A Study of Media and the Imagined Community in King Leopold II’s Congo
By: Brooke Spencer
Belgium was too small for the dreams that King Leopold II had for himself and for his country. Belgium acquired independence in 1830 and with this independence came the dreams of expanding Belgium and these dreams started with Leopold II’s father, King Leopold I. However, his father failed in getting any colonial territories and Leopold II seemed determined to overcome his father’s shortcomings. Leopold II tried and failed to buy the Philippines from Spain and acquire any new territory but after that failed he would eventually invest interest in the “Dark Continent” and newspapers at this time helped sparked this interest. Leopold writes to one of his officials, “For the moment, neither Spain nor the Portuguese nor the Dutch are inclined to sell […] I intend to find out discreetly if there’s anything to be done in Africa.”[1] After these unsuccessful attempts Leopold II became obsessed with Henry Morton Stanley and would get British and American newspapers delivered to him just so he could read Stanley’s articles on Africa. Stanley was becoming extremely famous at the time for his explorations in Africa and for finding the infamous David Livingstone. He followed the stories that Stanley wrote for the newspapers and figured that if he could get Stanley’s attention than he would be able to convince him to help in acquiring some territory in the Congo region, which was the area that Stanley was exploring. Eventually Leopold II convened a Geographical conference on September 12, 1876 to promote his image as a humanitarian and to convince people that he wanted to civilize and Christianize the people of Africa. In his opening address he states, “Need I tell you that in summoning you to Brussels I have not been guided by egotistical views? No, gentlemen; if Belgium is small, she is happy and satisfied with her lot, and I have no other ambition than to serve her well.”[2] However, this was far from the truth, Leopold II had a lot more ambition than to just rule his small nation. After the Geographical Conference, Leopold set up a meeting with Henry Stanley in 1878 to discuss the Congo. Stanley eventually agreed to work with Leopold to help him build stations, install communication networks, and sign treaties with the native chiefs in the area. Leopold also used Stanley to further his image as a humanitarian because he knew that Stanley had a hand in the United States and United Kingdom newspapers. Without knowing it Stanley was helping Leopold create an imagined community.
The world was becoming smaller because people in the United States, Germany, Britain, Spain, Belgium and many other countries thought they were reading the same thing. The public did not quite comprehend the fact that the media could be lying about the stories that they were printing. As technology progressed and media such as newspapers became more prevalent throughout the world, many countries started to develop what is known as an imagined community. Benedict Anderson explains, “It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives an image of their communion.”[3] This image comes from objects such as flags and songs of their country in order to bring them together. However, another image of communion was just as important as these and that was the media. Newspapers, pictures, and books would be spread across nations and these would aid in the imagined connection to the people of each nation. Technology such as the telegram also helped in the creation of the Congo because without the telegram communication would have been much more difficult between the King and his leaders in the Congo. King Leopold II was using the New York Times and the London Evening Standard to encourage people to support him in acquiring the Congo basin territory. Not only did Leopold II have to convince his own nation to support him, he needed the rest of the world to support him as well. Leopold would create a massive imagined community in which the people within believed they were coming together to support a continent in need, a continent in which Leopold could help and make it a civilized nation that could join the rest of the world. King Leopold II used the New York Times and the London Evening Standard in order to create his Congo and in turn this would create not only a nationally imagined community but also a universal one.
Historians have argued about King Leopold II’s Congo since he relinquished control in 1908. For this particular topic, however, not a lot has been said about how the Belgian Congo connects with Benedict Anderson’s idea of an Imagined Community. Other scholars have argued about nationalism and the feeling of connectedness of the people in one nation.[4] Marx argues that nationalism is formed through a process of exclusion while most scholars argue that nationalism is formed through some sort of process of inclusion. While Shnapper has a unique argument that contributes to this topic, it is still a form of inclusion. These historians are arguing whether a nation is brought together by inclusion or exclusion while Anderson throws a whole new argument into the mix. Benedict Anderson is right in his thinking about nationalism and that it is an imagined state among the people of the nation. He argues that nationalism is imagined and that the connection people feel to each other in various nations is not real but is imagined by the people. Although Anderson makes a valid argument he is flawed in one aspect. Anderson argues, “The most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their nation in the way that it was possible.”[5] Here, Anderson is arguing that an imagined community is confined to just a nation and that people from all over the world could not come together to form an imagined community. However, King Leopold II and his Belgian Congo prove this to be incorrect because Leopold creates a universal imagined community using the media and he brings nations such as the United States and Britain together to support him in his endeavor in the Congo. Whether he is lying to these nations about his intentions in the Congo is irrelevant. These countries feel a connection to the Congo and want to support Leopold in civilizing the nation.
Other historians argue about the media and the Congo itself. Historians such as Adam Hochschild and Matthew Stanard discuss the media aspects of the Congo and how King Leopold II used this in order to create his Congo. Stanard specifically focuses on how Leopold’s propaganda was an achievement and a failure. We need to understand these successes and failures in order to put together how Leopold used this propaganda to form his universal imagined community. For the topic of King Leopold II’s Congo more historians than others argue the political aspects of the Belgian Congo.[6] In some respects the political nature of the Belgian Congo are important to look at for the topic of media impact because in order to understand the media impact we have to look at the policies that came about after certain newspaper articles were published. The impact of certain people is also important to research when discussing this topic because one person can change the course of history. Henry Stanley is one of, if not the most, influential individual to help King Leopold II acquire the Congo. In Richard Hall’s Stanley, he discusses the different explorations of Stanley and gives a lot of positives about him and discusses all of his achievements. Hall says, “When Stanley spoke, he was listened too with respect,” which tells us that when Stanley was in the media the public would listen.[7] His articles and books were read worldwide and he worked with Leopold to further his image as a philanthropist. Stanley first helped Leopold learn everything he could about the Congo and then he became a sort of media advisor. Stanley became the eyes and ears for Leopold in the Congo. On the other side of the argument is Robert Edgerton who mentions some of the negatives of Stanley. Edgerton discusses one instance in which Stanley ordered his men to kill Africans after their chief refused to discuss matters with him. Edgerton says, “When news of the massacre appeared in the Herald and Daily Telegraph, many people were horrified by Stanley’s apparent eagerness to shoot Africans.”[8] While some people praise the work that Stanley did in relation to the media, there are others who focus on the negativity that came from Stanley’s impact. Matthew Stanard argues that propaganda was essential to defending Belgium’s hold on the enormous colony. Stanard was essentially correct in his thinking because without propaganda France instead of Belgium might have controlled the Congo.
The printing press was arguably the most significant invention because afterwards news and stories could be spread all over the world to everyone. Print allowed people to gain knowledge of what was happening throughout the world and this lead to huge revolutions. Some people “such as Einstein suggest that the printing press was an ‘agent of change’ that may have ultimately caused the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution.”[9] There is no denying how important print really was to the public. With print being sold all over the world, newspapers followed the invention of the printing press. Now countries everywhere were receiving news and the newspaper industry was just figuring out how they could influence the people around them with the words that they were writing. Millions of people became connected through the media and nations started to feel closer to each other than they ever had before. Anderson argues, “These fellow-readers, to whom they were connected through print, formed, in their secular, particular, visible invisibility, the embryo of the nationally imagined community.”[10] Citizens began to feel connected to their nation and in turn nationality became stronger. King Leopold II knew that the media connected people because he saw the impact that Henry Stanley made on the world. Stanley became wildly popular everywhere because his explorations were published in newspapers throughout the world. While Leopold might not have known it at the time, he was going to create a national and universal imagined community through the media. The connections that King Leopold made with the rest of the world through the media were imagined. A newspaper article about an unknown place could be published and while reading the story the people feel connected to it like people feel connected to the stories in books. The United States and Britain had nothing to do with the Congo yet they felt a connection through the stories they read in newspapers and they felt a need to support King Leopold II to take the territory and “save” it. When looking at the New York Times and the London Evening Standard, there might be multiple stories from different countries thrown together but “why are these events so juxtaposed? What connects them to each other? Not sheer caprice. Yet obviously most of them happen independently, without the actors being aware of each other or of what others are up to. The arbitrariness of their inclusion and juxtaposition shows that linkage between them is imagined.”[11] The stories that King Leopold and Henry Stanley gave to the newspapers about him being a humanitarian were real stories but the connection that people had to them were completely imagined. The connection that Anderson talks about is formed between several different countries so in fact the connection is not a nationalized one but a universal one.
Leopold knew that the media was the way to go when acquiring the Congo territory because his country was not large enough to receive enough support on its own. Belgium was a small country that just became independent, how were other countries supposed to trust them with such a big territory in Africa? There is no denying that Leopold needed other countries to support him in his endeavors. Leopold was an intelligent individual who read the newspapers and watched how stories affected people. “Livingstone, Stanley, and other explorers, Leopold saw, had succeeded in stirring Europeans by their descriptions of the Arab slave traders leading sad caravans of chained captives to Africa’s east coast.”[12] Leopold followed these individuals’ footsteps and even had one of the best helping him, Henry Stanley. After the Geographical conference that King Leopold held to promote his humanitarian image, he formed the International African Association (IAA) in 1876. The Association was used to keep promoting his image and to promote the projects he wanted to do for Africa. Ultimately the association would work and eventually turned into the International Association of the Congo (IAC) in 1879 using the same flag as the IAA. The association was used for nothing more than to get other countries attention about the promotion of civilization and commerce in the Congo territory. Hochschild mentions that “his new International Association of the Congo, Leopold insisted in a piece he wrote and managed to get published, over the byline ‘from a Belgian correspondent,’ in the London Times, was a sort of ‘Society of the Red Cross; it has been formed with the noble aim of rendering lasting and disinterested services to the cause of progress.”’[13] This was the beginning of the formation of a universally imagined community because countries were taking this association seriously. Countries came together to hear Leopold speak about how the world could help Africa become a more civilized and Christianized continent. Notice in Leopold’s opening address at the Geographical Conference he does not mention that Belgium should be the only country to acquire territory for this humanitarian effort. Leopold actually downplays the intervention of Belgium in Africa. The point of the speech and the conference was for the countries to support the effort and to make them feel like they needed to help Africa. The formation of the International African Association was actually the first act of a universally imagined community. Leopold began to get countries on his side for his acquisition of the Congo territory until he hit a problem with the Berlin Conference.
The Berlin Conference, which was held between 1884 and 1885, was one of King Leopold II’s biggest accomplishments. Some historians believed that the Congo was handed to Leopold but David Van Reybrouck explains that it was the complete opposite. Before the success came the fight, Leopold had to overcome the overwhelming accusations from France that they deserved the territory just as much as Belgium did. The fact that Belgium was such a small country was becoming an advantage because many European countries, especially the United Kingdom, did not trust France with such a large territory. The biggest aim of the Berlin Conference was “to open Africa up to free trade and civilization.”[14] This is where King Leopold II’s humanitarian image in the media would come into play. Leopold had been promoting civilization in Africa since he established the International African Association. Stories about the Berlin Conference were published almost everyday in the New York Times.[15] One article that stands out is titled “The Congo Problem” which addressed that “the Congo Conference has recognized the African International Association.”[16] This article was published on the first page of the newspaper, which shows the importance of the article and that they want it to be seen by the people. The article also goes on to use language such as “honor” when mentioning Henry Stanley. At this point the people of the United States knew that Stanley was Leopold’s front man. If Stanley were on Leopold II’s side than it was only a matter of time when the United Kingdom and the United States would join his side as well. Eventually Leopold got what he wanted and the territory would be completely his to rule over after the Berlin Conference convened in 1885. This was not just a decision that Leopold wanted, a variety of countries believed that the Congo should have been Leopold’s. When the Berlin Conference ended “Bismarck ‘contentedly hailed’ Leopold’s work and extended his best wishes ‘for a speedy development and for the achievement of the illustrious founder’s noble ambitions,’ the audience rose to its feet and cheered for the Belgian ruler.”[17] The closing of the Berlin Conference was published in the New York Times and it hails it as a great step in the beginning of African civilization. The article even mentions, “King Leopold has written to Prince Bismarck a letter of thanks for ‘the great services rendered to African civilization’ by his summoning and making a success of the international conference on the Congo question.”[18] This may seem like normal information to put into a newspaper article but why not put the names of other leaders who were at this conference? The article only seems to talk about Leopold and what he said about the Berlin Conference. It seems at this point King Leopold II is controlling the New York Times in some kind of way and with this control he would use the best language possible to get a sympathetic view in the United States.
With the help of two men, Henry Shelton Sanford and Frederick Frelinghuysen the United States was one of the first countries that supported King Leopold II in his efforts. At this time the New York Times seems to not have one bad thing to say about the Belgian King. One such newspaper article written in 1875 sheds a positive light on not only King Leopold II but also on his father before him. After telling a story of honor about King Leopold II and King Leopold I the article says, “If Kings had such common sense as this, what a different story the pages of history would tell.”[19] So, now the New York Times is telling the public that only these two Belgian kings had common sense and that if every country had a king like this than history would have been completely different. This is a strong thing to say in the United States because history has shown that the U.S. does not like a monarchy. However, the article is inferring that the citizens of the United States would not mind having a monarch if they were like King Leopold II and his father. Everyone was being fooled by his media conquest and Hochschild even mentions, “one writer declared Leopold’s great work ‘enough to make an American believe in Kings forever.”[20] With these newspaper articles he would gain the support of United States citizens and the United States government to go ahead with his endeavor to control and help the Congo. President Chester Arthur became sympathetic towards Leopold’s cause with the help of Henry Shelton Sanford and on “22 April 1884, the United States became the first country in the world to recognize King Leopold’s claims to the Congo through a declaration by Secretary of State Frederick Frelinghuysen.”[21] After the United States recognized Leopold’s claim “favorable accounts of the king’s philanthropic work began appearing in major American newspapers, stimulated in the fashion of the day, by quiet payments by Sanford.”[22] Later that year the Berlin Conference was held, which would allow King Leopold II to claim the Congo, as his and he would name it the Congo Free State. The favorable articles can be seen throughout the years of 1884 and 1885 and one such article examines the friendship between King Leopold II and Chester Arthur. The New York Times published an article with two letters between Arthur and Leopold and they both started out the letter with the word “friend.” Arthur even says,
“The government and people of the United States, whose only concern lies in watching with benevolent expectation the growth of prosperity and peace among the communities to whom they are joined by ties of friendship, cannot doubt that, under your majesty’s good government, the people of the Congo region will advance in the path of civilization.”[23]
The fact that the President of the United States gave such support to the sovereign king allows the people to support him as well. Nationality starts with the leader of the country and the publicity of his support for the Congo gains the support of the people. The people of the United States feel connected to their leader and in turn feel connected to the Congo cause. This shows that imagined communities do not just happen within a nation, they happen universally.
The New York Times not only published positive articles about King Leopold but they also published articles that dispelled any negative comments that were made about the Belgian King and his Congo. An article published in 1891 shows the New York Times loyalty to King Leopold II. The article discusses charges that were made against Leopold saying that he was mistreating the people in the Congo and that thousands were being killed because of his obsession with the rubber industry. Henry Stanley comes to Leopold’s aid and calls these charges blackmail and the article makes sure to put in a full interview from Stanley. Stanley mentions, “These attempts at blackmail are common, they are liable to be made by anyone who has had a falling out with the promoters of any African explorations.”[24] The simple fact that the paper only put in one side of the story shows that they were on the side of King Leopold II. The language in the newspaper article is important to examine as well because the paper seems to be more sympathetic towards Leopold than towards the “false” claims that were being made against him. The question is why were they on his side? Historians such as Hochschild believe that Leopold paid American newspapers to publish positive news about him and his Congo and other historians believe that Stanley had such an impact that the newspapers automatically believed what he had said. The New York Times also commends the American people for their support for the Congo because without them the Congo would not have been recognized as Belgium’s. The newspaper writes, “’I believe,’ Gen. Sanford replied, ‘and I can only repeat that but for the recognition of the association by the United States the [Berlin] conference might not have been held. It may be called a consequence of that recognition.’”[25] This article lets the American people know that without them King Leopold II would not have been able to help the people of the Congo. This kind of writing creates a more solidified imagined community in the minds of American citizens and they now feel even more connected to the people of the Congo because without their help they would still be suffering through the Arab Slave Trade. However, what the people did not know was that they were suffering through an even bigger disaster called the Rubber Terror. The United States was not the only country that King Leopold II convinced of his humanitarianism.
The European countries were a lot harder to convince than the United States because they were too involved in the Scramble for Africa and feared that Belgium might be getting too much. Now that he had convinced the people of the United States he “had to confront the more difficult task of winning the approval of […] London for his colonial scheme” and being the cousin of Queen Victoria of Great Britain he had a hard time because of “the hostility of the British government, which feared that Belgian protectionism would threaten free trade in central Africa.”[26] One of the only ways to get the rest of Europe on his side was through the media. He needed to convince them that what he was doing in the Congo would be a benefit not only for Belgium but also for the rest of the world. This can be seen in an article in the London Evening Standard, it says “The work on the Congo was national and civilizing. ‘I am convinced’ pursued the King, ‘that it will conduce to the peace of the world.’”[27] After examining this article it is clear that Leopold II was trying to convince the world that if they supported him than they would be supporting themselves. The language that is also used in this article condones an intrinsic need for the African people and the United Kingdom was giving them the help they needed by supporting Leopold II. This is an example of a universally imagined community because Leopold did convince London to support him despite all of their reservations. The Belgian king made countries like Great Britain and the United States feel like they had an obligation to support his efforts in civilizing the Congo. This obligation translated into an imagined community because if these countries felt an obligation than they felt a connection to the Congo. This connection is completely imagined because they know nothing of the Congo or its people but they still felt like they had to help them in any way that they could. One person would help bridge this connection with the United States and the United Kingdom.
It is hard to say that one person could be the difference for the acquisition of a territory but when examining King Leopold II and the Belgian Congo it is hard to deny that Henry Stanley did more than just support Leopold’s cause. He became incredibly famous before Leopold even considered acquiring the Congo Basin territory. Henry Stanley and King Leopold were worlds apart and without the media Leopold would have never even known who Stanley was. Stanley could not even do what he did in Africa without the media. Two newspapers, James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald and Edward Levy-Lawson’s London Daily Telegraph, sponsored his trip to Africa.[28] King Leopold II knew that getting London on his side was going to be difficult but having the support of Henry Stanley would make it exponentially easier because Stanley was from the United Kingdom and became very famous after his conquests in Africa, including the finding of Livingstone. The London Evening Standard was reporting on everything that went on between King Leopold II and Henry Stanley. One article describes Stanley’s arrival in Belgium to meet with Leopold for the first time.[29] The article shares that the event was extravagant and that Stanley was being treated with the upmost respect by the King. This is important to mention in the papers because people loved Stanley and if they see that he supported Leopold II than they would in turn support him as well. However, these feelings towards Henry Stanley are imagined for the people of the United Kingdom. They loved him so much because he was from there; he was “one of them.” The people did not know Stanley personally but they felt they had a connection with him because of all of the newspaper articles that had been published about his stories. Henry Stanley and King Leopold were worlds apart and without the media King Leopold would have never even known who Stanley was. All of Stanley’s articles appeared in newspapers in both the United States and London. Leopold read all of the articles that Stanley published about the “dark continent” and became obsessed with meeting him.[30] Stanley was King Leopold’s biggest connection with the media and with his aid he would become the most well known humanitarian in the world’s eye. If the people were not supporting King Leopold II than they were a supporter of his most reliable comrade Henry Stanley. All the media that was being published in both the United States and the United Kingdom could only occur with the help of a little bit of technology.
The telegram was the most reliable and essential forms of communication being used in the Congo before and after Leopold II acquired the territory. It was essential at the time because it allowed people to communicate with each other over long distances. Correspondents would use the telegram to communicate important information that was happening within the Congo territory. Without the telegram writing stories about the happenings in the Congo would have been extremely difficult. Leopold would not have been able to exchange information with newspapers and get his positive image as a humanitarian out in the public in various countries. Leopold needed other countries support and without the telegram, stories he wanted to be printed would not have been printed. The telegram also allowed Leopold to communicate to Henry Stanley that he wanted to meet him. When Stanley started to work for Leopold in 1878, Leopold would communicate what he wanted Stanley to accomplish by telegram. This technology also helped King Leopold receive diplomatic recognition from America for his claim to the Congo.[31] Leopold used Henry Sanford to give the United States a telegram code and this would result in the recognition of his claim. Telegrams bridged lines of communication between political leaders and allowed communication to flow easily and more quickly. It allowed Leopold to run his colony from Belgium. After Leopold II received the territory he always wanted in 1885 “he never set foot in his Congo.”[32] Communication between the Congo and the Belgian king was perilous and the telegram allowed the king to accomplish this communication without even having to go to the Congo. It was Leopold’s personal territory and he never even set foot inside of it. People around the world connected the Congo with King Leopold II. This is another prime example of the connections that were being made universally because Leopold was the leader of Belgium and the owner of the Congo Free State. The people of Belgium felt connected to the Congo because their king was the sovereign leader of the Congo state and they were constantly bombarded with newspaper articles about the Congo territory. However, the people of the Congo did not feel connected to Belgium because they “played no role in the proclamation of their absolute ruler.”[33] The people of the Congo did not have media like Belgium and this is the reason why they did not have any imagined connection within the Congo territory or universally. At this point the African people only felt connected through their languages and religion not through media. This would eventually change as their lands were being taken over by powerful political leaders without their consent than they would be connected through anger.
The negotiations that Stanley was supposed to be making with the native chiefs in the Congo territory were basically false. Leopold wanted to make sure that they were giving up all control of the territory in which they lived. Stanley gave the chiefs the treaties in English, a language that they could not read and basically tricked them into signing it. Van Reybrouck mentions “In a letter to one of his employees, he made his aims perfectly clear: ‘It should at least contain an article stating that they relinquish their sovereign rights to those territories.’”[34] Europeans have been doing this since the beginning of the colonization of Africa. While everyone outside of Africa was starting to feel connected to the countries within through their countries colonization and the media, the people who actually lived in Africa felt no connection to the people on the outside. Leopold’s goal was to have chiefs that would answer to him and stay loyal to him. Basically Leopold was enforcing treaties that were not understood by the African people and eventually these would be brought up in the media. One of the newspaper articles from the New York Times that was mentioned early on in this research discusses some charges that were being made against King Leopold II and Stanley. The article, “Col. Williams Charges,” gives one charge that says “the Government has violated the general act of the Conference of Berlin by firing on native canoes and confiscating native property.”[35] However, this newspaper article also says that these claims are elaborated and that Stanley presumes that they are blackmail. Williams’s exposure of the immoral things that were happening in the Congo was one of the first that came along. Essentially these claims were brushed off at the time but the fact that claims against the Congo were starting to surface made Leopold nervous. Now that King Leopold had his Congo he had to defend and disguise what he was doing within it.
Once the Berlin Conference was over and King Leopold II had his Congo, he had less and less use for the countries he had so desperately convinced that his passion for the Congo was purely for the sake of the African people. He started to become lax on his media campaign but once stories started to emerge about the happenings within the Congo he had to get back on the media bandwagon. Leopold had to disguise what he was doing in the Congo. The people did not need to know that he was committing what was essentially a holocaust in the Congo region. Leopold personally owned this region and his ownership was like “Rockefeller owning Standard oil.”[36] Leopold was supposed to be this shining example of being good to the African people and making sure that they were protected. However, this image was being challenged and Leopold had to do something about it. Leopold was obsessed with profit and ivory was making him a lot of money in the Congo despite the fact that he was using slaves to get it. When it came to ivory, Leopold almost completely forgot that he was supposed to be a humanitarian because all of his impulses went towards profit but “between 1892 and 1894, the war against Swahili-Arab economic and political power was disguised as a Christian anti-slavery crusade by a colonial state whose brutal regime exceeded the worst horrors of the Arab Slavery.”[37] The war was actually for the control of the ivory trade in the Congo and Leopold was the one using the slaves. King Leopold II would have a colonial exposition in 1897 to get his image as a humanitarian back but it was slowly slipping out of his hands. There was basically an all-out war going on in the media between pro-Leopold and anti-Leopold newspapers. However, once men like, William Sheppard, Edmond Morel, and Roger Casement came to the aid of the anti-Leopold propaganda it nearly impossible for Leopold to decline what they were saying. Leopold’s Congo was coming under fire and it was only a matter of time before Leopold would have to give it up. The media that was once the reason that Leopold acquired the Congo is now the reason why the tide had turned against him. In 1908, the Congo was annexed the Congo as a Belgium colony and would be known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The question that must be asked is if Leopold II would have been able to acquire this territory without the help of the media? The newspapers were an essential part in getting the people on the Belgian King’s side and it is hard to say that he could have done it without the media’s help. If Leopold had not got his image as a humanitarian so solidified with the world than they would have given no reason as to why he should have received the Congo over everyone else. It was individuals like Henry Sanford and Henry Stanley who gave Leopold the support he needed in the newspapers. There is also one extremely significant thing the media did when aiding the creation of the Congo. It helped create a universal imagined community that would go against what Benedict Anderson promotes in his novel Imagined Communities. Not only was a nationally imagined community possible but also a universally imagined community was formed between other nations to support Leopold and the Congo. After researching, however, it is easy to see that only the countries looking in on the Congo had this imagined connectedness. The people of the Congo not only had no connection with the outside world but they barely had a connection within their own territory. The Congo is a massive terrain with a lot of land and people but they did not have the necessary things that were needed to form a nationally imagined community. The Congolese people did not have newspapers or any form of media for that matter in order to help them form an imagined community. It is seen that media is a major aspect when creating an imagined community because people need to see that they are connected with people who are hundreds of miles away and the only way that can happen is through the media. Benedict Anderson states that there are three different stages in creating an imagined community and while all the nations supporting Leopold, including Belgium, followed these stages the Congo itself did not follow them. The Congo territory during this time did not have a nationally imagined community but they would become apart of a universally created imagined community.
It is important to understand the minds of the people in each nation because without knowing this we could never know how things were created or destroyed. In history studying the people is just as important as studying the events. Media had one of the strongest impacts on history during this time period and all throughout the twentieth century. It is only now that people are starting to understand what the media can do and paying attention to this could change a lot of mindsets. King Leopold II was apart of one of the largest mass killings in history yet people forget that 10 million Africans died in the Congo during his ownership. The media can help us remember and forget things so easily and that is very powerful. The media tide against the king was just as strong as the tide that led to the king’s personal reign. Men such as Roger Casement, Edmund Morel, and William Sheppard helped expose the Congo territory for what it was. They exposed the massacres through pictures of Africans with missing limbs because of Leopold’s Force Publique. This, however, is other research in itself. The universally imagined community that Leopold created was taken away just as quickly as it was formed. As the media tide against King Leopold’s universal imagined community diminished there was almost a new universal imagined community coming together amongst the nations to get rid of Leopold II’s ownership. King Leopold II’s Congo was just one of the nations that was built on the media but there would be wars lost and land lost over the media’s impact. As Hochshild’s book title reveals the Ghost of King Leopold’s Congo will forever be etched in the region and the media will always be the accomplice to it even if they convince you otherwise.
[1] Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999), 42.
[2] Bob Blaisdell, Infamous Speeches: From Robespierre to Osama Bin Laden (Dover Publications, Inc., 2011), 34.
[3] Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 6.
[4] Anthony W. Marx, Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Dominique Shnapper, Community of Citizens: On the Modern Idea of Nationality (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998).
[5] Anderson, Imagined Community, 7.
[6] David Van Reybrouck and Sam Garrett, Congo: The Epic History of a People (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014).
[7] Richard Hall, Stanley: An Adventurer Explored (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975) 241.
[8] Robert Edgerton, The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), 53.
[9] Ralph Hippe, “Why did the knowledge transition occur in the West and not in the East? ICT and the role of governments in Europe, East Asia and the Muslim world,” (Poznan University Of Economics Review, 2015), 10.
[10] Anderson, Imagined Communities, 44.
[11] Anderson, Imagined Communities, 33.
[12] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 42.
[13] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 66.
[14] Van Reybrouck, Congo, 53.
[15] “The African Negotiations,” New York Times, Dec 25, 1884, accessed March 21, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94217631?accountid=15017.
“The Congo Question,” New York Times, May 07, 1884, accessed March 21, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94226352?accountid=15017.
“The Congo and the Niger,” New York Times, Dec 09, 1884, accessed March 21, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94264847?accountid=15017.
[16] “The Congo Problem,” New York Times, Nov 26, 1884, accessed March 21, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94195493?accountid=15017.
[17] Van Reybrouck, Congo, 55.
[18] “The Congo Conference Closed,” New York Times, Feb 27, 1885, accessed March 22, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94323329?accountid=15017.
[19] “The King of the Belgians,” New York Times, Mar 07, 1875, accessed March 22, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/93441035?accountid=15017.
[20] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 67.
[21] Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A people’s history (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 16.
[22] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 80.
[23] “King Of The Congo States,” New York Times, Feb 23, 1886, accessed March 22, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94410327?accountid=15017.
[24] “Col. William’s Charges,” New York Times, Apr 14, 1891, accessed March 29, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94934143?accountid=15017.
[25] “The Congo Free State,” New York Times, May 26, 1885, accessed March 29, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94372592?accountid=15017.
[26] Nzongola-Ntalaja, Congo: From Leopold to Kabila, 17.
[27] “King Leopold and the Congo,” London Evening Standard, October 17, 1898, accessed April 14, 2016, http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results?newspapertitle=london%2bevening%2bstandard&basicsearch=king%20leopold%202%20congo&exactsearch=false.
[28] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 48.
[29] “King Leopold and Mr. Stanley,” London Evening Standard, August 4, 1884, accessed April 14, 2016, http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/1850-01-01/1899-12-31?basicsearch=king%20leopold%20ii%20congo&somesearch=king%20leopold%20ii%20congo&newspapertitle=london%2bevening%2bstandard.
[30] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 51.
[31] Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 77.
[32] Van Reybrouck, Congo, 57.
[33] Nzongola-Ntalaja, Congo: From Leopold to Kabila, 18.
[34] Van Reybrouck, Congo, 51.
[35] “Col. William’s Charges,” New York Times, April 14, 1891, accessed March 29, 2016, http://articles.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/94934143?accountid=15017.
[36] Nzongola-Ntalaja, Congo: From Leopold to Kabila, 20.
[37] Ibid., 21.
23 and Thinking Out Loud 