Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
The 1897 Tervuren Museum: Africa in a Belgian Palace
In 1897, King Leopold II opened the Museum of the Congo at Tervuren, a lavish palace near Brussels that displayed the "civilizing" work of the Congo Free State to European visitors. But the museum was also a stage for a brutal theft: hundreds of thousands of artifacts, human remains, and natural specimens were taken from Congo, many under violent coercion. This episode traces the museum's origins in the 1897 Brussels International Exposition, the creation of the Palace of Colonies, and the curatorial choices that shaped European views of Africa. We follow the story of the manikanga, the…
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