In the year 1883, as European empires tightened their grip on Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium issued a letter to colonial missionaries that would later come to symbolize the most chilling fusion of religious evangelism and imperial conquest. The letter lays bare Leopold’s strategy to use Christianity not as a force of salvation, but as a weapon to psychologically enslave and subdue African populations for the benefit of Belgian colonial ambitions, particularly in the Congo.
In 1935, a Congolese man named Moukouani Muikwani Bukoko purchased a second-hand Bible from a Belgian priest. Inside its pages, he discovered what would become one of the most damning documents ever linked to European colonialism: a letter allegedly written by King Leopold II of Belgium to colonial missionaries in 1883. This letter, forgotten or perhaps hidden by its original owner, revealed a chilling strategy—not for salvation, but for domination. Though scholars debate its authorship, the sentiments and strategies described closely align with documented colonial practices.
This article explores the contents of that letter, its historical context, and its impact on both colonial and postcolonial Africa.
Missionaries as Imperial Agents
King Leopold‘s letter opens with a blunt admission that sets the tone for the entire document: “The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact.” Leopold instructs the missionaries to evangelize not to save souls but to safeguard Belgian interests. In his own words, “Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God… They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad.”
By acknowledging Africans’ prior spiritual knowledge and morality, the King unintentionally concedes what many African scholars and historians have long argued: that African societies had complex spiritual systems and ethical codes long before the arrival of Europeans.
But Leopold’s plan was to weaponize the gospel, bending it into a tool of manipulation. Verses about the virtue of poverty and the difficulty of the rich entering heaven were to be emphasized, not to comfort the poor, but to prevent Africans from seeking or defending their own material wealth. “You have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty in their underground,” he instructs.
Children: The Frontline of Indoctrination
Leopold viewed African children as the key to long-term domination: “Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones… The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul.” This tactic aimed to create a generation more loyal to the white missionary than to their own culture or family.
Critical thinking was to be avoided, schools were to teach reading without reasoning, and African mysticism and warrior traditions were to be denigrated and dismantled. This form of mental conditioning echoes Paulo Freire’s critique of “banking education,” in which students are merely passive recipients of information rather than active agents of their liberation.
Poverty, Submission, and the Gospel of Control
The most disturbing is Leopold’s directive to maintain African poverty and dependency: “Make sure that niggers never become rich. Sing every day that it’s impossible for the rich to enter heaven.” Africans were to be spiritually pacified and economically neutered.
Even acts of forced labor and extortion were cloaked in religious garb: villagers were to give missionaries goats, chickens, and eggs as signs of “recognition,” taxes were to be collected at Sunday mass, and money intended for the poor was to fund colonial business centers.
Erasing Heroes, Elevating Oppressors
Another powerful strategy was cultural erasure. The missionaries were told: “Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours.” Statues of colonial figures replaced those of African leaders. African names, Gods, and shrines were demonized or destroyed. This systematic delegitimization of African identity ensured that future generations would aspire to European ideals while abandoning their own.
Today, many African Christian communities, both on the continent and in the diaspora, still reflect what the some describe as the “Leopoldian mandate.” African names, deities, and customs are dismissed as pagan. Churches built on African soil still carry European names and foreign leadership structures. And too often, instead of inspiring action, religion is used to pacify, encouraging people to pray instead of protest, to accept misrule rather than challenge it.
Leopold’s Letter to Missionaries
Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots: The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. You will go certainly to evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgium interests. Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already.
“They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don’t know. They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world.
“For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. To avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you. Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It’s very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us. I make reference to their Mystic System and their war fetish – warfare protection – which they pretend not to want to abandon, and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear. Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won’t revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent’s teachings.
“The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason. There, dear patriots, are some of the principles that you must apply. You will find many other books, which will be given to you at the end of this conference. Evangelize the negroes so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. Recite every day – “Happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of God is for them.”
Convert always the blacks by using the whip. Keep their women in nine months of submission to work freely for us. Force them to pay you in sign of recognition-goats, chicken or eggs-every time you visit their villages. And make sure that niggers never become rich. Sing every day that it’s impossible for the rich to enter heaven. Make them pay tax each week at Sunday mass. Use the money supposed for the poor, to build flourishing business centres. Institute a confessional system, which allows you to be good detectives denouncing any black that has a different consciousness contrary to that of the decision-maker. Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours. Never present a chair to a black that comes to visit you. Don’t give him more than one cigarette. Never invite him for dinner even if he gives you a chicken every time you arrive at his house.
Source:
https://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~luarnaut/Letter%20Leopold%20II%20to%20Colonial%20Missionaries.pdf
