Lingering Idea

The question that I felt we discussed the most and that still interests me is the one that says:

 Hochschild talks about an African chief, Nzansu, who fought for years against the whites in the Congo in a large rebellion. The whites were determined to defeat and kill him, yet there is no mention of his fate. Why would this be?

I think it's interesting to think of how Nzansu was one of the whites' greatest opposers, yet there was no mention of his death. The motives behind that interest me. It was one of the quotes that stuck with me most after I first did the reading. We had a good discussion hypothesizing motives for this, some of which were that Leopold didn't want the world to know there was opposition in his supposedly philanthropic colony to no one bothered to record it. I think it's fascinating how so many people must have either been there or known about the event, yet we have no idea what happened today.

"King Leopold's Ghost" pgs 33-60 response

Leopold:
"Leopold would not always be cautions; at times he would overreach himself or reveal too much about what prey he was after. But there was something fox-like about the manner in which this constitutional monarch of a small, increasingly democratic country became the totalitarian ruler of a vast empire on another continent. Stealth and dissembling would be his trusted devices, just as the fox relies on those qualities to survive in a world of hunters and larger beasts" (Hochschild 35).

Stanley:
"Always anxious about his reception in the upper reaches of society, Stanley never forgot that courtiers of the King of the Belgians - a baron and general, no less - had sought him out on his return to Europe" (59).


Affirm:
"If he was to seize anything in Africa, he could do so only if he convinced everyone that his interest was purely altruistic" (46).
I agree with this. There was no public support for colonizing Africa simply to gain more land, so Leopold had to convince the Belgians that it was for a purely selfless reason, that it was only to help civilize those savages unfortunate enough to need help. He couldn't let his real motives be seen because that would just work to his disadvantage. He had to be seen as truly selfless.

"King Leopold's Ghost" pgs 1-32 response

I found the most interesting part of this reading was when Hochschild was talking about the reaction of the African's to the whites' arrival. I thought it was very interesting how the Africans thought that the Europeans were people coming from the land of the dead. What stood out to me was how they thought the Europeans were cannibals so most of the slaves being transported on the ships refused to eat because they believed they were eating their fellow Africans. I was also drawn into the part where the British were being self-righteous and ignoring their history of slavery and condemning not Portugal, Spain, or Brazil but the Arab slave-traders for their allowance and promotion of slavery. The hypocrisy was what kept my attention. I felt least interested when Hochschild was describing the life of Henry Morton Stanley. Some of it was interesting, but that was where I found myself zoning out.

discussion questions:
1.Why was Henry Stanley so prone to exaggerations in his reports, and why were they accepted?
2. How much effect did Affonso have on decreasing the slave trade in Africa? How would our views of this time change if we didn't have his voice and his view of this period in history?