Introduction

Who is Edmund Dene Morel?
What is the Congo Free State?
Who is King Leopold?
How does Morel discover that the trade in the Congo is based on slave labor?
Chapter 1

Who is Henry Morton Stanley?
How were explorers perceived in Europe?
What were the motives for British exploration of Africa?
Who was the target of antislavery fervor in the 1860s?
Who is David Livingstone?
Why did Stanley go looking for Livingstone?
How did Stanley’s expedition to find Livingston impact his career?
Chapter 2

Briefly describe Leopold’s personality.
Why did Leopold want a colony?
How did Leopold promote his interest in Africa?
What was Leopold’s Geographica Conference?
What did the International African Association achieve for Leopold?
Chapter 4

What was the agreement between Leopold and Stanley?
What was the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo?
What was the International Association of the Congo?
How did Stanley treat the Africans?
What was in the treaties secured by Stanley with the Congo basin chiefs?
Chapter 5

How did Leopold gain recognition for his colony?
How did Leopold get France and Germany to recognize Leopold’s colony?
What was the purpose of the Berlin Conference?
What did Leopold get out of the conference, despite not being there?
Why were the other nations willing to give so much to Leopold?
Chapter 7

Who is George Washington Williams?
How did he end up in the Congo?
What was in William’s Open Letter to Leopold?
Did the Open Letter achieve anything? Why or why not?
Chapter 8

What was the commodity that Leopold first exploited?
What is a chicotte? Why is it identified with white rule in Africa?
Briefly summarize Hochschid’s answer to the question: “What made it possible for the functionaries in the Congo to so blithely watch the chicotte in action and, as we shall see, to deal out pain and death in other ways as well?”
Why was service in the Congo attractive to many Europeans?
Chapter 10

How did Leopold benefit from the rubber boom of the 1890s?
How did Leopold acquire the necessary labor to profit from the rubber boom?
Who is William Sheppard? What did he discover about Leopold’s rubber industry?
Chapter 11

What impact did the protests of Sheppard and other missionaries have?
What was different about the death of Charles Stokes?
How did Leopold deal with the crisis?
Who was Edmund Dene Morel?
What three shocking discoveries did he make?
What did he conclude from these discoveries?
Chapter 12

What made Morel different from others who protested against the practices in the Congo?
What was the source of Morel’s passion for justice?
What was the British resolution of May 1903?
What did the efforts of Morel achieve? What did he not achieve?
Chapter 13

Who’s Roger Casement?
What did he discover in his investigative trip to the interior of the Congo?
Why was Casement’s report delayed? How was it altered before publication?
How and why was the Congo Reform Association created?
Chapter 14

What was a source of Morel’s success, even though it would be seen as a political limitation today?
What happened to Hexediah Andrew Shanu?
Why did Leopold begin to lose popularity in Belgium?
Chapter 15

What was the death toll in Leopold’s Congo?
What factors contributed to the death toll?
Why were the killings irrational? Why did they continue for so long if they were irrational?
Chapter 16

How did Leopold fight back against the accusations leveled against him?
Why did Leopold’s efforts in the United States backfire?
What was the Commission of Inquiry?
Did this commission achieve what Leopold wanted it to achieve?
How did Leopold manipulate the impact of the report by the commission?
Chapter 17

What was the “Belgian solution”? Why was it the only solution considered?
How did Leopold take advantage of the situation?
Did anything change after the Belgians took over?
What stance did Morel take? What was Morel’s new position on land rights?
Was Morel and his Congo Reform Association successful in achieving this goal?
Chapter 18

What did Morel and the Congo Reform Association not achieve?
Was Leopold’s Congo unique in its brutality in Africa?
Why was the focus on the Congo?
Chapter 19

What is the politics of forgetting?
How did Leopold attempt to get rid of his incriminating evidence?
Why was the Congo forgotten? How was it remembered?
Who is Jules Marchal?
What did he discover? Why wasn’t he allowed to look at the Commission of Inquiry report?
What is the legacy of colonialism in Africa?
When the Congo won independence, was it ready?
What happened to Patrice Lumumba the first democratically elected leader of the Congo?
Why was Mobutu put in power? What did the U.S. and its allies gain from this?
Did the Congolese benefit from Mobutu’s reign?
What did Morel’s reform movement achieve?
Afterword

Did the Royal Museum for Central Africa change after the publication of King Leopold’s Ghost?
What is the Congo (the Democratic Republic of Congo) like today?
Why do rebel militias, Congo’s African neighbors and corporate allies want the country to remain Balkanized?
What is one of the reasons Hochschild wrote this book? And what is his note of caution about it?
What are some of the factors that have prevented Africa from becoming a prosperous and peaceful democracy?