Ingrid Ellis’s Reviews > King Leopold's Ghost > Status Update

“It is always temping to believe that a bad system is the fault of one bad man.”

From poet Vachel Lindsay:
“Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost,
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.”

“As they fled these expeditions, villagers sometimes abandoned small children for fear that their cries would give away their hiding places. As a result, many children starved.” 😭😭😭

“Since Leopold has little taste for good works, literature or drama — and a well-known dislike for music — he spent his money mostly on building things, the bigger the better.” It’s giving… white house ballroom

When villagers, in a desperate attempt to meet the weight quota turned in rubber mixed with dirt or pebbles to the agent Alberic Detiege, he made them eat it.

For each cartridge issued to soldiers, European officers demanded proof the bullet had been used to kill someone, not “wasted” in hunting. The standard proof was the right hand from a corpse. Sometimes, soldiers shot a cartridge at an animal in hunting, they then cut off a hand from a living man.

“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