Belgique

Collection of four very important and meaningful manuscript letters by Leopold II to his administrator and Foreign Minister of the Congo - Free-State Baron Adolphe de Cuvelier 1860-1931 with a total of 16 pages filled with Leopold's instructions on pressing issues regarding a warning about an imminent visit by the Rector of the Mill-Hill Missionaries probably Herbert Alfred Henry Vaughan 1832 - 1903 and Leopold's qualification of the visit of being detrimental to the Congo Free State "ne travaillent pas pour l'État". Leopold continues in another letter to talk about the hostile positions of english officials consuls and missionaries "que les consuls anglais et les missionnaires anglais se conduisent bien mal envers l'État". Interestingly Leopold also touches on the nuisance of the german press criticizing Belgian Railway Lines and he is of the opinion that this is all happening in order to force the german parliament "Reichstag" to finance the building of the Tanganyika Railway between Dar

1901 · 100107AG — 1901. Laeken / Brussels Château de Laeken Palace of Laeken 1901 - 1906. 16 pages of MLS Manuscript Letters signed on 10 leaves of Leopold's official stationery "Château de Laeken" and "Palais de Bruxelles". The leaves with different sizes 135 cm x 9 cm and 18 cm x 115 cm. Excellent condition. Unsigned. Tremendously rare to find original letters by Leopold II on the open market in which the Colonial Free State and the protection against inquisitive visitors is discussed in such clear and instructive fashion. Leopold's correspondence with Adolphe de Cuvelier shows how he is very much trying to still protect and influence the narrative of his Colonial Slavery Outpost even in the final years of his life. Adolphe de Cuvelier 1860-1931 Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Congo Free State President of the Syndicate for Studies and Enterprises in Congo. He was given the title of knight in 1893 and baron in 1908 each transferable at first birth. Wikipedia _______________________________ Leopold II French: Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor; 9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909 was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and through his own efforts the owner and absolute ruler of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Born in Brussels as the second but eldest surviving son of Leopold I and Louise of Orléans he succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for exactly 44 years until his death—the longest reign of any Belgian monarch. He died without surviving legitimate sons. The current Belgian king descends from his nephew and successor Albert I. Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State a private project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim and committed the Congo Free State to him. Leopold ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory initially by the collection of ivory and after a rise in the price of natural rubber in the 1890s by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber. Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State was characterised by atrocities and systematic brutality including torture murder and the amputation of the hands of men women and children when the quota of rubber was not met. In 1890 George Washington Williams used the term "crimes against humanity" to describe the practices of Leopold II of Belgium's administration of the Congo Free State. Colonial accounts typically emphasized Leopold's modernizing changes in the Congo and not the mass death he facilitated. These and other facts were established at the time by eyewitness testimony on-site inspection by an international commission of inquiry and the 1904 Casement Report. Modern estimates range from 1 million to 15 million Congolese deaths with a consensus growing around 10 million. Some historians argue against these figures citing the lack of reliable censuses the enormous mortality caused by smallpox and African trypanosomiasis and the fact that there were only 175 administrative agents in charge of rubber exploitation. In 1908 the reports of deaths and abuse and pressure from the Congo Reform Association and other international groups induced the Belgian government to take over the administration of the Congo from Leopold as a new territory Belgian Congo. Wikipedia unknown