Embedded Files
Source # 1 - Map of British Empire in Africa - click on image to enlarge
Source # 2 - Video about British use of modern weapons to take over Southern Africa - click here
Biography - Chief Lobangula of the Matabele
Lobangula was born the son of the king of the Matabele in southern Africa in 1836. Lobangula’s father had been a general in the army of the famous leader of the Zulu tribe Shaka. His father, after a dispute with Shaka, had left the Zulu tribe along with his followers and established the tribe of the Matebele. The Matabele were, like the Zulu, a powerful warrior society. After his father’s death, Lobengula became the king of the Matabele. Lobengula ruled the Matabele at time when the Europeans were invading Africa to set up colonies and get resources. The British, led by the work of Cecil Rhodes, became interested in Matabele lands because they contained diamonds and gold and the land could be used for farming. However, the British were not the only Europeans to want the Matabele land. The Germans, Portuguese and Dutch settlers (called the Boer), also wanted a part of Matabele lands. In 1888, Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman in Southern Africa send representatives to negotiate a treaty with Lobengula in which the Lobengula agreed not to give any land to other European powers without the approval of the British. Lobengula agreed to this because he did not how this could be an issue. After this, Rhodes send another group of agents to Lobengula to ask for the permission to hunt, trade and look for gold and diamonds on Matabele lands. Rhodes offered a thousand guns and ammunition in return for the right to do this. Lobengula agreed to this and signed this treaty. However, Lobengula could not read the treaty so he had no way of knowing that the treaty he signed was not the one explained to him by Rhode’s agents. The treaty he signed gave Rhodes the right to all of the Matabele lands. After Lobengula signed the treaty, Rhodes organized a group of settlers, who were each promised a 3000 acre farm, and soldiers to take Matebele lands by force.
When Lobengula realized what Rhodes had done, he cancelled the treaty and ordered the British to leave Matabele lands. The British ignored him and began to build a road connecting Matabele land to the British colony in South Africa. Lobengula then tried to make a deal with the Dutch settlers in which he gave them the same lands that Rhodes claimed. Lobengula hoped this would create a conflict between the Dutch and the British. However, the Dutch just sold the rights to Rhodes. Rhodes and the British began to build a railroad across the Matabele lands. When he realized how he had been tricked by Rhodes, Lobangula said “Did you ever see a chameleon catch a fly? England is the chameleon and I am the fly.”
In 1893, Lobangula and the Matabele began to fight back against the British by bringing together his 5000 man Matabele army to force the British off the Matebele lands. Rhode’s British force was much smaller, about fifty men, but they were equipped with the Maxim gun. The Maxim gun was an early machine gun that could shoot up to 600 bullets a minute. With the Maxim gun on their side, Rhode’s British soldiers slaughtered the entire Matabele army in one battle. Lobangula fled the battle, but died a month later. It is not clear how he died, but it was most likely by poison. The Matebele lands became part of the British empire and Rhodes made a fortune from farming and mining diamonds and gold on Matebele lands.
Source # 3 - Cartoon - "How to be a Colonial Power" showing how the British ran their empire in Africa - click on image to enlarge
Source # 4 - Map of Belgian Congo - click on image to enlarge
Biography - King Leopold of Belgium
Leopold II was born in 1835 to the royal family of Belgium. When he was born, Belgium was a new country, having become independent of the Netherlands in 1831. His father, also Leopold, had been a prince in Germany before being made King of Belgium in 1831. The country of Belgium was a small country that had close connections to France and England. Leopold succeeded his father to become king in 1865. Leopold was a liberal king who expanded voting rights, enacted workplace protection and gave workers the right to form labor unions. He was called the “builder king” because of the large number of build projects he carried out to improve Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. As the king of Belgium, Leopold dreamed of building a large overseas empire because he believed that having overseas colonies were the key to a country's greatness. He expressed this when he said, "The country must be strong, prosperous, therefore have colonies of her own, beautiful and calm." During the 1860’s, he tried several times to get Spain to give the Philippines to Belgium. When this did not work, he turned his attention to Africa.
In 1876, Leopold formed a private company that was disguised as an international scientific and assistance organization called the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of the Congo. In 1878, this organization hired the explorer Henry Stanley to explore and establish a colony in area of the Congo River in central Africa. Leopold’s claim to this land was recognized by other European countries at the Berlin Conference in 1884. In 1885, Leopold established the Congo Free State, which covered a territory 80 times the size of Belgium. Importantly, the Congo Free State was not a colony of Belgium. It was actually Leopold’s personal property which he controlled through his own private army.
Leopold made a huge fortune through his ownership of the Congo through ivory, from elephants, and rubber, from rubber trees. The Europeans who worked for Leopold in the Congo effectively enslaved the local Congolese population to force them to hunt elephants for ivory and to collect rubber. The local Congolese population was beaten, mutilated (such as having their hands cut off) or killed for refusing to work or for not working hard enough. It is estimated that around half the population of the Congo or 10 million people were killed or died as the result of how the Congo Free State was ruled. Some Europeans were so horrified by the brutality in the Congo Free State that they organized the first international human rights movement to stop the Leopold’s rule of the Congo. In 1908, the government of Belgium forced Leopold to give the Congo Free State to Belgium and the territory became a Belgian colony.
Source # 5 - Video about the Leopold II brutal rule of the Congo Free State and how it resulted in the first human rights movement - click here
Source # 6 - Cartoon - King Leopold as a snake attack the Congolese - click on image to enlarge
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