Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death describes how King Leopold II of Belgium turned Congo into its personal colony in between 1885 and 1908.
Beneath his handle, Congo grew to become a gulag labor camp of shocking brutality. Leopold posed since the protector of Africans fleeing Arab slave-traders but, in actuality, he carved out an empire according to terror to harvest rubber.
Households had been held as hostages, starving to death if the males failed to make sufficient wild rubber. Children’s palms had been chopped off as punishment for late deliveries.












