Williams fought on the Union side of the Civil War as a young man, later enlisted in the fight against Leopold’s brother in law Maximillion to take back Mexico, and briefly fought in the Indian Wars. Explain the role race played in imperialism. Agreeing to pay him today’s equivalent of $250,000 a year, Leopold ordered Stanley to begin building a road from Africa’s western coast into the interior. However, as the terrain became increasingly treacherous and the waters more tumultuous, he decided it was actually the Congo. When Stanley was finished with his work and returned to Europe, he saw that the grab for Africa had begun.

This study guide contains the following sections: This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Access Full Document.

Throughout the 1870s, Leopold cunningly established a reputation as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who wanted to spread Christianity and civilization to Africa. Morel worked for the shipping company that had the monopoly on bringing goods to and from the Congo. The relief expedition was a disaster: the party trekked through previously uncharted parts of the rainforest where they died by the hundreds from disease, malnourishment, and Stanley’s mistreatment and terrible leadership. Needing another country to recognize and legitimize his claim to the Congo before some other nation takes it, Leopold sends Sanford to talk to the American president.

Chapter 3 Summary: The Magnificent Cake. Adam Hochschild’s “King Leopold’s Ghost” is a lost historical account starting in the late 19th century continuing into the 20th century of the enslavement of an entire country. His British fiancee and her family buried him in an unmarked grave, and he was largely forgotten by history. He used shockingly brutal methods to control the Congolese tribes. Stanley, with a group of porters, guards, and guides, marched in from the east of Africa. This trip did not go as smoothly, although it did end well for Stanley. By the 1890s, King Leopold personally controlled all the land in the Congo, thanks to Stanley ’s intimidation policies in the previous decade. The King Leopold’s Ghost Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you.

They arrived to find that the rebel threat had already receded years before. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild Plot Summary | LitCharts.

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. By 1905, the international public had turned against Leopold and his actions in the Congo, despite his continual efforts to curb people's’ opinions.

While he continued to work hard to control publicity surrounding the Congo, Morel and Casement proved too strong for him; by 1905, there was an international outcry surrounding Leopold’s regime. Morel, it seems, took a condescending, paternalistic view of African people, even as he devoted his adult life to protecting them from exploitation. Read the Study Guide for King Leopold’s Ghost…, View Wikipedia Entries for King Leopold’s Ghost…. Stanley was the sole source for news of the whole trip, as Livingstone supposedly chose to stay in Africa and died soon after, so he painted it as a heroic and fully successful adventure. In many ways the Congo reform movement was a triumph of human rights activism, but in other ways, little has changed in the hundred years since the movement ended.

Little changed inside the country, however, until the ivory and rubber were exhausted.

Now, he sets his sights on becoming a freelance journalist, and travels across the country recounting the Indian Wars. He converted the Emperor of Uganda to Christianity, massacred local tribes, and doled out strict punishments for his own people. Actual change, however, was nearly imperceptible. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. Leopold presented himself as a philanthropist eager to bring salvation and civilization to the savages of Africa. Morel founded a newspaper in which he criticized Leopold’s cruelty in the Congo, and he assembled a large body of testimonies by witnesses to Belgian atrocity. Administration officials so completely dehumanized local peoples that at least one decorated his flower garden with a border of severed human heads.

He didn’t stay in the position long, though, and went to Washington where he got a jot at a newspaper. Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost offers a substantial overview of the period from 1895 until 1908 when King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo—or at least the very large territory around the Congo River basin that he claimed as his own.

The legacy of imperialism continues today in the Congo. Meanwhile, early missionaries and human rights advocates began to circulate news of the widespread atrocities committed in the Congo under the official blessing of Leopold's administration. Eventually his work caused the Belgian parliament to reform some of their policies in the Congo. Written by people who wish to remain anonymous.

European interest in the African continent can be traced back to the late 1400s, when a European explorer sailed the west coast and discovered the Congo River.

Pages: 3 Words: 528 Views: 279. Overview. They traveled with 356 other people, mostly Africans, to help porter their boat across rivers and navigate.

Complete summary of Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. With his landholdings now secure, Leopold proceeded to develop his land. Once he passed the point where he had found Livingstone before, and communications were no longer possible, he followed a large river in hopes it was the beginning of the Nile. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Topics: Summary. Shortly afterwards, Leopold died, leaving his colonial properties to the Belgian government.

In part because American politicians believed that the Congo could be a future resettlement site for African Americans, the U.S. government formally recognized the Congo as a Belgian territory, which caused a domino effect whereby the major European powers had to recognize Belgium’s presence in the Congo, too. Moving within the European political paradigm existing in the early 1880s, Leopold gained international concessions and recognition for his personal claim to the Congo Free State. He also ordered his Belgian administrators in the Congo to enslave African people, first as ivory hunters and porters, and later as rubber harvesters.

However, Williams died of tuberculosis shortly after penning his articles, which undercut his efficacy. This Study Guide consists of approximately 41 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - Leopold told him to convince Sudan’s remaining province’s governor to make the territory part of the Congo. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”, LitCharts uses cookies to personalize our services. The book, also a general biography of the private life of Leopold, succeeded in increasing public awareness of these crimes in recent decades. help you understand the book. Stanley’s feat of crossing Africa was of great interest to King Leopold.

After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. Struggling with distance learning? While going through the records, and observing what was coming on and off the ship in Africa, he noticed that next to nothing was being brought from Europe to pay for the large amounts of rubber and ivory coming out. A different man made a similar deal with France, and other countries followed. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Flogging, starvation and torture were routine. Another traveler in the Congo to point out these atrocities is much more well known, although he did not say anything about what he saw there until nearly ten years after his return. Leopold died not long after in 1909. Teachers and parents! Despite the Belgian government promising huge reforms on policy in the Congo, little actually changed in the way that the Congo was governed. This public outcry caused Leopold to give the Congo to the Belgian parliament, who annexed it in 1908 as the Belgian Congo. One of the most famous pieces of 20th century literature, the book is almost exclusively discussed for its literary quality, and its historical accuracy and meaning is rarely acknowledged. The “magnificent cake” of this chapter’s title refers to Leopold’s description of Africa and how he wants a “slice” of it. (including. The King managed to keep his true intentions of creating an imperial colony a secret by having his underlings going around the world and talking about his philanthropic plans for the Congo. The people living near the mouth of the Congo river interpreted the white sailors as vumbi—ancestral ghosts—since the Congo people believed that a person's skin changed to the color of chalk when he died. Henry Morton Stanley, a complicated man and renowned explorer, ventured through much of that unknown during a descent of the Congo River. Under his direction, Stanley again visited the area and extracted favorable treaties from numerous local leaders. The ship arrives in New Orleans, where he changed his name to Stanley and worked for a cotton Broker. When newspapers published some of his letter, some of the public started to question Leopold’s intentions. Why did the Africans believe that the white sailors were vumbi? By the 1860s, most African coastal regions were claimed as colonies of European powers, but the vast interior of the continent remained unknown to Europeans. Privately, however, Leopold aspired to rule over the land surrounding the Congo River in Africa, using the territory as a source of revenue for his country. As buzz surrounding the Congo spread, other countries began trying to stake their claim. Slowly, various nations, including Great Britain and the United States of America, began to object to Leopold's tyranny with the result that the country's administration was transferred to Belgium. When this arrangement fell apart, Stanley was sent to the St. Asaph Union Workhouse, where he would remain until running away at fifteen. His work attracted the attention of James Gordon Bennett Jr., the publisher of the New York Herald, who sent him to Africa to search for the missing explorer Livingstone (although it seems likely now that Bennett sent him to Africa to cover a different story, and Stanley just made up the instruction to search for Livingstone).

He got out of the prison camp by enlisting in the Union military, and worked as a clerk on the ship Minnesota before deserting in 1865.

Access Full Document. In response, Stanley led an expedition to battle the rebels, paid for by the British Royal Society and various newspapers. However, he found this first part of the journey enjoyable compared to the latter half.

Unhappy soldiers and missionaries returning from the Congo gave Morel photographs, private letters, and classified briefings from military leaders, which he published as further evidence. A road and, eventually, a rail line were developed from the coast to Leopoldville (present Kinshasa). When he got there, however, he encountered white officers who tormented the Africans there, and later wrote about his short travels there in his pseudo-memoir Heart of Darkness. At the same time, Leopold arranged for the government of the United States to formally recognize Leopold’s landholdings in the Congo.

When he heard about what Stanley was petitioning for (the Congo to be recognized as Leopold’s), Williams thought the labor needed for his colony would be the perfect opportunity for African American men to work somewhere where they were respected and treated as equals. Christian missionaries and a handful of human rights organizers internationally publicized these atrocities. Sanford had helped Leopold under the illusion that the Congo would be open to free trade, but his opinion of Leopold quickly changed after the conference, and Sanford died not a year later.

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