@uyiosael: Between 1885 and 1908, the Congo Free State was the site of one of the worst demographic catastrophes in modern history. Yet, unlike other mass atrocities of the 19th and 20th centuries, the terror inflicted upon the Congolese people has frequently been relegated to the margins of global history. King Leopold II of Belgium privately owned the territory, turning an area 76 times the size of his own nation into a brutally efficient, open air slave camp to feed the global tire boom. To enforce impossible rubber quotas, his private mercenary army burned villages, held families hostage, and systematically chopped off the limbs of men, women, and children who fell short of their daily harvest. Despite a staggering death toll of nearly 10 million people, with roughly half the region's population wiped out by murder, forced labor, and engineered starvation, Leopold burned his administration's archives and successfully rebranded himself as a philanthropic "Builder King." He swept one of the modern era's most horrific atrocities so far under the rug that history books are only just now beginning to remember the blood on his wealth. #uyiosael #africa #congo #History #colonization

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