What the world now knows as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was once the Congo Free State and was controlled by Leopold II, a Belgian monarch. Leopold feigned having philanthropic work to do and created his corporate colony in 1885. King Leopold was head of the Association Internationale Africaine and this Congolese area became his private property at the Conference of Berlin. Shortly after, Leopold began his rubber-collecting expedition. Rubber was a cash crop at the time with the surge of usage in tires and other items. He and his team, the Force Publique exploited the Native people so as to produce huge quotas of rubber. The treatment of these local people was extremely brutal and lead to an estimated death toll of nearly half of TCFS. The Force Publique was known for it's horrendous behaviors regarding the Natives where it was routine to torture, flog, rape and/or mutilate the working villagers they oversaw. This genocide can clearly be blamed on the abuses faced by villagers who didn't adhere to the nearly impossible rubber standards of Leopold, as well as starvation, a reduction of births and an increase in disease.
The atrocities that took place in the Congo Free State were what lead to it's demise. Competition with other rubber-harvesting companies, the demands of the public and The British Congo Reform Association all succeeded in ending Leopold's reign. Belgium's parliament annexed the Congo Free State in 1908.
Works Cited: http://cobweb.sfasu.edu/sbradley/Classes/homepages/Congo_Free_State/
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