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THE CONGO!

Back in the 1800s, a king from Belgium, established the Congo Free State. His name was King Leopold.

The Congo Free State was an area in the middle of Africa, where the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now located.

You might be wondering, how did King Leopold get a hold of this great mass of land? Well, it all began in a conference, just like the ones your parents have with your teachers from time to time.

The conference is known as the Berlin Conference, and yes, it was called The Berlin Conference because it was held in Berlin, the capital of Germany. This particular conference led to King Leopold's possession of what was known back then as the Congo Free State.

King Leopold traveled to Africa and as many evidence provided shows, he mistreated and killed many Africans.

He was also able to get many goods, such as rubber and ivory from the Congolese. Many were given the title of slaves and were forced to work in his mines and rubber plantations.

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But then, was killing the citizens of the Congo and mistreating them King Leopold's goal? Not really, one of King Leopold's main goal was to make the Congo civilized. Some say he kind of failed in doing so as he did not build schools or hospitals, but instead he decided to take rubber, ivory, diamonds, and uranium with him.

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As you can imagine, the Africans were not happy to see how King Leopold had destroyed their land, and social structures.

An example of a social structure in school is when you have to walk in the hallways and not run. However, when a social structure changes, it would be when you go to the park and you can run freely.

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Let's travel back to Belgium.

While you might think that Belgium was living in riches with all the things they took from the Congo, they were not. Belgium on its own was slowly dying in every way possible, money wise and socially. King Leopold's only solution to this problem was to expand Belgium.

The only thing that was keeping Belgium from decaying or completely collapsing, was owning the Congo Free State. During this time, the only thing that came into King Leopold's mind was that an overseas possession, meaning Belgium owning land somewhere across the ocean, bringing back security, union, and respect to Belgium.

In 1908, under King Leopold's rule, the Congo Free State was renamed and was now called the Belgian Congo.

Apart from King Leopold trying to make the Congo a more civilized part of the world, there was another reason he proposed said expansion.

This idea of expansion, proposed by the Belgian King, is also all rooted back to his obsession with money and wealth. He loved money in a compulsive manner, meaning it was an irresistible urge he had, and did not have a good relationship with money.

Many Congolese joined together to fight back the Belgians and stood up for themselves, their liberty, and their rights.

Many protests broke down, including one in 1919 that was not put down until 1923.