Congo Free State Part 5: Vers l’Avenir

An official report on conditions in the Congo exposes the Free State’s atrocities to the world. As pressure mounts on Leopold II to relinquish control of his colony, the king became increasingly determined to cling onto it until his dying breath.

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Bibliography

Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. Granta Books, 1963. 

O’Siochain, Seamas and O’Sullivan, Michael. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement’s Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press, 2003.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Books, 2007. 

Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 2020. 

Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Perennial, 2003.

Rutz, Michael. King Leopold’s Congo and the ‘Scramble for Africa:’ a Short History with Documents. Hackett Publishing Co. Inc, 2018

Cover Image: Satirical cartoon appearing in a November 1906 edition of the British magazine "Punch" depicting Leopold II as a snake attacking a Congolese man.

Opening Theme: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 by Antonín Dvořák

Closing Theme: Central African tribal chant, date of recording unknown.