King Leopold's Soliloquy
Encyclopedia : K : KI : KIN : King Leopold's Soliloquy
King Leopold's Soliloquy is a 1905 pamphlet by Mark Twain. It is written about the rule of King Léopold in the Congo Free State. A work of political satire, it pretends to be Leopold speaking in his own defense, but is actually a harsh condemnation of his actions.
In the text, King Léopold madly raves about many things, including the good things he says he has done for the people of the Congo Free State, including the millions spent on religion and art. He says that he had come to Congo with piety "oozing" at "every pore", how he had only wanted to convert the poor peoples to Christianity, how he wanted to stop the slave trade, and other such things.
Later in the story, Léopold says that he did not take any of the government money, that he did not use the revenue as his personal "swag", and that such claims by the "meddlesome American missionaries", "frank British consuls", and "blabbing Belgian-born traitors" are wholly false. He claims that for a King to be criticized as he has is blasphemy, for surely, he reasons, under the rule of God, any King who was not doing God's will would not be helped.
He claims that they only say what is unfavorable to him, such as the unfair taxes he levied against the people of the Congo, which caused starvation and murder of whole villages, but not the fact that he had sent missionaries to the villages, to convert them to Christianity. In the end, he claims that nothing can satisfy the Englishmen.
See also
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.