THEmeticulous investigation published by the American journalist Adam Hochschild, aptly subtitled a forgotten holocaust, is overwhelming. Towards the end of the 1870s, the echo of the exploits of the American explorer Henry Morton Stanley in Africa reached the court of Belgium. What Leopold, constitutional monarch of a tiny country, remembers is that there are virgin lands somewhere to conquer. It's decided, he will be the patron of this somewhat tinkering journalist explorer who is quick to draw on the native African. For five years, from 1885 to 1890, Stanley, whom Africans call Boula Matari, will not be unemployed. Under cover of civilizing expeditions, he founded a chain of trading posts along the Congo River. Illiterate African chiefs sign documents in which they acknowledge full ownership of their land to the king, and undertake to provide him with the personnel necessary for the exploitation and transport of ivory and rubber.
Rape, burning of villages, mutilations, whipping, slavery, newborn babies thrown into ditches. Leopold's officials do not spare their efforts. The Congolese enlisted in the public force are not better treated. To obtain a disciplined army and a workforce that was as docile as it was free, wives and children were taken hostage. When the first damning testimonies reach Europe and the United States, nobody believes it and nobody cares.
