King Leopold II

Leopold II ( Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and the autocratic prime colonizer of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State was characterized by atrocities and systematic brutality, including forced labor, torture, murder, kidnapping, and the amputation of the hands of men, women, and children when the quota of rubber was not met. In 1890 and in one of the first uses of the term, George Washington Williams described the practices of Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State as "crimes against humanity". These and other facts were established during Leopold's rule by eyewitness testimony, by on-site inspection from an international commission of inquiry, by the investigative journalism and activism of E. D. Morel, and by the 1904 Casement Report. While it has proven difficult to accurately estimate the pre-colonial population and the amount by which it changed under the Congo Free State, estimates for the Congolese population decline during Leopold's rule range from 1 million to 15 million.