Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1899 Congo Rubber Decree: Belgium's Brutal Tax on a Colony
In 1899, King Leopold II of Belgium issued a decree that turned the Congo Free State into a vast forced-labor camp. The rubber tax required Congolese villagers to harvest wild rubber under brutal conditions, with quotas enforced by the Force Publique. Those who fell short were beaten with the chicotte, had their hands cut off, or saw their villages burned. This episode follows the decree from its signing in Brussels to its implementation in the rainforests of Équateur, examining how a single law unleashed terror on an industrial scale. We look at the role of the Force Publique, the complicity…
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