King Leopold II of Belgium sought to acquire a colony for Belgium in the late 19th century. He set his sights on the largely unexplored Congo region of Central Africa. Through deception and exploitation, Leopold was able to establish a private colony called the Congo Free State. He used forced labor and brutal violence to extract resources from the Congo for his own profit. Mark Twain satirized Leopold's rule in his 1905 work "King Leopold's Soliloquy," exposing the horrific reality of the regime through humor and mocking Leopold's claimed justifications for his actions. The work provided one of the most accurate depictions of Leopold's cruel exploitation of the Congolese people.

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King Leopold’s…
“Now why should a king value the respect of the human race? It is quite unreasonable to
expect it”.1
Although King Leopold II, the monarch of Belgium from 1885-1909 and of the Congo
Free State from 1885-1908, never actually spoke the aforementioned words, his actions as an
imperialist tyrant leave no doubt that they are what he believed. Unfortunately for Leopold, he
did not come to power during an earlier age of imperialism, when conquering as much land as
possible and either slaughtering or enslaving the indigenous population was expected and
venerated by other countries. This tyrant was born instead into a world more inclined to
condemn slavery and the old form of colonialism, a parasitic relationship which benefited only
the colonizer, where imperialist countries were expected to race to obtain the most colonies.
Instead, they worked under the façade of civilizing the local population for their own benefit,
oftentimes through Christian missionary work. Leopold was fairly bored during the time leading
up to his work the acquisition of the Congo for tiny Belgium, whose people and Parliament had
no desire for a colony. He felt he had “too little to do”, and thus set his sights on opportunities
abroad.2 Years before Europe’s “Scramble for Africa” and its manifestation at the Berlin
Conference of 1884-85, King Leopold had his eyes set on a colony to support his miniscule
country, and the still relatively untouched continent of Africa provided the most promising
venture.
Leopold also understood the changing mood of the public as abolitionism and piety swept
across the Western world, so he did everything in his power to paint a mask of philanthropy,
1 Mark Twain, King Leopold’sSoliloquy, (New York: International Publishers, 1970), 34.
2 Ruth Sade, King Leopold’s Congo, (London: Oxford University press,1962), 35.

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devoutness, and anti-slavery rhetoric to gain the support of his peers.3 Once he earned
international recognition for his private ownership of a massive territory in Central Africa, to
become the Congo Free State, his exploitative intentions became increasingly more apparent and
attracted growing attention from the public as one writer or human rights activist after another
started producing accounts of his treachery over the colony he would never once set foot in.4 He
was by no means the first author to produce a critical view of King Leopold’s Congo, but in
1905 Mark Twain jumped on the new anti-imperialist bandwagon with a series of essays, most
relevantly his satirical piece called King Leopold’s Soliloquy (multi-faceted writing piece –
fictional but factual in that it still uses statistics to support the satire (difference between fiction
and satire?)) in which he steps into the role of the king himself and gives a first-person defense
of his rule over the Congo. Twain saw right through King Leopold’s use of the ideology and
rhetoric of his day to advance his agenda, and over a brief forty-page piece, he mocks Leopold’s
humanitarian claims to no end. Twain uses two different defenses for Leopold’s rule in the
Congo: the religious/philanthropist charade and the more transparent argument mentioned in the
opening of this paper - a king’s power is divinely given and thus should not be questioned by
ordinary people. As Leopold, Twain talks of “lifting up” the Congolese population with
Christianity and calls his relative enslavement of the Congolese people “God-approved”.5
Compared with nonfiction works by other authors of Twain and King Leopold’s time and
statistics from the period of Leopold’s rule, Twain’s satire gives a disturbingly accurate account
of the cruelty exerted by Leopold, the suavely deliberate language and relationships the king
used to gain control over the Congo, and the plethora of critics who challenged him.
Additionally, other fictional and firsthand accounts from the late nineteenth – early twentieth
3 Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’sGhost, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 1.
4 Hochschild, 189.
5 Twain, 4-6.

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centuries of the Congo focus on the atrocities faced by the Congolese people and the mystery and
intrigue affiliated with Central Africa, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy gives a more truthful
account of King Leopold’s rule over the Congo Free State and the perseverance and skill
he used to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a colonial power than any other text of the
era (my working thesis).
Before jumping into the particular literary techniques Twain used to bring out the
horrendousness of Leopold’s rule, it is important to understand that when Leopold first set his
sights on making the Congo his own personal investment, it was still completely uncharted
territory, the majority of which had never experienced the presence of a White man. Even the
source of the colossal Congo River was unknown to the entire Western World in the years
leading up to the Berlin Conference and Leopold’s triumph. The abuse and destruction of the
Congo and its people began before Leopold succesfully acquired the area with his enlistment of
an explorer to find a rough idea of what the interior of the African continent even looked like.
Leopold sought after perhaps the most prominent explorer of his age, Henry Morton Stanley,
who already had experience embarking on an expedition through Central Africa when he was
assigned the task of locating his fellow explorer Dr. David Livingston, who had been missing for
some years but turned out to be content living amongst the locals. Stanley was still revered
around the world but was also notorious for his utter disrespect for the land and his superiority
complex. He traveled with boats, guns, and hundreds of escorts making up his posse, most of
whom ended up abandoning the expedition, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, by escaping
into the wilderness or perishing along the way.6 In the hopes of expanding his territory even
farther and under the façade of rescuing the missing Emin Pasha, ruler of Southern Sudan,
Leopold would enlist Stanley’s help again, paying no regard to the death and destruction that
6 Hochschild, 63.

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occurred throughout his previous expedition.7 Leopold’s lust for wealth and land far out-
shadowed his concern for the preservation of the people and territory he coveted. His actions
speak to his intelligence and drive to achieve his ultimate goal, but also the ruthlessness that
Leopold and his fellow ambitious but twisted white colonizers applied to their newly acquired
territories. Leopold and his peers in the Second Age of Imperialism used the now outdated
discipline of phrenology (in Lehman’s terms, the White Man’s Burden) along with religion to
justify the same patterns of brutal colonization they had already been practicing for centuries
(find citation?).
Prior to the Berlin Conference and Stanley’s exploration, Belgium hosted the 1876
Brussels Geographic Conference, during which Leopold made it very clear that he wanted to
acquire a colony for Belgium. The conference would result in the creation of the International
African Association, an organization that would back expeditions through the east coast of
Africa towards the African Great Lakes.8 The Association switched to funding Stanley’s
expedition in 1877. While Stanley was scoping out the territory Leopold increasingly viewed to
be his own, the King continued to focus on the flaming hoop he would have to jump through
before he could acquire the Congo: diplomacy. The two countries Leopold felt could put up
significant competition for control of the Congo were France and Great Britain. Stanley actually
exacerbated Leopold’s fears about Great Britain possibly obtaining the Congo, because although
Leopold gave Stanley the job of scoping out the territory, Stanley was notorious for publicly
speaking of his work towards a British Congo. In order to curb Stanley’s public faux pas,
Leopold actually convinced Stanley to return to his expedition (and out of the public eye) after
7 Hochschild, 96.
8 Slade, 37.

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he had fallen ill and his doctors advised that he remain away from Africa to recover.9 Once
again, Leopold’s determination and greed drove him to achieve his ultimate goal of procuring the
Congo for himself, even if it meant risking the lives of those people who enlisted to help him.
Leopold was not the only person who feared the possibility of a British Congo; France
had also sent an explorer into Central Africa and was aware of King Leopold’s intentions but felt
tiny Belgian would never be able to obtain or sustain control over a colony as large as the Congo.
France dreaded that when Leopold (inevitably) ran out of money attempting to build a railway
through the Congo, Britain would be able to swoop in and purchase or take over the land.10 As
the Congo’s natural resources became increasingly apparent but Leopold continued to spend the
earnings on developing the colony and his own country on top of personal purchases, the king
would go through a roller coaster ride with his financial situation, but never go fully bankrupt as
France predicted. To finally secure and maintain his colony, Leopold would have to continue to
build upon a philanthropic image for himself and his relationships with countries that could
approve of his claim and were not competing for the territory as well. In 1878, he would form
the Comite d’Etudes du Haut-Congo (Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo), to be
replaced by the International Association of the Congo in 1882. Leopold’s intentions behind the
new association were well hidden; he played it off as a small, non-political, philanthropic
organization, which in fact had very political and economic aims. The association existed so
men including Stanley would trick local Congolese rulers into signing treaties that would give
Leopold sovereignty and a commercial monopoly over their land. Luckily for Belgium, or at
9 Hochschild, 69.
10 Hochschild, 82.

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least Leopold, Britain had little interest in the Congo but wanted to keep France away from the
territory, so their lack of enthusiasm for the colony aided the King’s aspirations.11
One country that was pivotal to Leopold’s success in acquiring the Congo territory
acknowledged the Congo’s existence amid the struggle for power in Europe: the United States.
Through the help of General Henry Shelton Sanford, a former plantation owner who helped
Leopold recruit Stanley for the mission and also ran a lobbying campaign in favor of a Belgian
Congo, on April 22, 1884, Secretary of State James G. Blaine declared the United States to be
the first country to recognize King Leopold’s Congo.12 American recognition of the Congo
under Charles Arthur’s presidency was the last step Leopold needed before the Conference of
Berlin to cement his rule over the Congo. Although he did not even attend the Conference,
which lasted form 1884-1885, Leopold was perhaps the most successful player in the settlement
of conflicting claims in Africa. He was able to obtain the seaport of Matadi which sat on the
lower stretch of the Congo River (the area he desired the most) while France and Portugal
received some land they wanted near the river delta. He also managed to win official British
support for his rule of the Congo by insinuating that he would leave Africa completely if he
failed to get the land he coveted, meaning he would likely sell the territory to France, Britain’s
greatest fear. By the time all the necessary signatures had been scribbled and the Conference
came to a close in February 1885, King Leopold’s sharp diplomatic and deceptive abilities had
been proven to be proficient, but his web of fraud would soon be unraveled by Twain and his
contemporaries within and outside the literary field.13
11 Slade, 38-39.
12 Hochschild, 80-81.
13 Hochschild, 86.

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Conclusion: Talk about how satire at times reveals more truth than fiction (credit to Dr.
Gray in his American Politics class after showing a clip from the Colbert Report)

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