Status Updates From King Leopold's Ghost

“They attacked the natives until able to seize their women. These women were kept as hostages until the chief of the district brought in the required number of kilograms of rubber. The rubber having been brought, the women were sold back to their owners for a couple of goats apiece, and so he continued from village village until the requisite amount of rubber had been collected.”

“The first few times it is not without pain that the man pulls it off the hairy parts of his body. The native doesn’t like making rubber. He must be compelled to do it.” - Force Publique officer in his journal

fun rubber fact: “In the late 1700s, a British scientist gave the substance. It’s English name when he noticed it could rub out pencil marks.”

“the soldiers took my sisters baby and threw it in the grass, leaving it to die, and made her carry some cooking pots”
i gasped aloud at this

“because so many Congo peoples had earlier fought among themselves, the Force Publique was often able to ally itself with one ethnic group to defeat another.”