King Leopold II: Belgium 'Wakes Up' To Its Bloody Colonial Past; Exploitation, Racism, Atrocities
Last edited Mon Jun 15, 2020, 01:24 PM - Edit history (4)
- Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past.' By Georgina Rannard, BBC, June 13, 2020.
Inside the palatial walls of Belgium's Africa Museum stand statues of Leopold II - each one a monument to the king whose rule killed as many as 10 million Africans.
Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town".
The museum is largely protected by heritage law but, in the streets outside, monuments to a monarch who seized a huge swathe of Central Africa in 1885 have no such security.
Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels.
Leopold II's rule in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo was so bloody it was eventually condemned by other European colonialists in 1908 - but it has taken far longer to come under scrutiny at home...
- Read More, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53017188
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* Also Read: "King Leopold's Ghost," Book Review, The Guardian, 1999.
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/13/features11.g22
* Also Read: "Where Human Zoos Once Stood A Belgium Museum Now Faces Its Colonial Past," NPR.
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/649600217/where-human-zoos-once-stood-a-belgian-museum-now-faces-its-colonial-past
- Leopold II ruled Belgium from 1865-1909 - activists want this statue in Brussels removed due to his brutal regime in Congo Free State.
- Thousands marched in Black Lives Matter protests in Belgium, June 2020.
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*** WARNING, DISTURBING GRAPIC IMAGES ***
- Colonial officials amputated and mutilated Congolese people, including children, as punishment.
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* "Human Zoos: A Shocking History of Shame and Exploitation," CBC, 2017.
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/human-zoos-a-shocking-history-of-shame-and-exploitation
* "Human Zoos, When People Were The Exhibits," DW, 2017
https://www.dw.com/en/human-zoos-when-people-were-the-exhibits/a-37748193#
- Congolese people were forced to be human exhibits in a "zoo" in Belgium in 1897.
- In 1958, an African girl is shown at the Expo in Brussels, Belgium that featured a 'Congo Village' with visitors watching her from behind wooden fences. Visitors gave the Congo people peanuts and snacks.
*"The Shameful History of Human Zoos: Displaying ‘Exotic Foreigners’ Only Stopped 60 Yrs Ago," Ancient Origins, 2019. (Excerpts, Edited). https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/human-zoos-0011420
During the late 19th & early 20th centuries, the shocking display of human beings of various ethnicities was in vogue especially in the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, & Germany. One of the factors contributing to the popularity of these human zoos was that they exhibited ‘exotic’ peoples from different parts of the world. - Origins: Since ancient times displays of foreign captives were paraded around by Roman generals during their triumph in Rome. It showed victory over enemies and entertained people who were eager to see strange people from other lands. Famous captives paraded included Cleopatra Selene II, Alexander Helios, Ptolemy Philadelphus (children of Mark Antony & Cleopatra), & Vercingetorix (Gallic leader defeated by Julius Caesar).
- How Human Zoos Evolved: During the Age of Exploration, Spanish & Portuguese explorers would often bring back foreign plants, animals, & even people, to prove that their voyages were a success. The displays were accessible only to elites at royal courts. In the 17th and 18th c., having servants of non-European descent was a sign of an aristocrat’s wealth. (~ Native American Pocahontas of Va. was taken to London in the early 1600s and met with the court. She became ill & died, and is buried in England). Things changed in the early 19th cent., between 1810- 1815, a South African woman named Saartjie Baartman (pejoratively known as the 'Hottentot Venus') was displayed in London & Paris as a ‘freak show’. It was the first modern instance of a foreign individual displayed for entertainment of the European masses & served as a precursor for human zoos, called ‘ethnological expositions.’
- Early 19th c. French print of 'La Belle Hottentot.' Saartjie, 'Sara' Baartman (1789-1815) was displayed in London & Paris in the early 1800s. Foreign individuals like her were exhibited at fairs & carnivals with other ‘freak shows.’ The emphasis was on the difference between foreigners & the European public; distinction between ‘normal’ & ‘abnormal’ was then replaced by ‘civilized’ & ‘savage’ during the 2nd half of the 1800s, as a result of New Imperialism.
- A group of Aboriginals captured in Australia and put on tour throughout Europe and America in the PT BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS shows of ‘human curiosities.’ They were portrayed as fierce savages and cannibals.
As the European powers began to establish colonies across the world, especially in Africa, there was growing appetite for displays of conquered peoples who were perceived as less civilized than themselves. Native villages were featured at most international fairs & expositions. The display of ‘savage’ foreigners in human zoos, however, was not limited to Europe. In the U.S., the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair boasted a number of ‘living exhibits’, including more than 1,000 Filipinos placed in recreated villages. *In Japan, an exhibition of Koreans, who were portrayed as cannibals, was organized in 1903, seven years prior to the Japanese colonization of Korea.
- Human Zoos Come to an End: Human zoos began to lose popularity as the 20th c. progressed. One of the last instances of the phenomenon was in 1958, at the World’s Fair in Brussels, where a Congolese Village was featured. Towards their end, human zoos were criticized as degrading, racist, and unethical but didn't lose public appeal. The start of motion pictures is what drew the masses away from zoos and into cinemas.
- 1893 poster advertising the display of the Sami people of Scandinavia and north Europe.
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