Ghost Imperialism is the policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force. It’s the exploitation of natives to enrich a small handful. In the case of King Loophole’s Ghost, imperialism was used to enrich one person. King Leopold II had one idea in mind, and it was not to help better Belgium as a whole, or to even better Congo, his place of conquest. King Leopold used Congo strictly for monetary reasons for himself, and had no sympathy for who he had to lie to or step on to get what he wanted.
King Leopold saw the splitting of Africa and wanted a piece of the pie. He saw the country of Congo as great prize and immediately Jumped for it. He went about this very sneakily and covered his true motives with lies of helping Africa because he felt that it was his moral duty. Many people believed this, so he got what he wanted. He was interested in ivory and building a railroad, and of course you need workers to egging to get things done. Leopold used military force to get the Job done.
Many people died in the brutality of making the railroad. Even when it was finished, the railroad still required six thousand workers to run it. People died of sleep exhaustion, starvation, and diseases. That is Just the beginning though. The booming of cars and bicycles began to make rubber a hot commodity, and the King noticed. Rubber is made of a sap that comes from deep within trees. It is a very hard task to retrieve it and the natives would refuse to do it.
Leopold had the military capture hostages to get the men of the tribes to do the Job. Whole villages would be destroyed if they refused to cooperate. The hands and feet of people were cut off to show how serious the military was. Leopold went about ravaging villages, and raping the lands of Congo causing millions to suffer. The only benefits seen are that King Leopold lived lavish and people had rubber for their bikes and cars. But a few countries might have prospered due to the free trade and railroad systems in Congo.
But are those few things worth the lives of millions? The conquest of Congo will forever leave a scar. As seen, there were few benefits but at the cost of many suffering. The events that occurred there have been compared to Stalin’s actions in the Soviet Union, and even genocide. Many people took a stand against Leopold and many pamphlets and books were written. All together, the biggest consequences of the Kings actions are a large railroad for trade, which is beneficial, and the deaths of an estimated ten million people.