Leopold II of Belgium

King of the Belgians

9 April 1835 Brussels, Belgium

17 December 1909(1909-12-17) (74) Laeken, Brussels, Belgium

Names Dutch: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor French: Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor German: Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor

Second King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Congo Free State King of the Belgians Leopold IIRoyal portrait, c. 1900 King of the BelgiansReign17 December 1865 – 17 December 1909 PredecessorLeopold ISuccessorAlbert IPrime Ministers See list Charles RogierWalthère Frère-OrbanBaron d'AnethanJules MalouAuguste BeernaertJules de BurletPaul de Smet de NaeyerJules VandenpeereboomPaul de Smet de NaeyerJules de TroozFrançois Schollaert Sovereign of the Congo Free StateReign1 July 1885 – 15 November 1908 Governors-general See list Théophile WahisCamille JanssenFrancis de Winton Born(1835-04-09 ) 9 April 1835 Brussels, BelgiumDied17 December 1909(1909-12-17) (aged 74) Laeken, Brussels, BelgiumBurialChurch of Our Lady of LaekenSpouseMarie Henriette of Austria ​ ​(m. 1853 ; died 1902 )​ Caroline Lacroix (disputed) ​ ​(m. 1909 )​Issue (among other) Princess Louise Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant Stéphanie, Crown Princess of Austria Princess Clémentine HouseSaxe-Coburg and GothaFatherLeopold I of BelgiumMotherLouise of OrléansReligionRoman Catholicism Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and, through his own efforts, the owner and absolute ruler of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Born in Brussels as the second but eldest surviving son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for 44 years until his death—the longest reign of any Belgian monarch. He died without surviving legitimate sons. The current Belgian king descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I. Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. Leopold ignored these conditions and ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of natural rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber. Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State was characterised by atrocities, including torture and murder, resulting from notorious systematic brutality. In 1890, George Washington Williams coined the term "crimes against humanity" to describe the practices of Leopold II of Belgium's administration of the Congo Free State. The hands of men, women, and children were amputated when the quota of rubber was not met and millions of the Congolese people died. Colonial accounts typically emphasized Leopold's modernizing changes in the Congo and not the mass death he facilitated. These and other facts were established at the time by eyewitness testimony, on-site inspection by an international commission of inquiry, and the 1904 Casement Report. Modern estimates range from 1 million to 15 million deaths, with a consensus growing around 10 million. Some historians argue against these figures, citing the lack of reliable censuses, the enormous mortality caused by smallpox and African trypanosomiasis, and the fact that there were only 175 administrative agents in charge of rubber exploitation. In 1908, the reports of deaths and abuse and pressure from the Congo Reform Association and other international groups induced the Belgian government to take over the administration of the Congo from Leopold as a new territory, Belgian Congo.