Leopold II Quotes
It is necessary to put down the horrible abuses. These abuses must end or I will retire from the Congo. I will not allow myself to be spattered with blood or mud; it is necessary that these villainies cease.
The human rights abuses in the Belgian Congo were horrible. Natives who refused to work for the low wages were murdered or had their hands chopped off. The indigenous population was markedly reduced. Word of the atrocities started leaking out to Europe. It is not known whether the King really wanted any reform or just sent the instructions to cover himself. The instructions were not followed; the atrocities continued, and Leopold never took any steps to discipline his agents and minions. The Belgian Congo had the worst atrocities in the world until WWII.
Leopold II, 1835-1909, King of Belgium, Instruction to Liebrechts, one of his senior administrators of the Belgian Congo, January 1899
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Belgian soldiers attempted to terrorize and intimidate the natives into working on the rubber plantations. The practice of cutting off hands thus leaving the victim to intimidate others which was so prevalent in Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa in 2000 was also practiced by the Whites at the turn of the last century.
Mark Twain referring to and reflecting on his encounter with the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Aziz.
None was forthcoming. This letter is of great historical interest in that it shows the corrupting influence of slavery on all facets of society.
The language was removed in the negotiations that followed Jefferson's draft.
Two senior Chinese officials Yuan Ch`ang and Hsu Ching-ch`eng, realizing the implications and the vengeance the Western Powers would take on the Empress and China if the order were carried out, rewrote it to require that all foreigners be “protected.” This version went out to all governors except that of Shansi who had received a previous execution order {612690} . When the Empress discovered the change, Yuan Ch`ang and Hsu Ching-ch`eng were both summarily beheaded. However they saved thousands of Western lives and China from an even greater disaster.
When TR came to office, the U. S. was in the midst of war with Philippine insurgents who were fighting an asymmetric , guerrilla war against the U. S. Army. The war had become very brutal with the insurgents using terror and atrocities and some Army units executing prisoners and torturing captives. Roosevelt, actually fired the General who was in charge of the field troops rather than just discipline lower level officers as usually has happened.
The Spaniardes have executed most outragious and more then Turkishe cruelties in all the west Indies
He was one of the strongest English advocates of colonization of the New World. At that time this was as strong an epithet of cruelty as could be made by Europeans. It was an accurate assessment.
Barre, who had served as an officer in North American fighting with the Americans against the French, was a major opponent of the Stamp Act and other efforts to tax the American colonies. In the debate one of his opponents referred the American colonies as “planted by the care of England” and “nourished” by the mother country’s care. Barre was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a while for his vigorous defense of the American colonists.
Some politicians wrongly think that this is was first an American idea. Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
This quotation so impressed Thomas Jefferson that he wrote it in his Commonplace Book.
