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King Leopold's Soliloquy

To be ignorant of history is to remain always a child - Cicero
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"My yearly income is millions of guineas"

"A memorial for the perpetuation of my name."

Mark Twain popularized the Congo Reform Movement among Americans. His work, King
Leopold's Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule, was a cutting satire of the situation.

King Leopold's Ghost
by Adam Hochschild
cover
the story of how Belgian King Leopold II made the Congo his own private reserve and inflicted appalling conditions on the Africans - an excellent, compelling book

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"The condition of things in the Congo is atrocious, as shown by the photographs of children whose hands have been cut off. Leopold thinks this can go on because the Congo is a distant out-of-the-way country. But once we can get England and America to investigate, and take this matter up, something will be done. We Americans are especially interested, because it was our recognition of the flag there that led to recognition by other powers."

Mark Twain -- Interview Boston Herald (Nov. 6, 1905).

This is part of That Magnificent African Cake: The Congo Free State exhibit

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