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During Leopold II's brutal rule over Congo, Pygmy communities were used as trackers and guides in the dense forests, but were often exploited, enslaved, or killed like many others.
Their deep knowledge of the land was taken advantage of by colonizers.
- The Future of Congo
The picture was taken by Max Scheler in 1957. It's a part of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (a major German photo agency and historical picture archive).
Its caption reads: Tourists in the Belgian Congo as spectators of the so-called "monkey dance" of the Pygmies.
The name of the photo agency has been edited to its correct spelling, as pointed out by a commenter.
firlefranz
Süddeutsche Zeitung.
secularink
In the Leopold's shadow.
https://youtu.be/uqGVHgV7Eg0 "The Rest Is History" -podcast. "Horror in the Congo: The Nightmare Begins | Part 1"
Poppypoppoppop
"Mutilated Congolese children and adults (c. 1900-1905) — in Congo Free State (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Privately owned territory of Belgian King Leopold II, with numerous enslaved rubber collection/production areas in the rainforest and on plantations.
Rubber production used human rights abuses against the Congolese people, including amputations for unmet quotas and other colonial offenses."
VincitQuiSeVincit
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.
-- Vachel Lindsay
spiderjohn36
I recently saw an old Richard Brooks film starring Sidney Poitier and Rock Hudson, Something of Value. It's from 1957, and it's about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. It's extremely sympathetic to the Mau Maus and anti-colonists (and for good reason). I highly recommend it.
Gotcha44
I do know this fact, yes. Unforgivable. Every western country has so many skeletons in their collective closets.
Polymathena
Sickening
Morganelefay
If Leopold had been in charge of a more powerful nation, he'd be remembered as worse than Hitler or Stalin.
Jeffrey24388
hey we tried our hardest
FrankDepiction
If he hadn't wiped out so many of his own subjects, he could have been in charge of a more powerful nation.
Morganelefay
True, but he didn't have a powerful home base like Germany or Russia.
Anfalicious
Fun fact: it was the conditions of Leopold's Congo that probably led to the start of the aids epidemic.
The11thPlague
How? Leopold's hold over Congo ended in 1908. Congo became independent from Belgium in 1960. AIDS was first described in 1981.
coughingintensifies
Things can exists before being described.
The11thPlague
Yes, they can. But that's in the realm of speculation. Let's not dilute facts with that. Someone risked their lives to document these crimes, we should remember actual history, not make a fanfic.
Anfalicious
That allowed HIV to get a foothold in a human population (theres actually at least 4 jumps to human, but 3 of them pretty much die out). It bubbles around in the congo for the next 40 years and then jumps to Haiti in 1960. Its it in new york by the early 70s at the latest. The while 1981 description says more about out the health care system and medical science than it does about HIV. And the whole "patient 0" thing from the early 80s is completely wrong (and a misread of Patient O, the letter
Anfalicious
Ooh, cool, i get to share new research. So it looks like the AIDS varient responsible for the epidemic makes the leap to humans in the Congo around 1920; so a little after Leopold, but still very much the conditions he created. Its probably the pressure of colonisation that increases the need for bush meat (the initial transfer), and then the mass movement of people centralising into the capital, combined with the poverty that pushes people to sex work that creates the initial 'petrie dish'
Anfalicious
Pretty much everything we thought we knew about the start of the AIDS epidemic 20 years ago was wrong: https://youtu.be/zZExQRjYZSo the Patient 0/O stuff is especially frustrating given how big a role it plays in the demonisation of gay men, when in actual fact its just cos the guy took copious notes and contributes more to restrict the spread in the early 80s than most of medicine
The11thPlague
Did you really use this story as an excuse to post a YouTube ad?!
Anfalicious
Not an ad, im not getting paid. Its a citation. Its PBS, good enough for this kind of thing.
The11thPlague
It IS a 6 seconds advertisement, without anything else. Check your link.
CrisprCAS
I'd recommend anyone still clinging to the hope that humans are decent not read about the Belgian Congo.
BranDohCalrissian
Or sugar plantations
powwerbottom
Decent humans including many missionaries, travelers, and consuls, and others like Roger Casement, E.D. Morel and his Congo Reform Association, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, and Arthur Conan Doyle widely documented and exposed the mass murder and violence. Public outrage from decent humans across the globe led decent humans in the Belgian parliament to investigate, strip Leopold II of his ownership, and bring the corporate-state to a close in 1908. "Look for the helpers - you will always find them"
olafthrig
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1OWgxd2NxejZidm5oYjl1dGFqbTBjcXJyeWVuaGQzd3k1MGs4cXJhYyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/KE58LJF3k8jug/200w.webp
khalwat
Heart of Darkness by Conrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness
CALAMOSCOPYJANE
Fun fact: English was not Joseph Conrad's native language. And yet he wrote in it masterfully.
DarkAshelin
As a Belgian, I am deeply appalled by the fact I never was taught a single thing about Belgian Congo in school.
sangman
Also that we still have statues of Leopold II around to this day.
Whodimi
As a Belgian I was taught about about Belgian Congo 25 years ago in high school general education. My sister followed a vocational education and learned almost nothing besides the bare necessities she needed for the professional life. In the current learning objectives the history of Congo has been included even pre colonial history. 25 years ago the atrocities were just a footnote in what I was taught.
CALAMOSCOPYJANE
Wow really? Even in Canada we're taught about Canadian atrocities committed against indigenous people. Fucking horrific. Belgium was worse though. If these horrors can even be placed upon a scale, ffs.
Rhadjaz
Also from Belgium and we spent multiple lessons on it.
Firsthope
Or how his rule helped start the AIDS epidemic.
The11thPlague
Leopold II's hold over Congo ended in 1908. He died in 1909. Congo became independent from Belgium in 1960. AIDS was first described in 1981.
Firsthope
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-29442642
Firsthope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS
whiskeywonka
Or any history at all
thinkybrainpains
Or watch or read the news
Tengenstein
Leopold was pretty fucking aweful.
Aranon1183
Awful*
DWolf
I think Rhodesia is up there with the worst.
WhyDontYouMakeMe
Rhodesia was such a shitshow. Commonwealth citizens fighting communists fighting white supremacists fighting the actual people who lived there fighting the colonizers trying to set up another apartheid state
WhyDontYouMakeMe
And several of those categories of combatants overlap
countbassy
‘Hold my beer’ -Donald Trump
Perkunas687
I think of all the human history I've read (a lot of it, though notably lacking in east Asian history), the part of human history that seemed the least bad/most good was pre-European Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Hundreds of years of internal relative peace under the Great Law of Peace, domestic stability that translated to some regional stability too, working within nature without dominating it, gender equality, many other things. Some ritual torture of outside foes (par for course),
Perkunas687
but not bloodthirsty, not constantly raiding. Close family units, close clan ties. I've often thought that a human society premised largely on pre-European Haudenosaunee Confederacy + modern medicine and basic tech would probably be one of the better societies to exist in. Lot of horrific human history, but every now and then someone makes a pretty good attempt at some better history. 2/2
whiskeywonka
My biggest issue with human history (not an expert by any means) is that often they do not leave records of the real day to day. As the saying goes, it is wrote by the victors.
newwoolmonosta
well said, well said.