Overview

This study examines the system of forced labour and terror imposed by the Belgian King Leopold II in the Independent State of the Congo (the territory of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as Zaire) during the period from 1885 to 1908. The aim was to develop the rubber export industry and its exploitation. However, the harvesting of this product was carried out through violence. Local workers were recruited and forced into slavery to collect the necessary quantities of rubber, left entirely at the mercy and whim of the officers of the Independent State of the Congo, under threat of severe punishments such as the amputation of hands. Adopting a policy of monopoly over this trade, he enacted several laws turning the Congo into an agricultural enterprise for the benefit of the crown and the king's personal property. From 1892 onwards, he imposed a system of forced labour on the population, later known as the 'rubber terror'; this system of exploitation resulted in millions of deaths and maimings at the turn of the 20th century.

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