Leopold II of Belgium

Names
	Dutch: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor; French: Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor; German: Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor; English: Leopold Louis Philip Mary Victor;

Leopold II
Leopold II
	Portrait by Alexander Bassano, c. 1889
King of the Belgians
Reign	17 December 1865 – 17 December 1909
Predecessor	Leopold I
Successor	Albert I
Prime ministers	See list Charles Rogier; Walthère Frère-Orban; Baron d'Anethan; Chevalier de Theux de Meylandt; Jules Malou; Auguste Beernaert; Jules de Burlet; Paul de Smet de Naeyer; Jules Vandenpeereboom; Paul de Smet de Naeyer; Jules de Trooz; François Schollaert;
Sovereign of the Congo Free State
Reign	1 July 1885 – 15 November 1908
Governors-general	See list Théophile Wahis; Camille Janssen; Francis de Winton;
Born	9 April 1835; Brussels, Belgium
Died	17 December 1909 (aged 74); Laeken, Brussels, Belgium
Burial	Church of Our Lady of Laeken
Spouses	; Marie Henriette of Austria (m. 1853; died 1902) ; Caroline Lacroix (disputed) (m. 1909)
Issue; Detail	Louise, Princess Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant; Stéphanie, Crown Princess of Austria; Clémentine, Princess Napoléon; Lucien, Duke of Tervuren; Philippe, Count of Ravenstein;
Names
Names
	Dutch: Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor; French: Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor; German: Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor; English: Leopold Louis Philip Mary Victor;
House	Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Father	Leopold I of Belgium
Mother	Louise of Orléans
Signature

Leopold II^[a] (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.

Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Leopold I and Queen Louise, Leopold succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for 44 years until his death, the longest reign of a Belgian monarch to date. He died without surviving legitimate sons; the current King of the Belgians, Philippe, descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I. He is popularly referred to as the Builder King (Dutch: Koning-Bouwheer, French: Roi-Bâtisseur) in Belgium in reference to the great number of buildings, urban projects and public works he commissioned.

Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private colonial project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorised his claim and committed the Congo Free State to him. Leopold ran the Congo, which he never personally visited, by using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory, initially by the collection of ivory and, after a rise in the price of natural rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber.

Leopold's administration was characterized by systematic brutality and atrocities in the Congo Free State, including forced labour, torture, murder, kidnapping, and the amputation of the hands of men, women, and children when the quota of rubber was not met. In one of the first uses of the term, George Washington Williams described the practices of Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State as "crimes against humanity" in 1890.^[2]

While it has proven difficult to accurately estimate the pre-colonial population and the amount by which it changed under the Congo Free State, estimates for the Congolese population decline during Leopold's rule range from 1 million to 15 million. The causes of the decline included epidemic disease, a reduced birth rate, and violence and famine caused by the regime.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^{: 225–233}

^ Haydn, Joseph (1851). The Book of Dignities: Containing Rolls of the Official Personages of the British Empire ... from the Earliest Periods to the Present Time ... Together with the Sovereigns of Europe, from the Foundation of Their Respective States; the Peerage of England and Great Britain ... Longmans, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 38.
^ Hochschild, A. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin, 1999. pp. 111–112.
^ "Controverse over standbeelden van Leopold II: Waarom is de Belgische koning zo omstreden?". VRT (in Dutch). 5 June 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
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[1] Haydn, Joseph (1851). The Book of Dignities: Containing Rolls of the Official Personages of the British Empire ... from the Earliest Periods to the Present Time ... Together with the Sovereigns of Europe, from the Foundation of Their Respective States; the Peerage of England and Great Britain ... Longmans, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 38.

[3] Hochschild, A. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin, 1999. pp. 111–112.

[4] "Controverse over standbeelden van Leopold II: Waarom is de Belgische koning zo omstreden?". VRT (in Dutch). 5 June 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2023.

[Renton-5] Cite error: The named reference Renton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[oz1rV-6] Cite error: The named reference oz1rV was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[ghost-7] Cite error: The named reference ghost was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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Leopold II of Belgium

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