The story of King Leopold of Belgium’s brutal regime in the Congo Free State, during the late 19th century, is one of the darkest and most important in global history. It is a story of horror - the murky depths of the human soul pushed to its primal limits, European colonialism and the first Scramble for Africa, royalty and politics, celebrity, and modernity. From that pit of depravity, in which the Congolese people endured unimaginable suffering at the hands of their dehumanising western drivers, the first human rights campaign was born, and one of the most seminal novels of all time. So, how was it that the Congo, Africa’s as yet unplundered, un-impenetrable, and deeply mysterious core in the late 1870’s, became the private financial reservoir of one ambitious monarch, while Europe looked on? What occurred during the reign of terror he unleashed there, and why? And, who was King Leopold himself, the troubled, cunning and utterly twisted individual behind it all? Join Dominic and Tom as they lead us - following in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer who first pierced the shadowy veil of the Congo in Africa’s interior, and let it bleed into the hands of King Leopold himself - deep into the heart of darkness. As the curtain is lifted from the Congo’s formerly obscuring unknowability, her people's grotesque future of abominable exploitation is revealed, along with man’s capacity for evil, and the demonic greed of one man in particular… EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Editor: Vasco Andrade Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What inspired the exploration of the Congo Free State's history?
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When I was a little chap, I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America or Africa or Australia and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time, there were many blank spaces on the Earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map, I would put my finger on it and say, when I grow up, I will go there.
There was one, the biggest, the most blank, so to speak, that I had a hankering after. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery, a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness.
But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest, curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. "'Dash it all!' I thought to myself. "'They can't trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water. Steamboats!'
Why shouldn't I try to take charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me. So that is Marlowe, the hero and the narrator of Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, which was first published in Blackwoods magazine in 1899. It famously provided the inspiration for Apocalypse Now about the American experience in Vietnam. But
It was originally written about the European colonial experience in Africa, probably the greatest, the most influential, possibly the most controversial book about that ever written, about the moral dangers of colonialism and also about the sense of the darkness that lurks in the heart of the human soul. The darkness in that title, Heart of Darkness, has many different levels.
There's also the darkness that is London. So Marlowe is talking about this on a boat on the River Thames, narrating it to three friends. So the sense that the darkness in Africa is reflecting the darkness in the heart of the European is kind of at the heart of the idea of the book, isn't it, Dominic?
It is indeed, Tom. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll get on to Heart of Darkness next week because we'll do an episode about Joseph Conrad and about this book, which is one of the most influential books, I would argue, of the modern age.
And it's a book that I think anticipates so much of the culture of the 20th century in wrestling with kind of man's capacity for evil and the possibilities of violence and brutality that have been opened up by kind of globalization and by history. And so we'll get onto that next week. It's a book rooted in Conrad's own experience.
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Chapter 2: How did Joseph Conrad's experiences influence 'Heart of Darkness'?
So this is how he proceeds. And I have to say, he's a terrible man, King Leopold, but he really is a cunning and a methodical and a clever man. A vulpine figure. He is. So his first step is to convene a big geographical conference in Brussels at the end of 1876. And he invites all the big celebrities of the Africa industry of the day. So there are explorers from France and Germany.
He's got a celebrity explorer called Gerhard Rolfs, who had actually had himself circumcised so that he could pass for a Muslim in the Sahara. So, you know, somebody who had suffered for his life. quest, his exploration. He's got the president of the British Anti-Slavery Society, Sir Thomas Fowle Buxton. He's got the president of the Church Missionary Society, Sir John Kenway.
He's even got the bloke who used to command the Royal Navy's Indian Ocean Anti-Slavery Squadron. So he is ticking all of those boxes. He's inviting a lot of people who are genuinely animated by what we might call humanitarian as well as imperialistic concerns.
And he welcomes them and he says, you know, I dream of a crusade worthy of this century of progress to open to civilization the only part of our globe which has not yet penetrated to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples. That word darkness again, which is going to come up throughout this series. And he says to them, don't think that I want anything for myself, he says.
I have nothing. I have no idea of it. Shocking. No ambition other than to serve Belgium. Now that, as we've seen, is a lie. He despises Belgium and he, as we will also see, he doesn't want to serve Belgium at all. He only wants to serve himself.
And he says to them, look, I've assembled you because I think it would be nice for us to identify places in the blank spaces of Africa which could be bases, which could be kind of They could be hospitals. They could be scientific research centers. They could be trading stations. With an emphasis on the trading aspect of it. And these will be run.
I don't want to, I mean, Belgium won't run them, because we don't want to. The last thing we'd want is a colony. He says, we'll set up an international African association. Why not base it in Brussels, actually? And for its first chairman, I mean, if no one else wants to do it, I'd very happily put myself forward. And everybody, you know, they all fall for this. Oh, what a lovely idea.
What a kind man.
I mean, we're recording this today after the Trump inauguration, where all these heads of tech companies that, until Trump won the election, were all over their mission being to spread happiness and joy and promote diversity and equity. And now they've binned all that very nakedly. Do you think that this is the first example of kind of avaricious corporations dressing up their...
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