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“King Leopold’s private fiefdom in the Congo was precisely the counterfactual to colonial rule and the best argument for colonialism. His inability to control his native rubber agents who continued their pre-colonial business of slave-trading and coercive rubber harvesting showed the problems that would arise if European freelancers allied with native warlords and slave-traders to establish regimes with no outside scrutiny.”

Quote by Bruce Gilley

Book:The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics
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The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics

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Bruce Gilley

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“For all our modernist beliefs in truth, evidence, logic, and fairness, perhaps we have reached a point of no return in the writing of history where modern progressives attack the historical record with malice aforethought, leaving us stupider than we were before this movement took shape in the 1960s, when the twentysomething Hochschild was at the barricades protesting Vietnam and all the rest. It is for future generations to re-colonize history using the precious intellectual resources of the Enlightenment. Until then, we do well to fight the progressive warlords like Hochschild who enslave formerly colonized peoples in distorted victimization narratives that rob them of agency, all the while keeping the white man front and center.”

ColonialismModernismLeopold IiAdam HochschildLeopold S GhostPost Modernism
Book:King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.
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“Bruce Gilley is right, that I was misleading in respect to one quotation I cited from another official, Charles Lemaire. I am sorry about that and it should be corrected. Lemaire was a more complicated case. His early diaries, which I quote elsewhere in the book, unroll a lengthy list of villages he ordered burned to the ground and a triumphant roster of death tolls: “20 natives killed” here, “around 15 blacks killed” there, and many more such boasts. But later in life, to his credit, Lemaire had deep regrets, and in fairness to him I should have referred to them.”

FakeLeopold IiAdam HochschildLeopold S GhostBruce GilleyKing Leopold IiHoax
Book:The Ghost Still Haunts: Adam Hochschild responds to Bruce Gilley, who follows in kind
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“Most centrally, how did approximately 10,000 people killed in skirmishes between the EIC police and natives in a small portion of the territory over a 20-year period mushroom into 10 million dead, “mass murder on a vast scale” and “a forgotten Holocaust”? Rather than climb down from this ludicrous claim, which the doyen of Congo studies, Jean Stengers, called “absurd” and “polemical,” Hochschild repeats it. His source? The same Jan Vansina whose work, I noted, was based on an erroneous reading of an earlier report (a Harvard study that rejected the report of the Permanent Committee for the Protection of the Natives of 1919 that Hochschild cites in his letter) and whose own work was based on nothing more than “oral traditions.”

HolocaustLeopold IiAdam HochschildLeopold S GhostBruce GilleyKing Leopold Ii
Book:The Ghost Still Haunts: Adam Hochschild responds to Bruce Gilley, who follows in kind
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“By contrast, dozens of serious demographers and statisticians—not just the Jean-Paul Sanderson I mention—have concluded the overall population rose slightly or was unchanged at around 8 to 10 million from 1885 to 1908. Others include Bruce Fetter, Guy Vanthemsche, Jean-Luc Vellut, Pierre-Luc Plasman, Anatole Romaniuk, and, as mentioned, the later Jan Vansina. Taken on its own, the EIC was a positive influence on the black population in the Congo because of its campaigns against slavery, endemic tribal warfare, cannibalism, and polygamous rape and torture. Infrastructure and trade brought life-saving income. Population remained unchanged only because of the persistence of endemic disease and slavery. According to Romaniuk, venereal disease alone can explain the depression of population growth after 1900 when the EIC had finally brought a modicum of peace and prosperity to the region.”

Leopold IiAdam HochschildLeopold S GhostBruce GilleyKing Leopold
Book:The Ghost Still Haunts: Adam Hochschild responds to Bruce Gilley, who follows in kind
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“Congo Free State had an annual 'Bulletin Officiel' from 1885 to 1908, it was a member of the Universal Postal Union and one Congolese franc was worth one Reichsmark. The Bulletin had 9,777 pages in 23 editions from 1885 to 1908. The Free State's income rose from 0.6 million Congolese francs in 1891 to 35 million in 1908. So by no means all the money went to Leopold II. These figures are hushed up by all critics.”

Leopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian Congo
Book:The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba
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“Toen hij aan de macht kwam, bestond België pas 35 jaar… We waren toen een zeer frêle entiteit, in een Europese context van Frans-Pruisische oorlogen, en kenden in het binnenland sociale revoltes. Leopold II had daarom als tienjarige al een passie voor politiek en aardrijkskunde. Als twintiger probeerde hij zijn vader al te overtuigen om Nederland en Luxemburg met geweld te annexeren! Onze prille monarchie was vanuit haar underdogpositie gefocust op overleving, ook van zichzelf.”

Leopold IiNederlandFrans Pruisische Oorlogen
Book:Leopold II: Het hele verhaal
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“Hij werd zwaar tegen zijn zin uitgehuwelijkt aan de Oostenrijkse Marie Henriëtte van Habsburg-Lotharingen. Zijn vader koos liever een familiale verbintenis met de Habsburgers als bescherming tegen Frankrijk dan geluk voor zijn zoon, die daarom zijn hele leven overspel zou plegen met courtisanes. Met Marie Henriëtte kreeg hij wel drie dochters en één zoon, Elias. Die overleed tragisch op 9-jarige leeftijd in 1869, waardoor hij het land geen troonopvolger kon schenken. Leopold II was er kapot van. Door die gebeurtenis beet hij zich volledig vast in zijn droom die al deels gestalte kreeg tijdens reizen die hij als jongeman maakte, van Egypte tot Ceylon. Een zoon zou hij zijn land niet kunnen nalaten, maar wel een kolonie.”

Leopold IiBelgisch CongoCongo VrijstaatKolonialismen CongoKolonie
Book:Leopold II: Het hele verhaal
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“Eerst samen met zijn vader, dan als koning, probeerde hij tot 51 keer toe kolonies te verwerven, van de Faroër-eilanden tot Borneo, Formosa (het huidige Taiwan) en in Latijns-Amerika waar zijn zus Charlotte keizerin van Mexico was voor ze werd verdreven. Hij was voor zijn tijd visionair, en wilde stoomboten laten varen tussen Antwerpen en Shanghai via het Suez-kanaal dat hij ter plaatse ging bewonderen. Hij voorspelde toen eigenlijk al de globalisering die we nu kennen.”

Leopold IiBorneoAntwerpenGlobalismeFaroër EilandenFormosaShangaiSuez Kanaal
Author:Johan Op de Beeck
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