King Leopold II

• I believe that the time has come to spread ourselves outwards; we cannot afford to lose more time, under penalty of seeing the best positions, which are already becoming rare, successively occupied by nations more enterprising[resourceful, imaginative] than our own”– What do you think Leopold is referring to when he says

“the best positions?”– Which motivation for imperialism is this an example of?

King Leopold II

• Our goal is to open to civilization the only part of the globe where it has yet to penetrate. It is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress. I am in no way motivated by selfish designs.”– Do you believe King Leopold’s explanation about

bringing civilization to Africa? Why or why not?

A Congolese refugee

• “We had to go further and further into the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved. Wild beasts – leopards – killed some of us when we were working away in the forest, and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation, and we begged the white man to leave us alone, saying that we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said: ‘Go! You are only beasts yourselves.’”– Do you think it could have made a difference if the attitude

of the ‘white men’ was a little less degrading?

A Congolese refugee

• “I ran away with two old people, but they were caught and killed, and the soldiers made me carry the baskets holding their cut-off hands. They killed my little sister, threw her in a house, and set it on fire.”– Why do you think soldiers in the Congo treated

the natives like this? What purpose did this serve?

• Do you think other countries had an obligation to try and stop what the Belgians were doing in the country?