstein]] wrote: "More basically, it appears almost certain that the population figures given by [[Adam Hochschild|Hochschild]] are inaccurate. There is, of course, no way of ascertaining the population of the Congo before the twentieth century and estimates like 20 million are purely guesses. Most of the interior of the Congo was literally unexplored if not inaccessible."<ref>Rubinstein, W. D. (2004). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nMMAk4VwLLwC Genocide: a history] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910110549/https://books.google.com/books?id=nMMAk4VwLLwC |date=10 September 2015 }}''. Pearson Education. pp. 98–99. {{ISBN|0-582-50601-8}}</ref> Leopold's ''[[Force Publique]],'' a private army that terrorized natives to work as [[forced labour]] for resource extraction, disrupted local societies and killed and abused natives indiscriminately. The ''Force Publique'' also became involved in the [[Congo–Arab War]] against [[Arab slave trade|African and Arab slavers]] like [[Zanzibar]]i/[[Swahili people|Swahili]] strongman [[Tippu Tip]].

Following the 1904 [[Casement Report]] on misdeeds and conditions, European (British included) and American press exposed the conditions in the Congo Free State to the public in the early 1900s. In 1904 Leopold II was forced to allow an international parliamentary commission of inquiry entry to the Congo Free State. By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic manoeuvres led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the "Belgian Congo".