The creation of the Congo Free State was one part cheap hustle and one part military occupation. King Leopold II managed to convince Europe he was a noble humanitarian while he was secretly building one of the most exploitative colonial states in Africa. With the help of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley and a well placed endorsement from the President of the United States the Congo Free State came into being. Sadly for the natives of the Congo river basin, this new regime would prove to be uniquely sadistic. Tune in and find out how red toilet paper, fake names, and the Goodyear tire guy all play a role in the story.

Works Cited

Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. Doubleday, 1974. Bierman, John. Dark Safari: the Life behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley. Hodder & Stoughton, 1990. Forbath, Peter. The River Congo: the Dictionary, Exploration and Exploitation of the World’s Dramatic River. Secker & Warburg, 1978. Hochschild, Adam. “In the Heart of Darkness.” The New York Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/10/06/in-the-heart-of-darkness/. Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: the Plunder of the Congo and the Twentieth Century’s First International Human Rights Movement. Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Jeal, Tim. Stanley: the Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. Faber, 2008. Rappoport, A. S. Leopold the Second, King of the Belgians. Hutchinson, 1910. Renton, Dave, et al. The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. Zed Books, 2013. Reybrouck, David Van, and Sam Garrett. Congo: the Epic History of a People. Fourth Estate, 2015.Stanard, Matthew G. Selling the Congo: a History of European pro -Empire Propaganda and the Making of Belgian … Imperialism. Univ Of Nebraska Press, 2015.