Essay Questions

Explain the title of the book.

The title of the book was inspired by a poem written by Vachel Lindsay, shortly after the truth about the life of King Leopold was found out by the general public. The poem has a fixed form and the main idea transmitted through it is that even though King Leopold was dead and he was no longer influencing the African countries which he ruled over, that did not mean the suffering disappeared. Instead, what happened was that the people continued to suffer from his actions long after he was dead.

What are some of the atrocities which took place in Congo during King Leopold's rule?

Some of the atrocities mentioned in the book are slavery and mutilations as well as famine and imprisonment. The author focuses the most on the mutilations inflicted upon the Congolese by the white colonizers since they were the most common ones and had a long term debilitating effect. In most cases, the Congolese would have one of their arms cut off if they were to manifest any form of rebellion or dissatisfaction. This form of punishment was inflicted on men and women as well as on the elderly and even small children. Many were also executed and the preferred method, also mentioned in the novel, was decapitation.

Why did Leopold take such an interest in Congo?

The reason why the king was so interested in the apparently small African country was that it had the largest quantity of natural rubber that could be found there. When Leopold took the throne, the rubber had just been discovered. In just a few years, a large number of uses were attributed to it and the need to collect as much rubber as possible arose. At the time, rubber came only from natural sources and this made it even more valuable since it was not easily found and because the people who knew how to extract the rubber properly and to transform it into something useful were even harder to found. Leopold exploited not only the natural resources of Congo but also its people, using them as cheap labor and even slave labor.