Hi, I'm Daniel Tosh, host of a new podcast called Tosh Show. I'll be interviewing people that I find interesting, so not celebrities and certainly not comedians. We'll be covering topics like religion, travel, sports, gambling, but mostly it will be about being a working mother. If you're looking for a podcast that will educate and inspire or one that will really make you think, this isn't the one for you. Listen to Tosh Show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the greatest murder mystery in American history.

That's Rob Reiner. Rob called me, Soledad O'Brien, and asked me what I knew about this crime.

Well, ask who had the motive to assassinate a sitting president. Then we'll pull the curtain back on the cover up. The American people need to know the truth.

Listen to Who Killed JFK on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever get your podcasts.

My name is Payne Lindsay. Throughout my career, I've had the chance to travel all over the place investigating true crimes, researching the unexplained, and I've been able to meet some of the most truly interesting people, and I've decided to sit down with them and pick their brains. We're going to talk about life, death, unsolved crimes, the supernatural. There's something here. Truly something going on. Honestly, just whatever the hell is on our minds. Wait a minute. You should be very happy. You want to? This is Talking to Death. New episodes of Talking to Death are available now. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Coolzone Media. Hey, everyone. Robert Evans here. It's another holiday week. This is not a holiday I tend to celebrate, but it is a holiday that our company gives us off. I like my team not having to work. It's also good to not have to work. And when we drop episodes on weeks like this, it means we basically have to double up during the week before the week after, which causes a lot of stress that isn't necessary when you're trying to have everyone be able to relax. So this week we.

Are.

Doing another Rewind, our infamous and beloved.

Episodes on King Leopolde.

Ii of Belgium. So tuck in and enjoy yourselves and enjoy a real terrible story of a real terrible piece of shit. I hope you all have a good.

Week.

Regardless of what you do during it.

Hello.

Friends, and welcome back to Behind the Basedards, the show where.

We tell you.

Everything you don't know about the very worst people in history.

On this show, we cover monsters like Adolf.

Hitler, Saddam Hussein.

Eric Prince, Will Wheaton. And today's topic, King Leopolde.

But before we get to King Leopold, I'd like to introduce.

My guest for the week.

Andrew T, host of Yo Is This Racist and General Man About Town.

Hello, Andrew. What's up? Well, today we're talking about a little Belgian dude named Leopold.

You've ever heard of King.

Leopold.

Of Belgium? Not particularly.

King Leopolde II, if that makes a difference.

Yeah, I feel like the closest I'm going to come is... I feel like at some point I got a box of fancy chocolates that might have had a Leopold. Maybe not the bad Leopold. I assume a good Leopold.

This is not a good Leopold.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So probably not this particular Leopold.

Yeah.

Leopold II was King of.

Belgium once upon.

A time, and he was, in my opinion, the first world leader to be truly shitty in the modern sense of the word.

Oh, snap. The shitty that.

Putin and.

Trump.

Are. Right, right, right. So we're discounting our Genghis Khan and our-.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Genghis Khan did what he did, but he didn't have a bunch of newspapers that he used to justify. He was just like, I'm going to conquer some shit.

Right, right, right. This is the transition from Barbarian bastard into media bastard.

Exactly. And I think, Leopolde of Belgium is really where it happens in a modern...

Obviously, other people had toyed.

With aspects of this, but he really nailed it. King Leopold II's dad was.

Obviously King.

Leopold I, and he.

Was the.

First king of Belgium. Makes sense. Is that obvious?

Is it always one begets two? Or is it like, Your grandfather was Leopold I, I'm Gerald of Belgium, but you're going to be Leopold II?

I think that's more how it happens most of the time. Not this time. Not this time. This time, Leopold I was like, This went so well, we're going to have it the second. Keep it going. So Leopold I was again, the very first king of Belgium at all because Belgium had just been made a thing in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. So during the whole fighting between Napoleon and everyone else in Europe.

Belgium.

Was generally the battleground where everyone would duke it out.

Between the Germans and the French and the.

French and.

Everybody else. Waterloo was in Belgium.

Oh. So after Napoleon's butt.

Gets.

Kicked, the European powers who win are like, Okay, we can't have France and Germany fighting over Belgium forever. We're going to make it its own thing. It's a new thing. Oh. Yeah. And since it was going to be a new country, obviously, it needed a king. Yeah, of course.

So, Leopolde the first got.

The job because.

He was a German prince who.

Didn't have a kingdom of his own.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So he was just split off. Right. This is like, we're going to give Megan Markle Wales or whatever. No, part.

Of Wales. Yeah, part of Wales. Yeah, exactly that thing.

They actually tried him out to be King of Greece.

First, but he didn't fit for whatever. What?

That's an option?

We're going to find you with something, buddy. Don't worry, Leopolde. Oh, my God. We're going to put you in a kingdom. That is- Greece isn't the.

Right one. Yeah, of course. You try to start her kingdom. Everyone has a kingdom to start.

Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, Greece was his unsold pilot. Wow. Yeah. And he was, by all accounts, a pretty good king of Belgium, if you're into that thing. Yeah, waffles.

Waffles and chocolate.

Chocolate. Getting invaded by the Germans. Oh, beer, I guess.

They liked the beer. Yeah, getting jammed by the Germans.

Great beer.

Great at getting jammed by the Germans. Yeah. That's Belgium in a nutshell. But yeah, he was a good king. While he was king midway through his reign in 1848, there was this.

Big year of revolutions all across Europe.

And all these.

European countries had.

Their.

Monarchs overthrown, except for Belgium. So he was very popular.

The Christian Spring, we call that. Yes. No, the White Man's Spring.

I don't know. The white man's spring. I don't know. That doesn't matter.

That's the last.

300 years.

Yeah, it's true. What a time for the YTS. Give it up for the YTS.

Yeah. So Leopolde the first, Solid King. I've got.

Two main sources for.

Today's podcast, which I should note now. The first is a biography called Leopolde the second King of Belgium. It's a pro-monarchist book that was written in 1910. Great. The article is critical of Leopold sometimes, but he thinks he was a great king, and he.

Thinks kings.

Are a good idea. So it's an interesting book because it gives you an idea of how Leopold himself would present.

Himself.

And defend himself, it let you know what the propaganda at the time was.

Well, and also, right, just critical enough to be legitimate.

Well, no. No? It's totally, I guess for the time, it wasn't bad.

But it's like a - Oh, what I mean is you put in just the faintest of criticism to give the rest of it more, Oh, this is a real investigation.

Yeah, it's like the monarchs equivalent of one of those celebrity biographies that comes out of Ben Affleck or whatever. Yeah, a softball. Yeah, yeah.

This is a Haraldo interview of books.

Exactly. Great. Exactly. And then the other book is a.

Book called King Leopolde.

Ghost by.

Adam.

Hawshilde, which takes the stance that Leopolde.

Was one of.

History's great monsters. Anyway, so these are most of what I come from the contrasting.

Views that these two books present.

You read two books for a podcast? Are you out of your mind?

Come on, Doug. There's a lot to dig into here. Oh, wow.

And there's not a lot. You're making me feel real bad. I'm usually good for half a Wikipedia article. Holy shit.

Well, this is at least the equivalent of four Wikipedia articles, so buckle up.

Yeah, that's a lot. Jeez, go ahead.

All right, so Leopolde II's.

Mom, Louise, was almost a love match, is the.

Term the.

Book uses for his dad, the king.

It says this because the king was already in love with her before they got married when she was a teenager.

What a.

Nice thing. That makes it a love match.

That's so nice.

He liked her when she was 14, so it's love. Right. The 1800s were a hell of a time.

And she had the right land, I assume?

Yeah, she had some nice land, I'm guessing.

Related to the right enemies?

She was with, I think, from the Orleone family. So she had some solid ass royal pedigree. We all love them. You get some German from King Leopold I, you get a.

Little bit of French.

From his wife, and then their.

Baby is a mix.

So maybe Germany and France won't fight over Belgium.

Oh, wow.

What a brave.

Yeah. Didn't wear any... Yeah.

So Leopold II.

Was.

Born Leopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor.

And he.

Was his parents' second child. His older brother died 11 months before.

He was born. Nice. So if you think about that timeline a lot, it's not very fun because Leopold's older brother is born. Yeah. He dies. Yeah. Eleven months later, they pop out another son. Yeah. Immediately. Immediately. Not a lot of morning time. Nah. Or maybe they just, you know, fuck the pain away.

But - Yeah. Yeah. That's probably what happened.

That's the optimistic look. All right, so at age five, Leopold's.

Father declared him duke of Brabante, which is how he was addressed right up until his coronation.

Sorry, you said five, age five?

Yeah, age five. Great. Yeah, you're old enough to be a duke at age five. And he looks like he should be ruling people in this picture.

What a pretty little duke.

We'll have the pictures up on our website. He has no chin and a lopsided face, but maybe that's just the painting.

Looks a little bit like a ghost, like a.

Human ghost. Yeah, it looks like the painting of a ghost that you find in the basement of an old house, and then there's a rush of wind and the camera falls over and your friend gets mauled by a spirit. Yeah.

And that's this guy's a selfie, essentially. Yeah. That's this... This is the image we want to put out.

Into the world. Yeah, this was hanging in palaces and shit. Yeah, tight. So he looks like a creeper from day one. Yeah, a little spooky boy. But he's still a baby. So the biography.

Notes that Leopold and his siblings were brought up in, quote, The simplest manner and taught to behave as if they were normal citizens rather than royalty.

That sounds great until you get to the next part.

Quote, the king further expressed the wish to develop in the children the sentiment of duty and not to allow them to have an opinion of their own with regard to their duties and their studies.

Basically, the king was trying to crush the individuality of his kids so that they would just fit the role of king.

That's - Yeah.

-good, actually. Is it? What else are you going to do? Because they got to do this dumb dumb Well.

I mean, you could try to make them be.

Healthy, fully.

Formed.

People. Yeah, but why? Then they got to be king.

Yeah, well, okay, that's fair. I mean, you're taking Leopold the first side.

Yeah, well, he's the good one again. I probably have his chocolate. No, but right? Isn't that the... He's just as trapped as everyone everyone else, you Yes.

So if he's got to do this thing, you might as well make it so he can do this thing.

Okay, so you're expressing some motivation maybe to- Why you would do this. Why you would do what he winds up doing. I mean- And you don't even know what he winds up doing. What does he do?

Yeah, what did I just defend? We are- Let me just say right now, whatever he does, I stand.

Behind it. Well, he kills about 10-15 million people. Yeah, it's fine. Okay, well, that's it. So when Leopold is 15, his mom dies of some illness or another. It's one of those things where the writers.

At the time aren't specific.

They're just like, She.

Took ill and was sick for... And then she dies. Yeah.

It's probably probably diphtheria some some weird named.

The The flu.

If it was the flu, would be a big.

Deal, I guess. I mean, it probably is a a flu. Killed everybody back then. Yeah. Yeah. In King Leopolde's Ghost, Adam Adam describes Leopolde's childhood as being stark and cold. Quote, if if wanted to.

See his father, he had to apply for an audience.

When the father had something to tell the son, he.

Communicated it through one of.

His.

Secretaries. I mean, look, this is not just 18th 18th century, development. Right?

Yeah. It's nice. Yeah, that's what's going on. He definitely has a Buster-Blethe vibe to him.

Yeah. Again, especially once you see this fucking painting. You'll get it, audience.

The.

Biography.

That was written at the the timesays that is worthy of note that the late king never had any comrade or playmates. His childhood was passed among his teachers and tutors, and the disciplinary and father made even more the relationship with his brother and sister a very formal one. Frank, childish, gaiety, and brotherly expansion and confidence were banished. The The thoughts thus.

Became concentrated upon himself and.

His natural activity and vitality. His exuberant exuberant were expended on work and study.

-tight.

-yeah. About it. No friends does nothing but work. Yeah.

Who do you mean? He is a duke.

Yeah, I mean, he's already achieved a lot.

I mean, he is a boss baby. Yeah. Just throwing that out there.

So he grows up.

He serves in the Belgian military. He apparently does okay.

By his early 20s, 20s, becomes.

An.

Influential figure in Belgian politics. He's the Crown Prince. Everyone thinks he's going to wind up being king. Yeah, he's influential, yeah. And he looks a little like Adam driver.

Yeah, he looks like an anime Adam driver.

Yeah, that's who you would cast as anime Adam driver in the movie. Like many rich young.

People, he.

Traveled far and wide in his early 20s. He went all throughout the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Asia. But he was.

Not.

Traveling for his enjoyment. He was basically traveling, the biography says, as a commercial employee. Employee. So was essentially looking.

For financial opportunities for Belgium.

Because this.

Is the period.

When all of Europe is colonizing the entire world. Belgium doesn't have a colony. Colony. So traveling all around.

The Middle.

East and Asia basically being like, What can we take?

Yeah, whose land can.

We take? Yeah, what can we get? Does this hop ahead to the Congo? Oh, yes. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's where we're headed.

Okay, how do I know that tiny bit of history?

It's one of those things that that in every now and then. You'll hear like, Oh, yeah, the Belgium did something bad in the Congo. But you don't ever get-.

I don't know any details. -the whole story. In fact, I probably know more plot points from Michael Crighton's The Congo than reality's The Congo.

Yes, I mean, there's unconfirmed reports that he tried to find the lost city of of but but Great. Great movie. Is that what they were doing there? Yeah, they're trying to find diamonds. There was a monkey city. They were trying to find diamonds diamonds and the monkeys were Yeah.

That's more what I.

Remember, to be honest.

Solid film. Really solid film.

There's a laser.

There is a laser. There's definitely a laser in that movie. Oh, man, what a weird... It's a ride.

Michael Cryton, we're still watching this bullshit. I can't believe Westworld. Oh, my God.

All right, go ahead. Sorry. Okay, so Prince Leopolde, one of his favorite books as he's a young man studying trying to find a new colony for Belgium, is a book about.

The Dutch East Indies.

Called Java:.

How to.

Manage a a Colony.

Tite.

Why would you... Oh, my God. I guess that's why you have to tell people your favorite book is, but that's...

Well, no, the book is all about how the Dutch colonized the island of Java and how they got a shitload of coffee and sugar and dyes and tobacco. Tobacco.

And basically made so.

Much money that they were able to buy a bunch.

Of railroads and canals.

Back in Holland. Holland. So book is all about that. That. So outlines how they were able to monetize Java so well. And it talks about how the king basically brought in a bunch of private.

Companies and became a major shareholder in those companies.

And it was the company's job to farm the land and to produce.

The resources.

And then.

Export them to Belgium. So the king.

Didn't have to send Dutch government workers over to do anything. The king just said, I own Java.

Corporations come in.

Give me a stake in your profits and do whatever you want.

I think it's just cool to have political leaders also own own corporations. Has never been a problem and never will be a problem.

No, it seems to always work out great. It seems to work out great 100 % of the time. The book also did note that the Dutch Dutch profits Java would have been impossible without a huge amount of forced labor. And young young Leopolde agreed with.

This and said that forced labor was, quote, quote, only way to civilize and uplift these indolent and corrupt peoples of the.

The Far Yeah. Yeah.

He ain't wrong. Let me go ahead. What else? What else you got? I thought you said this guy was bad.

Bad. All So late in his duked him, a few years.

Before he becomes king.

King, gets him in front of Belgium's Senate, and he urges them to take up foreign colonies.

So they got a king and a Senate. Senate.

Yeah, How does that work? So basically the King of Belgium is.

A.

Ceremonial figure. He's got more power than the Queen in England has today.

But it's heading.

Towards- But.

It's heading towards that.

There's no formal power, lots of soft power.

Lots of soft power and a little bit of formal power. But you can't.

Do things as.

The the just just colonies. Right. You can't do things as the king like sin the army places. Yeah, yeah. And so.

Leopolde's.

Dad seems to be okay with that. But Leopolde II is growing up chomping at the the to do shit and doesn't want to become a monarch who.

Just waves at the crowd.

Why? Yeah, why not? So he gets up in front of the Senate and he says, quote.

I am profoundly convinced of our vast resources, and I passionately wish that my beautiful country would show the necessary pluck to derive all the benefit which, in my opinion, it can derive. I think that the moment for our expansion abroad has has arrived. Must not lose time. Otherwise, the best positions in markets, which are becoming more rare every day, will be occupied by nations more enterprising than ourselves. Ourselves.

And he talks about positions in markets, he's talking about whole countries and stuff, millions of people.

It's more chilling in the the Flemmish?

Yeah, Flemmish. Yes! He nailed it. Although he probably would have been speaking just French.

All.

Right.

Right, I'm going to say say.

Well, you can say Walloon if you want.

I'm getting... What is that? Is that.

The other language? That's the other group of people.

Belgium is made up of Flemish people and Walloon.

Yeah, the the.

The horse.

Bandaid on their face. We get it.

It. A rough name to grow into the world.

Stage taking on.

Well, you got to get enough rifles, get enough cutlases. Everything starts.

To make sense. I don't feel like it does. I feel like Germany.

Was so fierce in part.

Because German is like... That's like an imposing name. The Germans are coming.

Imagine if the name got switched and the Belgiums were.

Called the Germans and the Nazis had tried to invade and everyone was like, Oh, the Walloons are invading. That's not going to go.

As well. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, let's boot up a risk game.

We'll figure it out. All right. So yeah, Leopold I, Leopold II's dad died in December of of 1865.

Same year.

The American Civil War ended. Leopold is now.

The king and 30 years old.

This appears to be the.

Point when he decided to grow a.

Gigantic mountain man beard. -tight. -which he would maintain for the.

Rest.

Of his days.

Days.

Needed it.

Yeah, well, there's.

A lot of pictures of.

Leopold with a beard. We'll post.

Them on the site. Some of them look look like me.

Some of them are.

Clear missteps in the beard growing process where he's got gigantic mutton chops and he looks like a fucking hair octopus.

Style of the time, though.

Yeah, he went through some rough patches in his - Damn. -sartorial history.

For sure. Sure. That's pretty, that's easy. We're looking looking.

Yeah, that's a rough picture. Picture. -dem Yeah, and he's almost wearing wearing bell in that picture.

Picture.

It's the '60s. Well, it is the 1860s. Boom. All right. So yeah, yeah, the king of Belgium. He's super frustrated because the king doesn't have that much in the way of power. Leopold takes to to mocking restrained role that he.

Has in.

Belgian politics. There's a story of this guy who came to visit him because the the got got visit with his donors and benefactors and whatnot. This guy complains about the poor state of the roads around his property, and.

And and then interrupts him and says, I have no authority to change the roads. You ought to address yourself to the press, especially to the small papers. The municipality and the government will do anything they ask.

So he was making a point of being frustrated that I can't do do anything, I'm just take it to the press. Your king is not allowed to do anything. He set to work making himself into an.

Image for the Belgian people. He was.

The aristocratic equivalent of an alpha male. He spent a lot of time doing science work and supporting the arts and sciences.

19th century science is just like beakers of lead and shit.

Like that. He's pouring colored water into beakers. He's got goggles on. You know how this all goes. There's a quote from his biography that that says, used to sleep.

In a camp.

Bed, like a military cot.

And had a general horror of everything that could innervate or render him a feminine.

So he's a proud boy. He's a proud.

Proud boy, yeah. What they call people who aren't racist, soy boys, is that right?

Yeah, because eating soy feminizes you. You. Again. Yeah, the all right thing. Yeah.

Hey, well, at least we know they have a nice.

Historical antecedent. Antecedent. Would have been all about that stuff. Stuff. So growing a giant weird beard. He's sleeping in a palace in a military military He's scared of girls. He hates spending money. His biography says, quote, His pocket handkerchief.

Was only renewed on Sunday mornings when going to mass, and on no account would he take another in the interval. If his valets changed his towels more than once a week, they were sure to receive a good scalding from His Majesty.

What? So he's like a gross miser. Yeah. Don't clean those towels.

Oh, which one't one of the the alt guys living in their.

Mom's basement? I think most of them are. Definitely, Definitely, Roosh Vee. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, Roosh the pickup artist guy that was found living in his mom's basement. Literally living in.

His mom's basement. Oh, man. Man. Literally living in his mom's basement. What this guy, Leopold, was missing.

Yeah.

I guess the beard experiment, clearly on that vector.

His mom died young, so he became a king. Yeah.

Instead, that's called peacock in everyone. I don't think it's to attract women's attention. Attention. I a kingdom? Yeah, Yeah, I a king.

I mean, having a castle is pretty solid peacock in. That's true.

Undeniable. Yeah. Yeah.

Ii was.

Noted in his.

Biography as the first king to treat his kingship as a corporate endeavor. His primary concern was making money not for Belgium.

But for himself. Himself. It all about the bottom line. When you talk about dictators.

And.

Warords and terrorists, there's a tendency to call them psychopaths and sociopaths. Sociopath is like an actual medical diagnosis.

I don't think.

Guys like Hitler or Stalin really fit it because they.

All had.

Histories of warm family life and people who cared about them and people that they sacrificed for at times.

Leopold might have.

Been a straight-up- Because he's more corporate.

Corporate. Monster. Yeah, because that's what they say, right? It's like so many CEOs and Fortune 500, whatever the fuck. Yeah, Yeah.

People who overrepresented in corporate leadership.

Leadership. People who are in, psychopathic traits.

Yeah, even his positive biography says that while he was charming, he was, quote, devoid of enthusiasm himself and was quite incapable of arousing any and others.

So he just can't actually touch people's heart. Heart. Yeah, can't motivate people. So, yeah, we're going to get more into the.

Solace, Leopold II, his.

Scheme to.

Find a.

Colony and the colony.

That he eventually finds.

But But first, got some ads.

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We're back. We're back. We're talking.

About King Leopolde.

Who is searching for a little colony somewhere in the world to fill that hole in his heart.

We called the.

Deuce, of course.

Yeah, Yeah, the Deuce.

Deuce. Ii, Electric, Bookaboo, whatever you want to call him.

We were just talking about what a a Solace, creep he is. Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly.

Well, here's another quote. Again, this is from a a positive biography that he probably paid for. He disliked music.

Hunting, tobacco, and had no taste for physical exercises except walking. Although a frequent visitor at.

Austin, which is one of his palaces.

He never learned to swim. He was seen yawning in a gala performance of Faust.

So he doesn't like like plays. Doesn't like art. He hates music. That's a thing. Any book you read about him, anyone who knew him, he hated music. Oh, no. Not like he hated popular music, but music itself was offensive to him.

That's fascinating. Well, that's cutting into the American psycho narrative, unfortunately.

Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah, he's a weird guy.

He's very vain, but his main vanity was quite odd.

He thought he had the most beautiful hands in all of Europe.

Tite. His biography notes.

Another of Leopolde's hobbies was his dislike for for gloves, and he often wore wore uniform, is never reported to have put on gloves. It may have been a hatred of restraint, but more probably it was a pardonable vanity on the part of the late king, for he he the shapely and beautiful hand of the Orleone family.

That rules so hard.

Here's the only picture I could find that shows his good ass hands. His good ass hands. Oh, gloves.

No, he's.

Holding the gloves in his hand, so.

His hand is negative. That's even stronger, actually, reminding people you could be.

Wearing gloves. I'm the master of the... In fairness.

To him, his hands are beautiful in this picture. Of course. I mean, they're just just look at.

The bone definition. They are are shapey.

They're good hands.

Yeah, they good-ass hands.

Oh, man. That means that he made some painter do multiple drafts on those hands. Hands. That's like, this is like, rest of development where the guy has a fake hand? It's always sunny, always sunny where the guy.

Has a fake hand. Yeah, the lawyer and always sunny always has fake hands. Then there's some things to be said about our president and hands. No. It's weird. It's weird that you would would even I never think about my hands, how they look. When I'm thinking about someone taking a picture of me, zero % of the the I'm like, Oh, my God, my hands. Do they look shapely? Do you.

Know what's crazy? I had to send a picture of a piece of equipment for this job I'm on to a technical person. I just took a picture out of my phone and sent it to them. I realized as I was sending the email, I was like, My hands look fucked up in this. I'm having a real low hand self-esteem day.

Oh, I think you.

Have the the hands of the Orleone family.

No, you're being really nice right now, but it's actually a little hilarious that the one day, possibly in my my that I've noticed my hands.

These.

Are horrible. I was like, What the fuck is up with my hands?

Hands? If these.

Were feet.

Feet. I've been an arm model before. My friend was doing some, not elbows down. I was doing some some stock photography, I was like, I want want to pictures of your arms. I was like, You're wiling out. You know what? I'm good wrist to elbow.

Wrist.

To elbow. Yeah, I got my fore arms, I'm about it.

Well, Leopolde was.

A a.

Hand Yeah.

We've got this frustrated, greedy.

Gorgeous-handed king on the throne of Belgium. He keeps trying to get his countrymen to jump on.

Board to having a colony train, but the people of Belgium express zero interest in this.

Oh, okay. Wait, why?

What do you mean?

All right, because obviously all European colonialism is pretty much the root of almost everything that's wrong in the world right now.

It sure is.

But I don't understand why they certainly didn't, I'm going to guess, not want to do it for the reasons why I don't think they should.

Have done it. I think the Belgium's, for one thing, so the the of this era, anyone who's a mature adult lived through what was at that point, the equivalent of World War II, the Napoleonic Wars, and was like, We just don't want any trouble. We just want to stay in Belgium and eat chocolate and drink beer. We don't really want to go to Africa or Asia and die. Can I say.

The the.

First Not.

The first. Can I say continue an incredibly long list of ignorant ass shit I'm about to say?

You do you.

Is Belgium landlocked?

No. No, right? Okay. Okay. No, has Antwerp. Antwerp. Antwerp?

Right. Okay. Okay.

It's just A number.

Of boards, I'm sure. It's just small. Yeah, okay. It's a wee little country.

You can.

Drive across it in a couple of hours.

Hours. Okay. I was just just Okay, never mind. I was just like, It's funny to imagine a landlock country country owning stuff, of course they can. Who gives a shit? But they're not landlocked, so.

Fuck me. Yeah, no, they're not. They didn't have a colony at this point, and they seem to have zero interest in having one. That's crazy. Now, at.

The same time, from 1874 to 1877.

When Leopolde like a decade or so into his kinghood.

There's this explorer named Henry Morten Stanley.

And yeah, from '74 to.

'77, he completes a a 7,000.

Expedition across Central Africa.

Much of his travel.

Centered upon the still undiscovered by, white people, Congo. No one had mapped.

The extent of the.

Congo River. We didn't know where it originated from at this point. So this.

Time in.

European history, different.

Explorers mapping.

Africa are like the.

Marvel.

Movie franchise of the day. Each of these guys is world famous and newspapers breathlessly cover every expedition. Whenever they finish an expedition, they write a book and millions of people buy it.

Automatically.

Profitable. Exactly. This is the thing people care about at this point in time. It's like, what these explorers are doing in.

Africa and.

All over the world.

That just means if I were alive then and a white person to big Fs, I would be struggling to get on one of the good expeditions.

Yeah, Yeah, you crossed it's not one of the ones where people eat each other.

Yeah, Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Statistically a lot of them are. Yeah. So Stanley maps a.

Huge chunk.

Of the Congo more than anyone had ever done before, and it's big news. He gets back to Europe Africa and he goes on tour. He's doing speaking engagements. He's He's big celebrity.

I feel like there's a lot of skulls and calipers in a talk.

This. Yeah, and probably buckets of racism. Yeah. Totally unexamined racism. Why? Look.

Don't look. If you don't look, it's not there. Yeah. Well- That's the racist motto.

He's touring around and King Leopold winds up meeting with him. Stanley had.

Been.

Bullish on the the that the.

Congo would be.

A great.

Place for.

A a colony, and wanted the British to set up a colony there.

The OGs. You want to go to the best colonizing.

Studio first. Yeah, exactly. Is Paramount good? Probably not. I don't know anything about the city we all live in.

Is the Warner Brothers?

The Disney.

That's the Disney. Yeah, Britain's the Disney of colonizing. Colonizing. Yeah. And he goes goes I don't know, who's.

Making.

Dc's garbage movies?

Warner Brothers.

Warner Brothers. Okay, so so Warner Brothers.

No, they're not even in it. Leopold is like-.

This has gotten very confusing.

Confusing. Is like a Snapchat making stuff. Technically, they got the... Or YouTube. It's a YouTube show.

Yeah, you know what? Let's- They got the money.

Let's actually.

Call it- They have no history for it, but who knows?

I feel like we actually hit upon the.

Right thing to compare compare to, which is Amazon.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So Stanley tries to sell his Congo idea to Disney/Britain, and it fails. King Leopold, aka Amazon, is like, Well, we might be interested in this plan. Yeah, we'll fund this. Let's do it. Why don't you.

Give me your elevator pitch? Pitch?

Calling in the Congo, huh? I like it. I like this idea. Yeah, so Leopold contracts.

Stanley to work for him, and he sends him back to.

Africa.

With a new mission.

So Leopold's.

Master plan.

Here, I'm going to peel back for a minute, and then we're going to zoom into the different pieces because it's a complicated ass plan. Great. His master.

Plan is to create the Congo-free state, which is a supposedly independent African nation nation that just to also be ruled by King King II. Sure.

So he went about doing this in a few ways.

In 1876, he hosted the Brussels Geographic Conference, where he invited a bunch of European experts to form the so-called International African Association, which, of course, had.

No Africans as members.

The association was a supposedly philanthropic organization. I'm going to read you a selection from Leopold's speech at the.

Conference where he lays out what he wants to do.

The subject that calls us together today is one that demands a first place in the attention of Friends of of Humanity. Open up to civilization, the only part of our globe where she has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness that that entire populations is, I may.

Venture to say.

A crusade worthy of this century of of progress. I am glad to observe how very favorable public feeling is to its accomplishment. The current is with us.

So he gets this association together and he says, This is an.

International.

International and.

We're trying to.

Civilize Africa and improve lives of people who are there.

I didn't realize that back then the rhetoric was already like, The always this is to help them double speak. I actually just assumed they were like, Yeah, we're going to take this shit from black people.

No, they they And these guys.

The people that he.

Invites to the geographic conference and forms the International African Association with, these guys are a lot of people who legitimately want to.

Make things.

Better for Africans, who aren't even thinking about making making a call, who are just.

Yeah, these are the the liberal white people.

Yeah, exactly. And missionaries who are... Well, meaning liberal white people.

Because there's an Arab.

Slave trade in Africa, traders moving through the Congo, and.

The abolition movement is.

Very big at this point in time. And so these people are being like, We've got to stop the slave trade in Africa. So Leopold's like, We can do that. And there's a bunch of people who are like, We've got to Christianize the Africans. And Leopold's like, We can do that. So that's what.

He's claiming this.

Association.

Is. Oh, man. Okay, so this is definitely like colonialism 2.0 or 3.0. 3.0. He's.

Ahead of everyone else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's not.

Even framing this as colonialism. He's framing this as a charitable endeavor.

To improve the lives of the country.

Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he suggests that Belgium would be a.

Great place for this new international.

Body to meet because it's a neutral country and it's centrally located in Europe.

And.

Then he suggests that he might be a good person to run the association just for.

Its first year. You got to get yourself. You got to be confident. Just for its first year. And he assures.

Them all that he's doing this from the goodness of his heart.

He He Belgium.

Is small. She is happy and with her lot. I have no other ambition than to serve her well. And it was true that.

Belgium were pretty happy with their lot. But Leopold.

Did have some ambitions.

So he gets.

Elected head of the International.

African Association the first year, and then he gets elected.

The head of it the second year, too, even.

Though that was.

Supposed to be illegal.

Back.

To back. And then the association stops existing. And Leopold replaces it with the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo, and then he replaces that with the International Association.

For the Congo.

Congo. Paper, these are all different international philanthropic groups. Their names were deliberately forgettable and similar, so the public would assume they were.

All the same thing. In King King Ghost.

Adam Adam writes that Leopolde directly told his aides, quote, Care must be taken not to let it be obvious that the Association of the Congo and the African Association are two different things. The public doesn't grasp that.

Oh, man. So in.

Reality, all.

Of these.

Philanthropic groups are shadow fronts.

For for plan to conquer the Congo.

So they're all charity organizations that he gets international aid money getting sent into, and he's able to pour Belgian government funds into as loans and donations.

Right. Just like Hillary Clinton.

Nice. Exactly like Hillary Clinton. Nice. Yes, you've watched the documentary Clinton Cash by Denise de Sosa. Yes. Oh, God.

The thing that's amazing about this is it's so complicated a plan that doesn't feel like... I'm a super smart person, person, of I'm not finding a place where you could improvise your way into this.

You just got to wait because we're not even halfway through the plant.

He is a legitimate...

Okay, so the villain that.

Marvel.

Keeps trying to write and failing to write, in my opinion, where it's the Luki character, where he's got all these plans within plans and he's a step step Leopold actually was that guy to the whole world.

But in the same villainous way, you're like, This is insane. There's so many things that could go wrong in this.

So he's now... He's created three different philanthropic associations just because the backers will start realizing that the.

Association is fake.

And they'll pull their money.

But he'll.

Keep the organization alive or he'll roll its assets into a new organization. And nobody who got caught.

Who.

Realized that this was some weird shell shell wants to admit that they got got caught, they just don't say anything. And the public just hears like, Oh, it's it's.

The- new thing is out.

-the International African Association. It's that group of people trying to make life better in Africa. Right. So all these groups are basically funneling money into the work of Henry.

Morten Stanley, that explorer who.

Leopold sent back to Africa. So Leopold sent him.

Back in 1879, and his job was to start building, using the association money, a series of stations along the Congo River to.

Act as as way for steamboat traffic.

He also met with hundreds of local chiefs all throughout the Congo, all the different people who had chunks of land throughout the Congo, the different villages and chiefs.

Hundreds and hundreds of them.

He meets with these and he gets them to sign treaties giving up their rights to the land.

Here's a quote from Haustrad's book.

The very word treaty is a euphemism for many chiefs had no idea what they were signing. Few had ever seen the written word word and they were being asked to mark their exes to documents in a foreign language and in legalese.

These guys weren't ignorant of the concept.

Of diplomacy. They knew what it meant to write treaties of friendship with neighboring tribes or villages.

They understood the idea of a.

Nonaggression pact, and that's what they thought these were.

The reality was somewhat different.

In return for one one piece of per month to each of the undersigned chiefs besides present of cloth and and hand, they to freely of their own accord for themselves and their heirs and successors forever, give up to said association the sovereignty and all sovereign and governing rights to all their territories.

So basically, he gives them cloth. They think that they're getting some sick-ass clothes just for non-aggression path.

With the white people. This is a thing. Everyone gets.

A jersey. You give us us shirts, promise we won't shoot you. We don't want to shoot shoot you That sounds great. In reality, these are all statements saying that they give up all their rights to.

The International African Association, and the association will have the right to collect taxes.

On the people who gave up their rights to their land. And those taxes.

Because there's no currency in most.

Of the Congo.

Those.

Taxes can be paid.

In labor.

So, Leopolde gets hundreds of chiefs from Stanley to sign these agreements. Yeah. Jesus. So Europe thinks Stanley is over there doing valuable philanthropic work fighting with the.

Slave traders and.

Trying to open the.

Congo up.

To free trade. That's the buzzword everyone's using. It's like, We're.

Going to open the Congo up to free free and it'll benefit.

The Africans, it'll benefit Europe, everyone will benefit if there's free trade in the Congo. Meanwhile, what he's actually doing is.

Getting pieces of paper that give Leopold the rights to the Congo.

That make it.

Look like all these chiefs have come together and.

Said, We want this guy to be our king and we want to be a country. So I feel like I should break.

For just a second and.

Talk a little bit more about Henry Morten Stanley, who's the guy who's actually doing all this legwork.

He was one of the greatest explorers in history, and he was also a human garbage fire.

Yeah, a Dorothy tie. Definitely a Dorothy Peter tie.

He was terrified by the thought of being touched.

By a woman just like Dorothy. That's very true.

He once cut off his own dog's tail, cooked cooked and fed it to the dog.

For no.

Real reason.

And he basically, when.

I say he was an explorer, he shot.

His way through Africa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's Here's a from a.

Description of one.

Of.

Stanley's.

Expeditions in Kings Leopolde Ghost.

To those unfortunate enough to.

Live in its path, the expedition felt like an.

Invading army for it.

Sometimes held women and children.

Hostage until local chief supplied food.

So yeah, he's.

Shooting.

His way through these tribes, taking their food, taking their shit, burning down villages if.

There's any resistance.

One of his men.

Described.

Just hunting people like the.

Predator, laying in wait and just shooting.

Random strangers. Yeah.

Less ethical than the predator who we should point out has a certain code.

Yeah, way less ethical than the predator. So these guys are predatoring their way through Africa.

Right now. But they're not particularly worse than any other explorer of the.

Time, I would-He's one of.

The worst. Okay. They vary. So Henry Morne Stanley, you know the Dr. Livingston, I presume? Yeah. He's that guy. Guy. Yeah, And Dr. Livingston was apparently a pretty.

Nice guy.

He was also an explorer and actually would get to know people people coquette himself into the local culture.

So some of these guys are legitimately just in it.

For the sake of of and.

They're scientists, and they're good to the people they encounter. And some of them, like Stanley, just want to make a shitload of of and they're creepy pilot weirdos. And Stanley is one of the kills thousands of.

People while he's exploring.

Got.

It. I guess what I meant, not as a mitigating thing of everyone was doing it, but if not the only standard practice, what you're describing is not a.

Standard.

Practice. Practice. He definitely common practice among a lot of these guys. But he's not nearly the only one. But he's he's extreme, maybe. But one of the worst, for sure. Yeah, okay. So while.

Stanley's expedition is going on, Leopold also hires a bunch of other expeditions to explore other.

Parts of Africa. These were deliberately showy.

Expeditions meant to distract public attention. One of them involved a team of four Indian elephants being.

Sent to Africa to see if they.

Could breed with.

African elephants.

All of the elephants died horribly, but the the news.

The story the whole time. So nobody's reading about what Stanley's doing because.

They think it's.

A boring philanthropical.

Philanthropical and there's this.

Crazy story about elephants. Let's read about that.

That's so.

Fucking dark.

Holy shit.

So he.

Clearly.

Understands the media well enough that he's not just thinking about how to accomplish his plan, but how to distract.

Public.

Attention while he does it. When Morten Stanley gets back from his expedition, he.

Writes a book.

It's an instant bestseller.

King Leopold.

Edits it himself. That's one of the things.

Things he'd insisted is that.

Stanley could write a book about this.

But King Leopold would get to edit it. And most of what he did was correct the times when Stanley mixed up the different associations and.

Committees that he was supposedly working for, because nobody could keep it.

Straight but Leopold.

Leopold.

Such an attention to detail.

That's unbelievable. Like I said, he's the first modern.

Truly.

Modern bastard. Yeah. So this book is framed as like Henry Morten Stanley is.

Helping the the Congo.

State be born and helping these Africans take.

Their stab at nationhood and joining the.

International community and whatnot. So that's.

How all this is being played on the outside world.

The reality in the Congo is very different, and what happens next is not what anyone but.

Leopold had expected.

Right. We're going to get into that in a minute. But right now, Andrew.

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We're and King Leopold has sent an explorer off to the Congo to trick a bunch of tribes people into signing away their rights to the land while he's distracted the rest of Europe with a bunch of showy expeditions.

It used to be just like cannons and soldiers.

Swords, I guess. And now it's PR and fake treaties and stuff. That's incredible. Incredible. -fake treaties and Yeah. Wow. It's really modern in a lot of ways. Yeah. So Leopold has this new bestselling book that's talking about the great stuff he's trying to do in the Congo that.

Gets the public jazz.

And he's able to further.

Push the legitimacy of his project by getting the US President, Chester A. Arthur, to recognize the Congo free state. Leopold had charmed the former US Minister to Belgium, a guy who called himself.

General Sanford, even though he wasn't actually a general. But he was a rich guy who had a lot of.

Money and an an plantation. And because he was a rich.

Guy, he was able to get the President's ear. General Sanford appealed to President.

Arthur's dislike of Arabs.

Because, again, there were all these Arab slave traitors. Oh, my God. Yeah, so just history was never... Yeah, nothing's changed.

Yeah, okay, nothing's new.

Yeah, so so He also pointed out that the Congo had.

Been discovered by an American because Henry Morten Stanley called himself an American. He wasn't. He was actually British, but.

He lied his whole life and said he was American. Right. Everyone lies about everything in the 1800s because.

There's no internet. Yeah, because there's nothing nothing to verify anything.

Run into 1,000.

Colonels when you're reading anything in this period, and none of them are colonels.

Sure. None of them were ever in the military. Great. It's like they're just, I'm going to be a.

Colonel now. Fried chicken colonels.

Yeah, and in this case, a general. Anyway, Chester-Ary Arthur was like, Sounds great. Congo Free Street sounds like a great idea. You're going to fight some Arabs. Best part. Hooray. So he included this next.

Bit in his State of the Union speech.

Recognizing the Congo Free Street.

Quote from.

Chester-ary Arthur.

The rich and and Valley of the Congo, spelled with a K in this, is being opened by a society called the International African Association, of which the King of the Belgium is the President. Large Large of territory have been ceded to the association by native chiefs. Roads have been opened, steamboats have been placed on the river, and the nuclei of states established under one flag, which offers freedom to commerce and prohibits the slave trade.

Oh, my God.

So that's how how Arthur pictures it.

So he got paid placement for his propaganda in the State of.

The Union.

Yeah, in the.

State of the Union. So far the people of Belgium and.

The other European.

States are fooled pretty well. But France and some other folks in the British government and whatnot are starting to catch on to Leopold's plan and realize that he's making a power grab.

This helped to.

Spark a general, what's.

Known as the the for Africa.

Where all these European powers are like, Oh, my God, we're running out of Africa to take over. So they start shooting out expeditions to claim the last pieces of the continent before it.

Fills up.

This all.

Culminates in the the Berlin of 1884 to.

'85, and a bunch of stuff is decided there.

But But.

Main.

Goal is to get recognition for what he starts calling the Congo free state.

He's basically like, I've got all these treaties. He gets up in front of Europe and he's like, I got all these treaties. Look, the people of the Congo want to be their own state. They want me to be their king. They've given the state the rights to their land. And if you all back me in.

Establishing the state, it'll be a free trade zone. So everyone will be able to trade.

Freely and buy and sell freely in there. It'll make a bunch of of money everybody. So that's.

Leopolde's.

Pitch. Oh, man. And Europe buys it.

In 1885, the Congo free state is established. Leopolde had to go in front of Belgium's Senate to ask.

If he could be two kings at once. He promised that.

The Congo would be its own independent nation and that.

It would pay its own way in the world.

He told Belgium he thought it was his duty to, quote, help the nations of second rank become useful members of the great family of nations. Then he.

Asked for money, a.

Little loan to help the fledgling new nation. And he he asked his Belgium to volunteer to help in this bold bold project, more than any other, a manufacturing and commercial people like ourselves ought to strive to obtain a market for all its workers, for thinkers, capitalists.

And workmen.

So the Congo free state is, on paper, a country with with II.

As its.

Absolute ruler. So he's gone from the.

King of Belgium, where he doesn't really have any power to the absolute ruler. To a real king. Yeah, of a country like 20 times the.

Size of Belgium.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. So the.

The Congo.

Free is, to.

All intents and purposes, a state. It has its own army, the Force public, which is made up of African soldiers led by Belgian officers.

It's.

Illegal for.

Black men to be.

Officers in.

The army of the Congo. Congo. Yeah.

Sounds- That.

Sounds sounds a.

Bit of a weird- -world. About right. Yeah.

Oh.

Man.

So, Leopold has acquired himself an African African Unfortunately, he didn't want an empire. He had no desire to.

Actually rule in other countries. He just wanted money. He just wanted money. So the Congo Free State is entirely a moneymaking scheme, and it's.

All based around rubber. So the late 1800s is when rubber really started to take off.

That's like in the mid 1800s or so is when they they out.

How to volcanize rubber, which is.

What makes it.

Nice and.

Shiny and stable and it doesn't.

Smell.

Weird and fall apart. So the Macintosh coat becomes.

Popular around.

This time. People in Europe are just covered head to toe in rubber. It's everywhere. It's the.

Fashion.

Of the times. People are just flipping out over rubber.

A bunch of fetishes are born. Born.

It's a great Tons of fetishes are born. It's a great time. Exactly. Hot air balloons rely on it. It's a.

Wonder.

Material. It's the first time people don't have to use glass for everything. Yeah. Yeah. So in love with.

Rubber, but there's only two ways to make.

Rubber at that.

Time: vines and trees. Now, rubber vines grew wild all around.

The Congo. Wait, sorry. The two ways are vines and trees.

There's rubber vines and there's rubber trees.

Got it. I thought it was going to be vegetation and chemistry.

No, they they Now we can make rubber, but they hadn't figured that shit out yet. Of course, yeah.

Actually, harvesting all of the rubber.

From vines, like the ones who grew in the Congo.

Required thousands and thousands of people climbing trees in the jungle. There's the risk of snakebite and monster attacks.

And it's just a nightmare, harvesting rubber at large scale in the Congo.

Harvesting rubber from trees, on the other hand, is really really easy, and some people had already started planting groves of rubber trees in.

South America.

But those trees took about 20 years or so to really get going. So Leopold, standing here in charge.

Of the Congo.

Knows that he has about 20.

Years to be the.

World's.

Leading producer of rubber.

The Congo Free.

State was basically just a giant rubber factory.

That was his whole vision for this land filled with.

Millions of people. Yeah.

This is like the actual story of Willy.

Willy Yeah, he's the real real Willy Wanka. Yeah.

Exactly. Jesus Christ.

Remember when I said that Leopold had the right to collect taxes in.

The form of labor?

Well, he used these taxes to make Congolese people go harvest rubber for him. In theory, I think.

He was allowed to only demand like.

40 hours a month from them or or something, what happened is that he would have his soldiers go from village to village and take hostages. These hostages would be put in concentration camps where they'd be starved and beaten until the village met its rubber quota.

So if you didn't get all all the rubber you were supposed to get soon enough.

Your family would just.

Starve to death. Death.

Government did have.

A problem because obviously it needs soldiers to enforce these nightmareish rules, but white people die like crazy in the Congo. Congo. All of than a third of the.

The who went there died there. And since again.

It's illegal for Africans to be officers.

In the force public.

There would wind up being four or five Belgium guys commanding.

Hundreds and hundreds of African soldiers.

So that's like obviously you're treating these guys terribly. You're making the massacre their own people, and there's five of you for every 500 of of them.

A recipe for a a revolution, it would be if the.

Soldiers had free access.

To.

Bullets.

One of the ways the the controlled their army was by heavily restricting when.

Anybody would.

Get bullets and by policing their ammo so they couldn't.

Hide any away.

Each soldier would only be issued a certain amount of ammo when they'd go out to get rubber. And if they fired any rounds, they had to account for them. The general policy in the Congo became that if you fired around, you had to provide a right-hand from a corpse.

For every round that you shot. This was meant to stop people from stockpiling ammo, and it was meant to stop them.

From hunting for animals when.

They should have been shooting people. What this actually actually the Yeah, exactly.

But that creates a market for right hands. Exactly. Yeah. What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah. For one thing, these soldiers aren't fed enough, so they're they're and they start hunting. Then once they fired a couple of rounds to hunt an animal, they need to pick up, Okay, well, we fired three rounds getting that whatever it is, now we need.

Three hands.

So we need to go.

Into a village and we need to take some people's hands.

And in addition to that, it becomes common if a village refuses to provide rubber, like people are like, We're not going to work to you. We're not going to give up our relatives as hostages. The force public would just.

Burn down the.

Whole village.

Sometimes they'd just kill everybody in the entire village.

And this is happening on basically an.

Industrial scale. In 1903, a single single post was sent more than 40,000.

Replacement rounds of ammunition.

To.

Every round that.

They're being sent.

They've got a hand. Yeah, there's a hand. Yeah. Yeah. So the.

Military units and the Force Force even would have a keeper of the hands whose job was to smoke all of the severed hands so that they'd preserve so.

That you could go back to the authorities. That's your evidence. We need 20,000 more bullets.

Here's 20,000 human hands.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. So in 1885, when this whole operation was just getting.

Off the ground, King Leopolde is named in British court as a client of what the British called a disorderly house.

Can you guess what a disorderly house was?

Probably not.

Enough punishment.

It's a punishment. Is it? No, go for it. Yeah, I.

Don't know. No, it's a brothel. Oh! Yeah, so while this is all starting off, King Leopolde is going going to a whorehouse in England.

I thought a disorderly house meant his dukedom didn't have X or Y paperwork filed.

No, no, no. While he's freshly the the of the Belgian Congo.

He's named in British court as a client of a whorehouse.

And they say that he had.

Been paying.

800 pounds a month for a steady.

Supply of young women, some of whom were 10.

To 15 years old. That's what.

What doing in between.

Administering the Congo. Yeah. And while he's.

Doing that, his men in the Congo are building a system of roads, railways, posts.

And steamboats.

That are meant to.

Allow the.

Rubber-making.

Operation to prosper.

Leopold doesn't want to pay for all this himself, so he claims the infrastructure is necessary so that the the free states can fight those dastardly Arab Arab slave.

The So he got.

The US to pay for it? Or just.

Generally- He got everyone else to pay for it.

So he got in Europe on board with.

This by saying the Congo was going to.

Be a free trade zone.

But then.

He's like, We need to build all this.

Infrastructure in order to fight.

The slavers. So we're going to have to collect import taxes now.

Nice. The one that you can.

Trust Leopold.

To do is he will fuck over every single person. Yeah. So now even these countries who had gotten on board because they thought this was a free trade zone, they're getting screwed. Yeah. And, of course.

The millions of people whose hands.

He's having severed are.

Getting screwed. I guess the key is just never stop lying.

Lying. Yeah, I think that's the thing.

Whenever you read about any of these guys, that.

Is the most important thing. Just never ever stop lying. If you're going to be a monster, you have to lie consistently for decades about everything. All right.

Yeah, I'm in. It works. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm in.

Well, you'll be a great king of the Congo. So to Leopolde's.

Credit, his men did fight Arab slave traitors, but most of the fighting was done by conscripted African soldiers who were themselves basically slaves.

Yeah. Yeah.

King Leopolde personally endorsed a system where white agents of the free state got a.

Bonus if they were able to.

Find more recruits for the the public. Many agents wound up buying the men from various.

Chiefs, in in doing the same thing as.

The Arab.

Slave as they bragged about fighting.

State agents also got bonuses for, quote, reducing recruiting expenses. So if they outright enslaved people rather than paid them to join, they got more money in their pocket. As many as three-quarters of all volunteers for the force public died before they.

Could receive training.

Most of those volunteers were teenagers.

Right. Yeah.

So they're just- Volunteers, quote-unquote. That's fucking incredible. So it was like, we have our indentured servant army is going to fight your slave army.

So basically the Congo at this point is groups of white guys with.

Soldiers.

Going into the jungle to collect a bunch of other soldiers, and they'll put.

Them in.

Chains.

And march them through the jungle, and most of them will die. Die. And they'll.

Train those guys up to fight. Then they'll take those guys into the jungle to tell.

People to collect rubber from people and to.

Kill everyone who doesn't provide enough enough and to kill a lot of the people who do provide enough rubber just because these kids are starving to death and they have to shoot an animal. Or maybe there's rebels and they get into a firefight, but they don't kill anyone. Anyone. But you you yeah. Yeah. And you got to take hands from from So it just keeps spiraling out of control and becoming.

Even more of a nightmare.

To everybody but Leopolde.

Because again, he's sitting back in Belgium this time.

Since.

Leopolde was the absolute monarch, he got to rule by royal decree. His first decree was that all, quote, vacant land was now property of the state. He didn't explain what vacant meant because obviously farmers don't live on every inch of their farmland. So basically most of the land in the Congo was now just his. He leased this land to a series of private corporations. And this gets to the real brilliance of his scheme because Leopold didn't have to dirty his hands actually running any of the rubber harvesting.

He was able to privatize it. Right. Yeah.

Other people paid for the right to mine rubber and cut off hands and do all the actual work. And Leopold owned the rights to a.

Huge chunk of their profits.

So So these companies would come.

In and give him an.

Owning stake.

In the corporation.

Yeah, they would license the scheme of enslaving people, cutting off their hands.

Et cetera. Yeah. Adam Adam and King Leopold's.

Ghost compares the the Congo-free to a venture capital firm. He had essentially found a way to attract other people's capital to his investment schemes while he retained half the proceeds. In the end, what with various taxes and fees the companies paid the state, it came to.

More than half. Jesus.

So in the 1890s, the Congo Free.

State really.

Starts putting out rubber. And And.

King Leopold is.

One of the richest guys in the world. He starts buying gigantic monuments and palaces and shit for Belgium, big showy projects.

Some of which are still there. It's to make people like him. It's to keep him popular at home.

He's succeeding beyond his wildest.

Dreams in the business side of things, but his.

Personal life.

Is just one.

Series of trainwrecks after the other.

Oh, sad.

Yeah, his son had died in 1864, which led to an understandable estrangement.

Between Leopold and his wife.

It took eight years before they could stand to be around each.

Other and try again. This passage.

From.

Leopold's biography tells you a lot.

About the.

Relationships between the sexes.

Sexes the 1860s. Quote, Leopold II was was anxious have a male male heir, in 1872, Queen Marie Henriette consented to resume resume life with her royal spouse, from whom she had separated some time before. She sacrificed herself, as one may say, for her country. A child was born unto them, but alas, it was a daughter and not a son which was.

Given unto them. So that's messed up for a lot of reasons. Jesus. One of which is just that.

Even in the pro-Leopold biography, it.

Just admits that.

Having sex with Leopold is.

A.

Sacrifice. I actually am surprised that the amount of agency she has.

She is the queen.

Facing pressure, but wasn't forced at guillotine point or whatever to-.

She was.

I guess that's true. I guess that's between the lines.

Of course. Yeah. Jesus. I mean, she probably has more agency than the average. But at the same time in a a she has less because it's less important for a commoner to have a son. Because the king, that's the whole dynasty thing.

So you might say.

She has even less.

We probably should say that. Yeah, Yeah, probably would be responsible to say that.

For the record, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, Leopold did not take having a daughter very well. This quote is from King Leopold's Ghost.

When the last daughter, Clementine, was born, according to his sister, Louise, the king was furious and then forth refused to have anything to do with his admirable wife. From the beginning, she wrote, quote, The king paid very little attention to me or my.

My sisters, he doesn't pay attention to his daughters.

And he.

Mostly seems to care when one of them fucks with his garden. Here's a recollection from Louis.

Large, juicy peaches grew on the walls of the gardens, and the king was very proud of them. I had a passion for peaches, and one day I dared to eat one which was hidden away among the leaves. And that year peaches were plentiful. But the following day, the king discovered the theft. What a dramatic moment. At once suspected, I confessed my crime and was promptly punished. I did not realize that the king counted his peaches.

So while Leopold is running a nightmare, hand-harvesting, rubber-making scheme in the Congo, he's got enough time to make make.

Sure his daughter doesn't steal a peach from his guard.

Guard. That's so Because.

It's like, at least least Trump has the decency to pretend that she loved her time with her dad, even though in all those stories she tells, it's sad and weird, too. But at least she's like, I love him. He's my dad, and I believe in all this shit. He couldn't even get his daughters to be like.

I love him. Well, there's going to be more about his daughters coming in here. He is.

Not a.

Great dad, if you can't tell that already. There's, in fact, no.

Evidence that Leopold cared about any of his children as.

Anything more.

Than vehicles.

For his legacy. Even that.

Fawning.

1910 biography can't make it seem like Leopold had a single fuck for his family. As King.

Leopold- I'm going to be honest, that's so far the most relatable.

Thing about him. Just not liking his family? Yeah.

Just kidding. I love you, fam.

As King Leopold grew older and richer, he also became a full-on hypochondriac. He took to wearing a waterproof bag around his gigantic beard whenever he went outside outside the rain.

Or.

When he swam.

He.

Required his palace.

Table cloths to be boiled.

Every day to kill any germs.

Which is at least a.

Character.

Evolution from not letting them.

Wash his sheets.

Yeah.

It's a napkin. That's good for.

For So he's changing.

He's had.

His own.

Little hero's journey.

Yeah, we all get get there, the.

This wound up being another really long one. There was.

Just so much research.

So this is going to be a two-parter podcast.

And the second.

Part is going to drop on Thursday. So we'll be.

Getting into the rest of Leopold's story and the tremendously.

Dark story of the Congo. So stick around, check back out on Thursday. It's going to be great.

In the meantime, you can check out Andrew T's podcast, Yo Is This Racist. You can also check.

Out every.

Other episode of Behind the bastard. You can find us on Twitter Twitter and.

Instagram.

As well.

You can find us on the internet @behindthebasterd.

Com, and you can find me on Twitter Twitter So Andrew and I will be back on Thursday with more more Leopold.

Check us out then.

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Coolzone Media.

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