King Leopold's Ghost Analysis

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Summary of the text: Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold 's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa is a historical fiction published in 1998, which contains a myriad of evidence to testify the Belgian King Leopold II’s atrocities in Congo between 1908 and 1909 (Hochschild, 1998). As a fiction, it intends to capture the attention of various readers towards the Belgian imperialist delinquencies through a detailed narration of a number of main characters’, including George Washington Williams and William Henry Sheppard, experiences in Belgian Congo (Hochschild, 1998). In this excerpt, it illustrates William’s peaceful exploration in Congo as an American-Black missionary. During his journey, not only did he explore the Congolese culture, but he also tried to spread Christianity to Congo (Hochschild, 1998). Although he failed to bring the religion to Congo, he became a popular in Congo and the old world. Unfortunately, since rubber has been a ubiquitously used material, King Leopold II would like to gain an immense profit from mass production of rubber in Congo at all absurd lengths after it became a Belgian realm (Hochschild, 1998). For the sake of boosting the production, the Belgian colonial government exploits the indigenous by oblige them to work under inhumane working conditions (Hochschild, 1998). If the native refused or failed to meet the production target, they would suffer from various means of mental and physical abuse, such as having skeletons