The Congo Free State is one of the most brutal colonial systems in history. During the twenty years that the colony belonged to King Leopold II, its population, according to historians, halved. In 1908, when the Congo was transferred to the Belgian state, the king ordered the destruction of the archives, and according to his contemporaries, the furnaces in Brussels burned for more than a week.
How did the king of a small and young country acquire personal ownership of an area 76 times larger than Belgium and why did other countries agree to this? How did the invention of the inflatable tire turn the Congo into a huge source of income? Why did the soldiers shock the Congo and how did the journalist manage to force Europe and the United States to admit what was happening? Let's talk about Patrice Lumumba and his role in the struggle for Congolese independence, as well as how the Belgians today relate to their colonial past.