In 1890, a Black American travelled deep into Central Africa expecting to witness one of Europe’s great civilizing projects. Instead, he encountered forced labour, violence and terror that would become one of the greatest scandals of European colonialism. His name was George Washington Williams, a soldier, politician, historian and journalist who became one of the earliest people to publicly expose the atrocities committed under King Leopold II’s rule in the Congo.
Williams was born free in Pennsylvania in 1849. As a teenager, he ran away and enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War, later fighting in Mexico before returning to the United States. He pursued his education, became a Baptist minister, studied law and was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1880, becoming the first African American to serve in Ohio’s state legislature. He also wrote important early histories of African Americans, reflecting his deep interest in race, slavery and human freedom.
By the late 1880s, his attention turned toward Africa. This brought him into contact with King Leopold II of Belgium, who had built an enormous African possession through a remarkably successful campaign of diplomacy and propaganda.
King Leopold and His Congo Free State
King Leopold II of Belgium had long wanted an African colony, but there was a problem: Belgium itself had little interest in paying for one. Leopold therefore decided to pursue his African ambitions on his own. He understood that openly seeking a vast territory for personal wealth would attract opposition, so he presented himself to the European public as a humanitarian determined to bring Christianity, civilization and free trade to Central Africa while helping to suppress the slave trade.
He created organizations to promote his project and sent the explorer Henry Morton Stanley into the Congo to establish stations and secure treaties with local rulers. Leopold then used these agreements to strengthen his claim over the territory. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, European powers recognized his claim, and in 1885 the Congo Free State was established with Leopold as its sovereign.
The Congo was not an ordinary Belgian colony. It was essentially Leopold’s personal possession, giving him control over a territory more than 75 times larger than Belgium. At first, Leopold sought to profit from its ivory, but the Congo’s greatest source of wealth would soon become rubber. The territory contained valuable ivory, and later its wild rubber became extraordinarily profitable as demand for rubber exploded around the world.
A kingdom built on forced labour
To obtain rubber, Leopold’s administration imposed production quotas on Congolese communities. Men were forced into the forests to collect rubber, often for weeks at a time, while their families could be held hostage to ensure that the quotas were met. Villages that failed to provide enough rubber could face beatings, destruction, imprisonment and killings.
The Force Publique, Leopold’s private colonial army, became a major instrument of this system. Soldiers enforced labour demands and suppressed resistance with extreme violence. while allied groups such as the Zappo Zap, an armed group of Congolese auxiliaries employed by the colonial administration, were also involved in enforcing Leopold’s rule. Accounts from missionaries, officials and witnesses described executions, village burnings, rape, mutilation and other forms of abuse.
One of the most infamous practices involved the severing of hands. Soldiers sometimes collected the hands of people they had killed as evidence that ammunition had been used against human targets rather than wasted. There were also documented cases of Congolese people being mutilated and left alive, including victims whose hands had been hacked off.
The result was not simply exploitation. It was a devastating assault on Congolese society. People fled their villages, food production collapsed in some areas, families were separated and disease spread through communities already weakened by hunger, displacement and forced labour.
The exact number of people who died under Leopold remains impossible to establish. There was no reliable population census before his rule, making it difficult to determine the full scale of the demographic catastrophe that followed. However, over 7 million people died under his rule, as violence, forced labour, famine, disease, displacement and declining birth rates devastated communities across the Congo.
George Washington Williams Meets Leopold
When Williams first met Leopold, he was impressed by the king’s claims about his African project. He wanted to see the Congo for himself and travelled there in 1890. What he encountered completely changed his view.
Williams investigated reports of brutality and found evidence of a system in which Congolese people were being forced to work and subjected to violence by European officials and African soldiers working for the colonial administration. He was particularly disturbed by the gap between Leopold’s humanitarian claims and the reality he witnessed.
From Stanley Falls on July 18, 1890, Williams wrote a remarkable document titled An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo. It was a direct accusation against one of Europe’s most powerful monarchs.
Williams accused Leopold’s administration of deception, robbery, forced labour, violence, slavery and murder. He also criticized Henry Morton Stanley and other European agents involved in establishing Leopold’s authority in the Congo. Most importantly, Williams argued that Leopold could not distance himself from the crimes because they were being committed under his authority and in his name.
He called for an international investigation into the allegations and appealed to the wider world to act. His intervention helped bring greater attention to reports that had previously been dismissed or ignored.
Leopold’s supporters attempted to discredit Williams, but his accusations did not disappear. Other witnesses, missionaries, journalists and investigators later documented the brutality of the Congo Free State. British diplomat Roger Casement’s 1904 Congo Report became particularly influential, while campaigners such as E. D. Morel helped transform the issue into an international movement.
Photographs of mutilated Congolese victims eventually shocked audiences around the world. The evidence became increasingly difficult for Leopold’s defenders to dismiss, and international pressure mounted.
In 1908, Belgium finally took control of the Congo Free State, ending Leopold II’s personal rule. The territory became the Belgian Congo, although colonial exploitation and racial domination continued under Belgian rule.
Williams never lived to see that day. After leaving Africa, he became seriously ill while travelling through Egypt and Britain. He died in Blackpool, England, in 1891, at only 41 years old, nearly two decades before Leopold’s personal control of the Congo ended.
Sources:
https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/bios/williams__george_washington
https://remarkableohio.org/marker/52-31-george-washington-williams/
July 18, 1890: George Washington Williams Pens Letter Exposing Atrocities in the Congo
