Emily Arnold’s Reviews > King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa > Status Update

In a letter Williams wrote to the American Secretary of State, he used a phrase that seems plucked from the Nuremberg trials of more than half a century later. Leopold Congo state, Williams Road, was guilty of “ crimes against humanity.” P.112

“One member of the expedition packed the severed head of an African in a box of salt and sent it to London to be stuffed and mounted by his Piccadilly taxidermist.” P. 99

Stanley was a harsh taskmaster. “The best punishment is that of irons,” he explained in one of his letters to Brussels, “because without wounding, disfiguring, or torturing the body, it inflicts shame and discomfort.” (Whites were not put in irons, of course; only blacks.) p.67-68

“ Above all, Leopold told his man in London, “ I do not want to risk… losing a fine chance to secure for our ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake.” P. 58

During the nineteenth century European drive for possessions in Africa and Asia, people justified colonialism in various ways, claiming that it Christianity’s the heathen or civilized the savage races or brought everyone the miraculous benefits of free trade. P. 38