WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: Part One: King Leopold II: The First Modern Bastard

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<v Speaker 1>Al Zon Media. Hey everyone, Robert Evans here, and you

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<v Speaker 1>know it's another holiday week. This is not a holiday

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<v Speaker 1>I tend to celebrate, but it is a holiday that

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<v Speaker 1>our company gives us off, and I like my team

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<v Speaker 1>not having to work. It's also good to not have

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<v Speaker 1>to work. And when we drop episodes on weeks like this,

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<v Speaker 1>it means you basically have to double up during the

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<v Speaker 1>week before the week after, which causes a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>stress that isn't necessary when you're trying to have everyone

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<v Speaker 1>be able to relax. So this week we are doing

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<v Speaker 1>another rewind our infamous and beloved episodes on King Leopold,

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<v Speaker 1>the Second of Belgium. So tuck in and enjoy yourselves

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<v Speaker 1>and enjoy a real terrible story of a real terrible

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<v Speaker 1>piece of shit. I hope you all have a good week,

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<v Speaker 1>regardless of what you do during it. Hello, friends, and

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<v Speaker 1>welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the show where we

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<v Speaker 1>tell you everything you don't know about the very worst

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<v Speaker 1>people in history. On this show, we cover monsters like

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<v Speaker 1>Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Eric Prince Will Wheaton, and today's topic,

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<v Speaker 1>King Leopold. But before we get to King Leopold, i'd

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<v Speaker 1>like to introduce my guests for the week, Andrew T

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<v Speaker 1>host of YO is this racist and general man about town.

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<v Speaker 1>Hello Andrew, what's up? Well? Today we're talking about a

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<v Speaker 1>little Belgian dude named Leopold. You ever heard of King

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<v Speaker 1>Leopold of Belgium?

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<v Speaker 2>Uh, not particularly.

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<v Speaker 1>King Leopold the second, if that makes sense. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>I feel like, uh, the closest I'm gonna come is

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<v Speaker 2>I feel like, at some point I got a box

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<v Speaker 2>of fancy chocolates that might have had a a Leopold.

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<v Speaker 2>Maybe not the bad Leopold. I assume a good Leopold.

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<v Speaker 1>This is not a good Leopold.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, That's what I'm saying. So probably not this particular Yeahold.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Uh. Leopold the second was King of Belgium once

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<v Speaker 1>upon a time, and he was, in my opinion, the

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<v Speaker 1>first world leader to be truly shitty in the modern

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<v Speaker 1>sense of the word. Oh snall, like like like the

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<v Speaker 1>k in a shitty that like Putin and Trump right.

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<v Speaker 2>Right right, So not right, we're discounting our Genghis cons.

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<v Speaker 1>And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because Genghis Khan like

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<v Speaker 1>did what he did, but he didn't have like a

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of newspapers that he justified. He was just like,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna conquer some shit, right right, right now.

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<v Speaker 2>This is the transition from barbarian bastards into media bastards exactly.

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<v Speaker 1>And I think Leopold of Belgium is really where it

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<v Speaker 1>happens in a modern like obviously other people had toyed

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<v Speaker 1>with aspects of this. He really nailed it. So King

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<v Speaker 1>Leopold the Second's dad was obviously King Leopold the First,

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<v Speaker 1>and he was the first king in Belgium. Is that obvious?

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<v Speaker 1>Is that?

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<v Speaker 2>Is it always like a like one Pagets two or

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<v Speaker 2>is it like, ah, your grandfather was Leopold the First,

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<v Speaker 2>I'm Gerald of Belgium, but you're gonna be Leopold too.

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<v Speaker 1>I think that's more how it happens most of the time. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>not this time. This time Leopold the First was like

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<v Speaker 1>this went so, well, yeah, we're gonna have it. The

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<v Speaker 1>second going yeah. So Leopold the First was like the again,

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<v Speaker 1>the very first king of Belgium at all, because Belgium

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<v Speaker 1>had just been made a thing in the wake of

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<v Speaker 1>the Napoleonic Wars. So during the whole fighting between Napoleon

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<v Speaker 1>and everyone else in Europe, Belgium was generally the battleground

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<v Speaker 1>where like the everyone would sort of duke it out

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<v Speaker 1>between the Germans and the French and the French and

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<v Speaker 1>everybody else. Yeah, Waterloo is in Belgium. Oh so, after

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<v Speaker 1>Napoleon's butt gets kicked, the European powers who win are like, okay,

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<v Speaker 1>we can't have France and Germany fighting over Belgium. We're

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<v Speaker 1>gonna make it its own thing. And since it was

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<v Speaker 1>going to be a new country, obviously it needed a king.

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<v Speaker 1>So they Leopold the First got the job because he

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<v Speaker 1>was a German prince who didn't have a kingdom of

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<v Speaker 1>his own.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh okay, so he was just like split off, right,

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<v Speaker 2>this is like we're gonna give Megan markle Wales or whatever.

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<v Speaker 1>Part of Whales. Yeah, part of whales. Yeah, yeah, it's

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<v Speaker 1>that exactly that sort of thing. They actually tried him

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<v Speaker 1>out to be king of Greece first, but he didn't like,

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<v Speaker 1>didn't fit for whatever. Yeah, that's an option. We're gonna

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<v Speaker 1>find you with something, buddy, don't worry, Leopold. Oh my god,

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<v Speaker 1>to put you in a kingdom Greece isn't the right one.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course you try it starter kingdom.

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<v Speaker 2>Everyone has a kingdom to start.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, sense, Yeah, Greece was his unsold pilot. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>And he was, by all accounts a pretty good king

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<v Speaker 1>of Belgium if you're into that sort of thing. Yeah. Waffles,

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<v Speaker 1>waffles and chocolate, hacolate, getting beer beer, yeah, get great beer,

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<v Speaker 1>getting jammed by the Germs, great beer. Great at getting

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<v Speaker 1>jammed by the Germans. That's Belgium in a nutshell. But yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>he was a good king while he was king. Midway

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<v Speaker 1>through his reign in eighteen forty eight, there was like

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<v Speaker 1>this big year of revolutions all across Europe, and all

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<v Speaker 1>these European countries had their monarchs overthrown except for Belgium.

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<v Speaker 1>So the Christian Spring we call that, yes, the white

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<v Speaker 1>Man's Spring. That's the last three hundred years. Yeah, that's true.

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<v Speaker 2>What a time, What a time for the whites, given

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<v Speaker 2>up for the whites.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So Leopold the first solid king. I've got two

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<v Speaker 1>main sources for today's podcast, which I should note now.

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<v Speaker 1>The first is a biography called Leopold, the Second King

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<v Speaker 1>of Belgium. It's a pro monarchist book that was written

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<v Speaker 1>in nineteen ten. Great the article is critical above of

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<v Speaker 1>Leopold sometimes, but he thinks he was like a great king,

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<v Speaker 1>and he thinks kings are a good idea. Yeah. So

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<v Speaker 1>it's an interesting book because it gives you an idea

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<v Speaker 1>of how Leopold himself would sort of present himself and

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<v Speaker 1>defend himself and let you know what the propaganda at

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<v Speaker 1>the time.

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<v Speaker 2>Was well and also right, just critical enough to be legitimate.

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<v Speaker 1>Well no, no, it's totally I guess for the time

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<v Speaker 1>it wasn't bad.

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<v Speaker 2>What I mean, you put in just the faintest of

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<v Speaker 2>criticism to give the exact more you know. Yeah, oh,

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<v Speaker 2>this is a real investigation.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's like the monarch's equivalent of one of those

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<v Speaker 1>like celebrity biographies Ben Affleck or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>the Heraldo Interview of books exactly right, exactly. And then

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<v Speaker 1>the other book is a book called Leopold's Ghost by

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<v Speaker 1>Adam Hoschild, which takes the stance that Leopold was when

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<v Speaker 1>of history's great monsters. Anyway, so these are these are

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<v Speaker 1>most of what I come from, a sort of the

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<v Speaker 1>contrasting views that these two books.

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<v Speaker 2>You read two books for a podcast out of your mind, Come.

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<v Speaker 1>On, dog, there's a lot to dig into here. Oh

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<v Speaker 1>and there's not a lot.

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<v Speaker 2>You're making me feel real bad. I'm like, usually good

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<v Speaker 2>for half a Wikipedia article.

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<v Speaker 1>Holy shit, Well this is at least the equivalent of

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<v Speaker 1>like four Wikipedia articles a lot. Geez, go ahead, all right. So, uh,

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<v Speaker 1>Leopold the Second's mom Luis was almost a love match

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<v Speaker 1>is the term the book uses for his dad, the king,

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<v Speaker 1>And it says this because the king was already in

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<v Speaker 1>love with her before they get married. Hey, so that

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<v Speaker 1>makes it a love match. So nice. He liked her

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<v Speaker 1>when she was fourteen, so it's love. The eighteen hundreds

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<v Speaker 1>were hell of it.

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<v Speaker 2>And she had the right land I assume, Yeah, she

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<v Speaker 2>had some nice land. I'm related to the right enemies

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<v Speaker 2>she was with I think from the oily owned family,

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<v Speaker 2>so she was like she had.

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<v Speaker 1>Some solid s or royal pedigree. You know. You get

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<v Speaker 1>some German from King Leopold the first, you get a

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<v Speaker 1>little bit of French from his wife, and then their

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<v Speaker 1>baby is sort of a mix. So maybe Germany and

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<v Speaker 1>France won't fight over Belgium. And oh what a brave

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah didn't write it. Yeah, yeah, So Leopold the Second

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<v Speaker 1>was born Leopold Louis Philippe Mary Victor, and he was

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<v Speaker 1>his parents' second child. His older brother died eleven months

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<v Speaker 1>before he was born. Nice, So if you think about

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<v Speaker 1>that timeline a lot, it's not very fun. Because Leopold's

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<v Speaker 1>older brother is born. Yeah, he dies, Yeah, eleven months

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<v Speaker 1>later they pop out another son. Yeah, immediately, immediately, not

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of morning time. Nah, or maybe they just

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<v Speaker 1>kind of, you know, fucked the pain away.

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<v Speaker 2>But yeah, yeah, that's probably what happened.

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<v Speaker 1>That's the optimistic look, all right. So at age five,

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<v Speaker 1>Leopold's father declared him Duke of Brabant, which is how

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<v Speaker 1>he was addressed right up until his coronation. Uh, here's

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<v Speaker 1>he said, five, age five? Yeah, h five, great, yeah

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<v Speaker 1>you can you all have to be a duke at

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<v Speaker 1>age five.

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<v Speaker 2>And he looks he looks like he looks like people

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<v Speaker 2>in this port a pretty little duke.

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<v Speaker 1>We'll have the pictures up on our website. He has

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<v Speaker 1>no chin and a kind of a lopsided face, but

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<v Speaker 1>maybe that's just the painting looks a.

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<v Speaker 2>Little bit like a ghost, like a human ghost.

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<v Speaker 1>It looks like the painting of a ghost that you

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<v Speaker 1>find in the basement of an old house. Yeah, and

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<v Speaker 1>then like there's a rush of wind and the camera

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<v Speaker 1>falls over and like, yeah, your friend gets mauled by

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<v Speaker 1>a spirit.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that's this guy's selfie essentially. Yeah, that's this

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<v Speaker 2>guy's like, this is the image we want to put

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<v Speaker 2>out into the world.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this was like hanging in palaces. Yeah. Yeah, height,

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<v Speaker 1>So he looks like a creeper from dad, a little

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<v Speaker 1>spooky boy, but he's still a baby. So the biography

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<v Speaker 1>notes that Leopold and his siblings were brought up in

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<v Speaker 1>quote the simplest manner and taught to behave as if

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<v Speaker 1>they were normal citizens rather than royalty. That sounds great

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<v Speaker 1>until you get to the next part quote. The king

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<v Speaker 1>further expressed the wish to develop in the children the

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<v Speaker 1>sentiment of duty and not to allow them to have

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<v Speaker 1>an opinion of their own with regard to their duties

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<v Speaker 1>and their studies. Basically, the king was trying to crush

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<v Speaker 1>the individuality of his kids so that they would just

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<v Speaker 1>fit the role of king. That's kind of yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Good, Actually is it isn't that? Well, what else are

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<v Speaker 2>you gonna do because they got to do.

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<v Speaker 1>This dumb job? Well, I mean, you could try to

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<v Speaker 1>make them be healthy, fully formed people.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but why then they got to be king.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, okay, that's fair. I mean we're taking Leopold

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<v Speaker 1>the first side.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well he's the good one again, I'm piating his chocolate. No,

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<v Speaker 2>but right, isn't that the he's he's just as trapped

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<v Speaker 2>as everyone else, you know, Yes, so if he's got

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<v Speaker 2>to do this thing, you.

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<v Speaker 1>Might as well make it so he can do this thing. Okay,

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<v Speaker 1>So you're expressing some motivation maybe to why you would

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<v Speaker 1>do this, why you would do what he winds up doing,

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<v Speaker 1>and you don't even know what he winds up doing

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<v Speaker 1>what they do? Yeah, what did I just defend?

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<v Speaker 2>I still let me just say right now, whatever he does,

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<v Speaker 2>I stand behind it.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, he kills about ten to fifteen million people. Yeah

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<v Speaker 1>that's fine. Okay, Well, what's it? So? When Leopold is fifteen,

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<v Speaker 1>his mom dies of some illness or another. It's one

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<v Speaker 1>of those things where the writers at the time aren't specific.

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<v Speaker 1>They're just like she took ill and was, yeah, sick

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<v Speaker 1>for it, like and then she dies like yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>it's probably diphtheria or some weirdo named it the flu disease. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>if it was a flu would be a big deal,

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<v Speaker 1>I guess. I mean it's probably is a flu like

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<v Speaker 1>that killed everybody back then. Yeah. Yeah. In King Leopold's Ghost,

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<v Speaker 1>Adam Haschild describes Leopold's childhood as being kind of stark

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<v Speaker 1>and cold. Quote, if Leopold wanted to see his father,

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<v Speaker 1>he had to apply for an audience. When the father

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<v Speaker 1>had something to tell the same, he communicated it through

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<v Speaker 1>one of his secretaries.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, look, this is not just eighteenth century arrested development.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, quite a nice Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what's

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<v Speaker 1>going on. Like, he definitely has a buster Bluth vibe

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<v Speaker 1>to him.

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<v Speaker 2>Again, especially once you see this fucking painting, you'll get

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<v Speaker 2>it audience.

0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.400
<v Speaker 1>The biography that was written at the time says that

0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.160
<v Speaker 1>it is worthy of note that the late king never

0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.160
<v Speaker 1>had any comrades or playmates. His childhood was passed among

0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.400
<v Speaker 1>his teachers and tutors, and the disciplinarian father made even

0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.800
<v Speaker 1>more the relationship with his brother and sister a very

0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.880
<v Speaker 1>formal one. Frank, childish gaiety and brotherly expansion and confidence

0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.040
<v Speaker 1>were banished. The prince's thoughts thus became concentrated upon himself

0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.640
<v Speaker 1>and his natural activity and vitality. His exuberant strength were

0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.520
<v Speaker 1>expended on work and study. Tight, yeah about it. No, friends,

0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:40.160
<v Speaker 1>does nothing but work. Yeah, he is a duke. Yeah,

0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:42.200
<v Speaker 1>I mean he's already achieved a lot. I mean he

0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.920
<v Speaker 1>is kind of a boss baby. Yeah, just throw that

0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.959
<v Speaker 1>out there. So he grows up, He serves in the

0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.199
<v Speaker 1>Belgian military. He apparently does okay. By his early twenties,

0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Leopold becomes an influential figure in Belgian politics. You know,

0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.480
<v Speaker 1>he's the crown prince everyone, he's going to wind to

0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.880
<v Speaker 1>be in king. Yeah, and he kind of looks a

0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.720
<v Speaker 1>little like Adam Driver. He yeah, he looks here. He

0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.880
<v Speaker 1>looks like a anime Adam Driver. Yeah. Yeah, that's who

0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.480
<v Speaker 1>you would cast, is anime Adam Driver. Yeah yeah, in

0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.600
<v Speaker 1>the movie. So, like many rich young people, he traveled

0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.560
<v Speaker 1>far and wide in his early twenties. He went all

0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.760
<v Speaker 1>throughout the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Asia. But

0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.800
<v Speaker 1>he was not traveling for his enjoyment. It was basically traveling.

0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:27.200
<v Speaker 1>The biography says, it's like a commercial employee. So he

0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.720
<v Speaker 1>was essentially looking for financial opportunities for Belgium because this

0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.800
<v Speaker 1>is the period when all of Europe is colonizing the

0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.600
<v Speaker 1>entire world. Yeah, Belgium doesn't have a colony, so he's

0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.320
<v Speaker 1>traveling all around the Middle East in Asia basically being

0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.400
<v Speaker 1>like what can yeah, who's yeah? Whose line can we take? Yeah? Yeah,

0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.560
<v Speaker 1>what can we get? Does this hop ahead to the Congo?

0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.480
<v Speaker 1>Oh yes, oh nice, Yeah that's where we're headed.

0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.920
<v Speaker 2>Tight, Okay, how do I know that tiny bit of history?

0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.160
<v Speaker 1>It's one of those things that drops in every now

0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.679
<v Speaker 1>and then you'll hear like, oh, yeah the Belgiums did

0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:58.840
<v Speaker 1>something bad in the Congo, but you don't ever get

0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:00.880
<v Speaker 1>I don't know any tell story.

0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.360
<v Speaker 2>In fact, I probably no more plot points from Michael

0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.400
<v Speaker 2>Crichton's The Congo than than reality is the Cogo.

0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.080
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I mean there's unconfirmed reports that he tried to

0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:15.960
<v Speaker 1>find the lost City of Zine, but no, great movie.

0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:17.880
<v Speaker 2>Is that what they were doing there?

0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Yeah, they're trying to find diamonds. That a monkey

0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.000
<v Speaker 1>There was a monkey city, Yeah, find diamonds. Yeah, the

0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.480
<v Speaker 1>monkeys were evil. Yeah, that's more what I remember. Solid,

0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.280
<v Speaker 1>to be honest, really solid. Now, Yeah, there's a laser.

0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:32.439
<v Speaker 1>There is a laser. There's definitely a laser in that movie.

0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:34.280
<v Speaker 1>Oh man, what a weird.

0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.360
<v Speaker 2>It's a ride, Michael Crichton, We're still watching as bullshit,

0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.440
<v Speaker 2>I can't believe West World.

0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:44.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, sorry, okay, So, uh, Prince Leopold, one of his

0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.840
<v Speaker 1>favorite books as he's a young man studying trying to

0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.560
<v Speaker 1>find a new colony for Belgium is a book about

0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.400
<v Speaker 1>the Dutch East Indies called Java, How to Manage a Colony.

0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.720
<v Speaker 1>Uh yeah, why would you?

0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.960
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, I mean, I guess that's what you

0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:00.720
<v Speaker 2>have to tell people your favorite book is.

0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.280
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, that's well, no, I mean, because so the

0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.199
<v Speaker 1>book is all about how the Dutch colonized the island

0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.320
<v Speaker 1>of Java and how they got a shitload of coffee

0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.640
<v Speaker 1>and sugar and like dyes and tobacco, and it made

0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:15.960
<v Speaker 1>basically made so much money that they were able to

0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.559
<v Speaker 1>buy a bunch of railroads and canals back in Holland.

0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.160
<v Speaker 1>So like, the book is all about that. So it

0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.680
<v Speaker 1>outlines sort of how they were able to monetize Java

0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.680
<v Speaker 1>so well, and like it talks about how the king

0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.040
<v Speaker 1>basically brought in a bunch of private companies and became

0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.320
<v Speaker 1>a major shareholder in those companies. And it was the

0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.480
<v Speaker 1>company's job to farm the land and to produce the

0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.120
<v Speaker 1>resources and export them to Belgium. So the king didn't

0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.840
<v Speaker 1>have to send Dutch government workers over do anything. The

0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.320
<v Speaker 1>king just said, I own Java corporations. Come in, give

0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.200
<v Speaker 1>me a stake in your profits, and do whatever you want.

0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.080
<v Speaker 2>I think it's just cool to have political leaders also

0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.160
<v Speaker 2>own corporations. That has never been a problem. I never

0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:56.000
<v Speaker 2>will be a problem.

0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.920
<v Speaker 1>No, it seems to always work out great. It seems

0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:00.600
<v Speaker 1>to work out great one hundred perc end of the time.

0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.440
<v Speaker 1>The book also did note that the Dutch prophets in

0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.680
<v Speaker 1>Java would have been impossible without a huge amount of

0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.400
<v Speaker 1>forced labor, and young Prince Leopold agreed with this and

0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.840
<v Speaker 1>said that forced labor was quote the only way to

0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.920
<v Speaker 1>civilize and uplift these indolent and corrupt peoples of the

0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.880
<v Speaker 1>Far East. Yeah, yeah, he ain't wrong. Go ahead, what else?

0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:21.360
<v Speaker 1>What else you got? I thought you said this guy

0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.400
<v Speaker 1>was bad, all right. So late in his dukedom, you know,

0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:27.600
<v Speaker 1>a few years before he becomes king, Leopold gets him

0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:29.840
<v Speaker 1>in front of Belgium's Senate and he urges them to

0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.520
<v Speaker 1>take up foreign colonies. So they got a king and

0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.520
<v Speaker 1>a senate. Yeah yea, so uh. Basically, the king of

0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.440
<v Speaker 1>Belgium is kind of a ceremonial figure he's got. He's

0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:41.760
<v Speaker 1>got more power than like the queen in England has today.

0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.800
<v Speaker 1>It's heading towards but it's heading towards that. There's no

0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.720
<v Speaker 1>formal power, lots of soft power, lots of soft power

0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.360
<v Speaker 1>and a little bit of formal power. Okay, but you

0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.800
<v Speaker 1>can't do things as the king like just make colonies, right?

0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.080
<v Speaker 1>You can't do things? Is the king like sin the

0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.960
<v Speaker 1>army places? Yeah? Yeah, And so leop Hold's dad seems

0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.600
<v Speaker 1>to be okay with that. But Leopold is growing up

0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.320
<v Speaker 1>chopping at the bent to do shit and doesn't want

0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.440
<v Speaker 1>to become a monarch who just waves at the crowd.

0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.480
<v Speaker 1>Why So he gets up in front of the Senate

0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.600
<v Speaker 1>and he says, quote, I am profoundly convinced of our

0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.040
<v Speaker 1>vast resources, and I passionately wish that my beautiful country

0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.120
<v Speaker 1>would show the necessary pluck to derive all the benefit which,

0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:24.840
<v Speaker 1>in my opinion, it can derive. I think that the

0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.680
<v Speaker 1>moment for our expansion abroad has arrived. We must not

0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.680
<v Speaker 1>lose time, otherwise the best positions and markets, which are

0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.800
<v Speaker 1>becoming more rare every day, will be occupied by nations

0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.320
<v Speaker 1>more enterprising than ourselves. And when he talks about positions

0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.320
<v Speaker 1>and markets. He's talking about yeah, whole countries and stuff.

0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:41.840
<v Speaker 1>I mean millions of people.

0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.560
<v Speaker 2>It's more chilling in the original Flemish.

0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Flemish. Yes, yeah, he nailed it, although he probably

0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.520
<v Speaker 1>would have been speaking just French.

0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:55.880
<v Speaker 2>For a All right, so say Flemish.

0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.800
<v Speaker 1>Well you can say, you can say Walloon if you want.

0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.680
<v Speaker 1>I'm kidding, what is that. That's the other group of people.

0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.880
<v Speaker 1>There's Belgium is made up of Flemish people and Walloons. Yeah,

0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:06.760
<v Speaker 1>the Wallunatics.

0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:08.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, of course, band aid on their face.

0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.280
<v Speaker 1>We got it. That's a rough name to grow into

0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:12.679
<v Speaker 1>the world stage taking on.

0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.600
<v Speaker 2>Ah, well, you know, you gotta get you get enough rifles,

0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.920
<v Speaker 2>get enough cutlasses, everything starts to make sense.

0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:22.960
<v Speaker 1>I don't feel like it does. I feel like Germany

0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.840
<v Speaker 1>was so fierce in part because German is like, that's

0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:30.240
<v Speaker 1>like an name, like the Germans are coming. Imagine if

0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.080
<v Speaker 1>the name got switched and the Belgians were called the Germans,

0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.280
<v Speaker 1>and like the Nazis had tried to invade, and everyone

0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:37.720
<v Speaker 1>was like, oh, the Walloons are invading. Yeah, that's not

0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:38.600
<v Speaker 1>going to go. Yeah.

0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:43.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well listen, let's boot up a risk game.

0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:49.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we'll figure it out, all right. So yeah, Leopold

0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.359
<v Speaker 1>the first, Leopold the Second's dad died in December of

0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.200
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixty five, the same year the American Civil War ended.

0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.320
<v Speaker 1>Leopold is now the king and thirty years old. This

0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.480
<v Speaker 1>appears to be the point when he decided to grow

0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.160
<v Speaker 1>a gigantic mountain man beard tight, which he would maintain

0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:07.960
<v Speaker 1>for the rest of his day. He needed it. Yeah. Well,

0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.439
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of pictures of Leopold with a beard.

0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.000
<v Speaker 1>We'll post him on the site. Some of them look

0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.399
<v Speaker 1>uncomfortably like me. Some of them are clear missteps in

0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.320
<v Speaker 1>the beard growing process, where he's got like gigantic mutton

0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.080
<v Speaker 1>chops and it's he looks like a fucking hair octopus

0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.520
<v Speaker 1>style of the time. Yeah, he went through some rough

0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.480
<v Speaker 1>patches in his sartorial history, for sure. That's pretty.

0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.680
<v Speaker 2>That's got ain't easy we're looking at Yeah.

0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.560
<v Speaker 1>That's a rough picture, cheap and it's almost he's almost

0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.720
<v Speaker 1>wearing bell bottoms in that picture. A it's the sixties.

0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:45.680
<v Speaker 1>It is the eighteen sixties boom, all right. So yeah,

0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.199
<v Speaker 1>Leopold's the King of Belgium. He's super frustrated because the

0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:49.959
<v Speaker 1>king doesn't have that much in the way of power.

0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:55.320
<v Speaker 1>Leopold takes to sort of mocking the restrained role that

0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.840
<v Speaker 1>he has in Belgian politics. There's a story of like

0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.879
<v Speaker 1>this guy who came to visit him because like, you know,

0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.199
<v Speaker 1>the king's got a visit with like his donors and

0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.000
<v Speaker 1>benefactors and whatnot. And this guy complains about the poor

0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.960
<v Speaker 1>state of the roads around his property, and Leopold interrupts

0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.080
<v Speaker 1>him and says, I have no authority to change the roads.

0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.199
<v Speaker 1>You want to address yourself to the press, especially to

0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.639
<v Speaker 1>the small papers. The municipality and the government will do

0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.800
<v Speaker 1>anything they ask. So he was like, he was like

0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.760
<v Speaker 1>making a point. Yeah, I'm frustrated that, like I can't

0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.800
<v Speaker 1>do anything, so I'm just kind of like to take

0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.760
<v Speaker 1>it to the press. Your King's not allowed to do anything.

0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.400
<v Speaker 1>He sort of set to work making himself into kind

0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:33.240
<v Speaker 1>of an image for the Belgian people. He was the

0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.440
<v Speaker 1>aristocratic equivalent of an alpha male. He spent a lot

0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.480
<v Speaker 1>of time doing science work and you know, supporting the

0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.480
<v Speaker 1>arts and sciences. Nineteenth century science is just like beakers

0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.879
<v Speaker 1>of lead and shows. He's pouring colored water into beakers.

0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.919
<v Speaker 1>He's got goggles on, you know, you know how that goes. Yeah,

0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.600
<v Speaker 1>there's a quote from his biography that says he used

0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.760
<v Speaker 1>to sleep in a camp bed so like a military

0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.280
<v Speaker 1>cot and had a general horror of everything that could

0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.600
<v Speaker 1>innervate or under him. A feminate, so he's kind of

0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.120
<v Speaker 1>like a he's a proud boy. Proud boy.

0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's what they call people who aren't racist soy boys.

0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:15.200
<v Speaker 1>Is that right? Yeah? Because eating soy feminizes you again, Yeah,

0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.680
<v Speaker 1>that's what that's the alt right thing. Yeah.

0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.240
<v Speaker 2>Hey, well at least we know that they have a

0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:22.680
<v Speaker 2>nice historical antasy.

0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.520
<v Speaker 1>Leopold would have been all about that stuff. So he's

0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:27.960
<v Speaker 1>he's grown a giant, weird beard, he's sleeping in a

0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.280
<v Speaker 1>palace in a military cop He's scared of girls. Uh.

0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:35.959
<v Speaker 1>He hates spending money. His biography says, quote his pocket

0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.560
<v Speaker 1>handkerchief was only renewed on Sunday mornings when going to Mass,

0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.800
<v Speaker 1>and on no account would he take another in the interval.

0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.600
<v Speaker 1>If his valets changed his towels more than once a week,

0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.400
<v Speaker 1>they were sure to receive a good scolding from his majesty.

0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.600
<v Speaker 1>What So he's like a gross miser. Yeah, don't clean

0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.080
<v Speaker 1>those dells. Oh, which one of those wasn't one? Of

0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.040
<v Speaker 1>the alt right guys living in their mom's basement.

0:20:56.240 --> 0:21:00.200
<v Speaker 2>I think most of them are will definitely want Yeah

0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.120
<v Speaker 2>yeah that guy, yeah, ruche V, the pickup artist guy

0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.000
<v Speaker 2>that was found living in his mom's base Yeah, yeah,

0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:12.040
<v Speaker 2>that's what this guy was. Leopold was missing. Yeah, yeah,

0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.080
<v Speaker 2>I guess the Beard. The Beard experiment clearly on that factor.

0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.680
<v Speaker 1>His mom died young, so he became a king. Yeah yep.

0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:24.520
<v Speaker 2>Instead, okay, called peacocking everyone I interract women the kingdom.

0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:29.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, kick, I mean having a castle is pretty solid peacocking,

0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:33.480
<v Speaker 1>that's true. Yeah, undeniable yeah. Uh. Leopold the Second was

0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.040
<v Speaker 1>noted in his biography is the first king to treat

0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.040
<v Speaker 1>his kingship as a corporate endeavor. His primary concern was

0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.720
<v Speaker 1>making money, not for Belgium, but for himself. It's all

0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:48.000
<v Speaker 1>about the bottom line. Yeah. So there's like when you

0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.639
<v Speaker 1>talk about dictators and warlords and terrorists, there's like a

0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.359
<v Speaker 1>tendency to call them psychopaths and sociopaths. Yeah. Sociopath is

0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.800
<v Speaker 1>like an actual medical diagnosis. And I don't think guys

0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.560
<v Speaker 1>like Hitler or Stalin, Yeah really it because they all

0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.439
<v Speaker 1>had histories of like warm family life and like people

0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.360
<v Speaker 1>who cared about them and people that they like sacrificed for.

0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:11.080
<v Speaker 1>At times, Leopold might have been a straight up like

0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:12.639
<v Speaker 1>the mark store level monster.

0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because that's that's what they say, right, is like

0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:20.520
<v Speaker 2>so many CEOs and Fortune five hundred whatever the fu. Yeah,

0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.800
<v Speaker 2>there was over represented, like psychopathic traits.

0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.159
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Even his positive biography says that while he was charming,

0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.280
<v Speaker 1>he was quote devoid of enthusiasm and set himself and

0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.040
<v Speaker 1>was quite incapable of arousing any and others. So he

0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:42.760
<v Speaker 1>just can't utually touch people's heart. Yeah, he can't motivate people. So, yeah,

0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.679
<v Speaker 1>we're going to get more into the soulless Leopold the second,

0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:49.800
<v Speaker 1>his scheme to find a colony and the colony that

0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:55.639
<v Speaker 1>he eventually founds. But first we've got some ads.

0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.520
<v Speaker 2>Of course, we all realize it's a pro corporate podcast,

0:22:58.600 --> 0:22:59.840
<v Speaker 2>so let's keep it real.

0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:12.040
<v Speaker 1>Here's some buying advice, and we're back. We're back. We're

0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:17.040
<v Speaker 1>talking about King Leopold, who is searching for a little

0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.680
<v Speaker 1>colony somewhere in the world to fill that hole little.

0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:20.680
<v Speaker 2>Heart the Deuce, of course.

0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:25.040
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Leopold, the Deuce. Leopold I Electric Boogloo whenever you

0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:26.639
<v Speaker 1>want to call him. We were just talking about what

0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.520
<v Speaker 1>a Solis sociopathic creepy is. Allegedly, yeah, allegedly. Well here's

0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.080
<v Speaker 1>another quote again, This is from like a positive pro

0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:38.000
<v Speaker 1>Leopold biography that he probably paid for. He disliked music, hunting, tobacco,

0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:40.960
<v Speaker 1>and had no taste for physical exercises except walking. Although

0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.159
<v Speaker 1>a frequent visitor at Austin, which is like one of

0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.080
<v Speaker 1>his palaces, he never learned to swim. He was seen

0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:49.040
<v Speaker 1>yawning in a gala performance of Faust. So he doesn't

0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.639
<v Speaker 1>like plays, he doesn't like art. He hates music. Like

0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:54.640
<v Speaker 1>That's the thing. Any book you read about him, anyone

0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:58.280
<v Speaker 1>who knew him. He hated music, like not like he

0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:02.360
<v Speaker 1>hated popular music. Yeah, music itself was offensive to him.

0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:08.480
<v Speaker 2>So that's fascinating. Well that's cutting into the American psycho narrative.

0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah unfortunately, yeah a little bit. Yeah, he's a weird guy.

0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:16.040
<v Speaker 1>He's very vain, but his main vanity was quite odd.

0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.199
<v Speaker 1>He thought he had the most beautiful hands in all

0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:24.760
<v Speaker 1>of Europe, tight his biography. What his biography notes. Another

0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:28.159
<v Speaker 1>of Leopold's hobbies was his dislike for gloves, and although

0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:31.040
<v Speaker 1>he often wore uniform he is never reported to have

0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:33.720
<v Speaker 1>put on gloves. It may have been a hatred of restraint,

0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:36.480
<v Speaker 1>but more probably it was a pardonable vanity on the

0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:39.160
<v Speaker 1>part of the late king, for he possessed the shapely

0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:41.760
<v Speaker 1>and beautiful hand of the Orlean family.

0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:45.000
<v Speaker 2>That rules so hard.

0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:49.760
<v Speaker 1>Here's the only picture I could find hands. No, he's

0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:51.720
<v Speaker 1>holding the gloves in his hand, so his hand is

0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:53.040
<v Speaker 1>not even stronger.

0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:56.000
<v Speaker 2>Actually, yeah, like reminding people you could be wearing gloves.

0:24:56.040 --> 0:24:58.120
<v Speaker 1>I'm the master of the Yeah, and his I mean,

0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:00.359
<v Speaker 1>in fairness to him, his hands are beauty full in

0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:02.560
<v Speaker 1>this picture. I mean they just just look at the

0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:06.200
<v Speaker 1>bone definition. Yeah, they are shapely. They good ass hands. Yeah,

0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:08.400
<v Speaker 1>they good ass hands. Oh man, So that.

0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:11.679
<v Speaker 2>Means that he made some painter do multiple drafts on

0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:12.800
<v Speaker 2>those hands.

0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:16.560
<v Speaker 1>That's like, this is like, isn't it wait, rested development

0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:17.840
<v Speaker 1>where the guy has a fake hands.

0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:21.080
<v Speaker 2>Always always thought the lawyer and always Sonny always has

0:25:21.200 --> 0:25:21.879
<v Speaker 2>fake hands.

0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:24.640
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, then there's some things to be said about

0:25:24.640 --> 0:25:28.760
<v Speaker 1>our president and hands. Nah, it's weird. It's weird that

0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:31.680
<v Speaker 1>you would even like, I never think about my hands, Yeah,

0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:33.960
<v Speaker 1>like how they look like when I'm thinking about someone

0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:36.480
<v Speaker 1>taking a picture of me. Like zero percent of the time,

0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:38.080
<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, oh my god, my hands do they

0:25:38.080 --> 0:25:38.639
<v Speaker 1>look shapely?

0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:42.879
<v Speaker 2>Do you know what's crazy is I had to send

0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:48.000
<v Speaker 2>a picture of a piece of equipment for this job

0:25:48.080 --> 0:25:51.520
<v Speaker 2>I'm on to a technical person and I just took

0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:53.199
<v Speaker 2>a picture of my phone and send it to them.

0:25:53.240 --> 0:25:54.800
<v Speaker 1>And I realized as I was sending the email, I

0:25:54.920 --> 0:25:57.120
<v Speaker 1>was like, my hands a fucked up in this.

0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:02.320
<v Speaker 2>I'm having a real low hand self esteem day.

0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:04.480
<v Speaker 1>Oh I think you have the shapely hands of the

0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:05.399
<v Speaker 1>or Leone family.

0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:08.280
<v Speaker 2>I know you're being really nice right now, but it's

0:26:08.320 --> 0:26:12.000
<v Speaker 2>actually a little hilarious that the one day possibly in

0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:14.399
<v Speaker 2>my life, that I've noticed my hands.

0:26:15.560 --> 0:26:17.399
<v Speaker 1>Horrible, I was like, what the fuck is up with

0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:19.840
<v Speaker 1>my hands? Only these were feet. Yeah.

0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:22.320
<v Speaker 2>I've been an arm model before. My friend was doing

0:26:22.320 --> 0:26:25.240
<v Speaker 2>some not like you know, elbows down I was doing,

0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:27.480
<v Speaker 2>was doing some stock photography, which like I wanted to

0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:29.879
<v Speaker 2>take pictures of your arms, and I was like, you're

0:26:30.040 --> 0:26:32.680
<v Speaker 2>wilding out. So you know what, I'm good. I'm good

0:26:32.800 --> 0:26:35.119
<v Speaker 2>risk to elbow, wrist to elbow, Yeah, I got I

0:26:35.119 --> 0:26:37.520
<v Speaker 2>got forearm, my forearms are I'm about it?

0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:42.359
<v Speaker 1>Well. Leopold was a hand man. Yeah, so We've got

0:26:42.400 --> 0:26:45.880
<v Speaker 1>this frustrated, greedy, gorgeous handed king on the throne of Belgium.

0:26:46.200 --> 0:26:48.000
<v Speaker 1>He keeps trying to get his countrymen to jump on

0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:49.919
<v Speaker 1>board the having a colony train that the people of

0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:53.560
<v Speaker 1>Belgium express zero interest in this. Oh okay, wait, why

0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:57.760
<v Speaker 1>what do you mean? All right? Because obviously all.

0:26:57.720 --> 0:27:01.640
<v Speaker 2>European colonialism is pretty much the root of almost everything.

0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:04.280
<v Speaker 1>That's wrong in the world right now. But here is.

0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:06.520
<v Speaker 1>But I don't understand why they.

0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:09.520
<v Speaker 2>I mean, they certainly didn't I'm gonna guess not want

0:27:09.560 --> 0:27:09.919
<v Speaker 2>to do it.

0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:11.639
<v Speaker 1>For the reasons why I don't think they should have

0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:14.679
<v Speaker 1>done it. I think the Belgians, for one thing, So

0:27:14.720 --> 0:27:17.520
<v Speaker 1>the Belgiums of this era, anyone who's like a mature

0:27:17.560 --> 0:27:20.679
<v Speaker 1>adult lived through what was at that point, he equipped

0:27:20.960 --> 0:27:23.560
<v Speaker 1>World War two, the Napoleonic Wars, like we just don't

0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:25.439
<v Speaker 1>want any trouble, Like you just want to stay in

0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:28.320
<v Speaker 1>Belgium and eat chocolate and drink beer. We don't really

0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:31.920
<v Speaker 1>want to go to Africa or Asia. And let's say

0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:34.280
<v Speaker 1>the first of die not the first? Can I say?

0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:37.320
<v Speaker 2>I can continue an incredibly list, long list of ignorant

0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:38.640
<v Speaker 2>as shit. I'm about to say.

0:27:39.000 --> 0:27:42.400
<v Speaker 1>You do you is Belgium landlocked? No? No, no, no,

0:27:42.800 --> 0:27:45.600
<v Speaker 1>it has an antwerp antwarp, that's right, Okay, a number

0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:48.720
<v Speaker 1>of small Yeah. Yeah, it's a wee little country. You

0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:52.160
<v Speaker 1>can drive across it in a couple of hours. Yeah, okay.

0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:55.119
<v Speaker 2>I was just like, okay, yeah, I was just like,

0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:58.840
<v Speaker 2>it's funny to imagine a landlocked country ownings and stuff.

0:27:58.880 --> 0:28:00.600
<v Speaker 1>But of course they can. Who gives a shit, But

0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:02.679
<v Speaker 1>they're not landlocked, so fuck me. Yeah, no they're not.

0:28:03.400 --> 0:28:05.399
<v Speaker 1>They didn't have a colony at this point, and they

0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:09.280
<v Speaker 1>seem to have zero interest in having one now. At

0:28:09.280 --> 0:28:12.400
<v Speaker 1>this same time, from eighteen seventy four to eighteen seventy seven,

0:28:12.440 --> 0:28:14.919
<v Speaker 1>when Leopold's like a decade or so into his kinghood,

0:28:15.040 --> 0:28:19.000
<v Speaker 1>there's this explorer named Henry Morton Stanley, and yeah, from

0:28:19.119 --> 0:28:22.040
<v Speaker 1>seventy four to seventy seven, he completes a seven thousand

0:28:22.080 --> 0:28:25.879
<v Speaker 1>mile expedition across Central Africa. Much of his travels centered

0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:29.320
<v Speaker 1>upon the still undiscovered by like white people, Congo. No

0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:31.840
<v Speaker 1>one had like mapped the extent of the Congo River.

0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:34.719
<v Speaker 1>We didn't know where it originated from at this point.

0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:39.320
<v Speaker 1>So at this time in European history, like different explorers

0:28:39.360 --> 0:28:42.040
<v Speaker 1>mapping Africa are kind of like the Marvel movie franchise

0:28:42.040 --> 0:28:43.960
<v Speaker 1>of the day. Yeah, Like each of these guys is

0:28:44.000 --> 0:28:47.960
<v Speaker 1>world famous and like newspapers breathlessly cover every expedition, and

0:28:48.000 --> 0:28:50.320
<v Speaker 1>whenever they finish an expedition, they write a book and

0:28:50.440 --> 0:28:54.600
<v Speaker 1>millions of people by it so automatically exactly, this is

0:28:54.680 --> 0:28:57.240
<v Speaker 1>like the thing people care about at this point in time.

0:28:57.240 --> 0:29:00.120
<v Speaker 1>It's like what these explorers are doing in Africa and

0:29:00.200 --> 0:29:01.120
<v Speaker 1>all over the world.

0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:03.280
<v Speaker 2>Like that just means if I were alive then and

0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:08.120
<v Speaker 2>a white person two big f's, I would be like

0:29:08.760 --> 0:29:11.480
<v Speaker 2>struggling to get on one of the good expeditions.

0:29:11.760 --> 0:29:14.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah you really like fingers crossed. It's not one of

0:29:14.600 --> 0:29:16.080
<v Speaker 1>the ones where people eat each other.

0:29:16.240 --> 0:29:19.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, yeah, statistically a lot of them are.

0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:23.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So Stanley maps like a huge chunk of the Congo,

0:29:23.280 --> 0:29:25.240
<v Speaker 1>more than anyone had ever done before, and it's like

0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:28.200
<v Speaker 1>big news. He gets back to Europe from Africa and

0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:30.560
<v Speaker 1>he goes on tour. He's doing like speaking engagements. He's

0:29:30.560 --> 0:29:31.400
<v Speaker 1>a big celebrity.

0:29:31.680 --> 0:29:33.800
<v Speaker 2>I feel like there's a lot of like skulls and

0:29:33.840 --> 0:29:35.880
<v Speaker 2>calipers in a talk like this.

0:29:36.080 --> 0:29:41.880
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and probably buckets of racism. Yeah, like totally unexamined racism.

0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:45.080
<v Speaker 1>My look, don't look. If you don't look, it's not there. Yeah,

0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:50.520
<v Speaker 1>that's the racist motto. So he's touring around and King

0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Leopold winds up meeting with him. Stanley had been bullish

0:29:54.640 --> 0:29:56.320
<v Speaker 1>on the idea that the Congo would be a great

0:29:56.320 --> 0:30:00.040
<v Speaker 1>place for a colony, and he wanted the British to

0:30:00.080 --> 0:30:01.920
<v Speaker 1>set up a colony there the Ogs.

0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:05.640
<v Speaker 2>You want to go to the best colonizing studio first.

0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:09.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, that's like the is Paramount good? Probably not.

0:30:09.440 --> 0:30:11.680
<v Speaker 1>I don't know anything about the Warner Brothers we all

0:30:11.680 --> 0:30:12.040
<v Speaker 1>live in.

0:30:12.000 --> 0:30:14.640
<v Speaker 2>But the Disney that's the Disney.

0:30:14.960 --> 0:30:19.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Britain's the Disney of colonizing. Yeah, And instead he

0:30:19.360 --> 0:30:22.400
<v Speaker 1>goes to I don't know who's who's making DC's garbage movies,

0:30:22.640 --> 0:30:26.560
<v Speaker 1>Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers. Okay, so Leopold's Warner Brothers.

0:30:26.640 --> 0:30:27.600
<v Speaker 2>No, they're not even in it.

0:30:27.680 --> 0:30:32.320
<v Speaker 1>Leopold is like this has gotten very confusing. Leopold is like, uh, a.

0:30:32.520 --> 0:30:36.200
<v Speaker 2>Snapchat making stuff, Like technically they got the our YouTube

0:30:36.240 --> 0:30:38.479
<v Speaker 2>like it's a YouTube show. Yeah, you know, like they

0:30:38.520 --> 0:30:41.560
<v Speaker 2>got the money. Let's actually call it no history for it,

0:30:41.600 --> 0:30:42.360
<v Speaker 2>but who knows.

0:30:42.320 --> 0:30:45.560
<v Speaker 1>I feel like we actually hit upon the right thing

0:30:45.600 --> 0:30:48.719
<v Speaker 1>to compare him to, which is Amazon. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

0:30:48.720 --> 0:30:51.800
<v Speaker 1>So Stanley tries to sell his Congo idea to Disney

0:30:51.920 --> 0:30:57.520
<v Speaker 1>Slash Britain and it fails, and King Leopold aka Amazon's like, well,

0:30:57.760 --> 0:31:01.240
<v Speaker 1>we might be interested in this plan. Yeah, we'll fund this.

0:31:01.280 --> 0:31:03.480
<v Speaker 1>Why don't you, Why don't you give me your elevator

0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:06.400
<v Speaker 1>pitch colony in the Congo? Huh? I like it. I

0:31:06.520 --> 0:31:11.360
<v Speaker 1>like this idea. Yeah. So Leopold contracts Stanley to work

0:31:11.400 --> 0:31:13.520
<v Speaker 1>for him and he sends him back to Africa with

0:31:13.600 --> 0:31:16.600
<v Speaker 1>a new mission. So Leopold's master plan here, I'm going

0:31:16.640 --> 0:31:18.360
<v Speaker 1>to appeal back for a minute. Then we're going to

0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:20.920
<v Speaker 1>zoom into the different pieces because it's a complicated ass plant.

0:31:21.480 --> 0:31:24.520
<v Speaker 1>His master plan is to create the Congo Free State,

0:31:24.760 --> 0:31:28.200
<v Speaker 1>which is a supposedly independent African nation that just happened

0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.959
<v Speaker 1>to also be ruled by King Leopold the Second. Sure,

0:31:31.880 --> 0:31:35.120
<v Speaker 1>So he went about doing this in a few ways.

0:31:35.640 --> 0:31:38.920
<v Speaker 1>In eighteen seventy six, he hosted the Brussels Geographic Conference,

0:31:38.960 --> 0:31:41.280
<v Speaker 1>where he invited a bunch of European experts to form

0:31:41.320 --> 0:31:44.920
<v Speaker 1>the so called International African Association, which, of course had

0:31:44.920 --> 0:31:50.480
<v Speaker 1>no Africans as members. The association was a supposedly philanthropic organization.

0:31:50.520 --> 0:31:52.560
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to read you a selection from Leopold's speech

0:31:52.560 --> 0:31:54.320
<v Speaker 1>at the conference where he sort of lays out what

0:31:54.360 --> 0:31:56.720
<v Speaker 1>he wants to do. The subject that calls us together

0:31:56.760 --> 0:31:58.760
<v Speaker 1>today is one that demands a first place in the

0:31:58.800 --> 0:32:01.520
<v Speaker 1>attention of friends of humanity to open up to civilization.

0:32:01.640 --> 0:32:03.280
<v Speaker 1>The only part of our globe where she has not

0:32:03.360 --> 0:32:07.360
<v Speaker 1>yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness that envelops entire populations

0:32:07.480 --> 0:32:10.080
<v Speaker 1>is I may venture to say a crusade worthy of

0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:12.680
<v Speaker 1>this century of progress, and I am glad to observe

0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:16.040
<v Speaker 1>how very favorable public feeling is to its accomplishment. The

0:32:16.120 --> 0:32:19.440
<v Speaker 1>current is with us. So he gets this association together

0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:22.320
<v Speaker 1>and he says, this is an international group and we're

0:32:22.360 --> 0:32:26.040
<v Speaker 1>trying to civilize Africa and improve lives of people who

0:32:26.080 --> 0:32:26.480
<v Speaker 1>were there.

0:32:26.560 --> 0:32:30.080
<v Speaker 2>I didn't realize that back then. The rhetoric was already

0:32:30.960 --> 0:32:34.040
<v Speaker 2>like the kind of like, ah, this is to help

0:32:34.080 --> 0:32:36.880
<v Speaker 2>them double speak. I actually just assumed they were like, yeah,

0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:38.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna take this ship from black people.

0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:43.640
<v Speaker 1>No, they are, and these guys the people he invites

0:32:43.720 --> 0:32:47.360
<v Speaker 1>to the Geographic conference and forms the International African Association

0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:50.080
<v Speaker 1>with these guys are a lot of people who legitimately

0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:52.320
<v Speaker 1>want to make things better for Africans who aren't even

0:32:52.360 --> 0:32:53.600
<v Speaker 1>thinking about making it. Yeah. Yeah.

0:32:53.800 --> 0:32:56.520
<v Speaker 2>These are the well meaning liberal white people.

0:32:56.440 --> 0:32:59.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, and like missionaries who are like and well

0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:02.240
<v Speaker 1>meaning liberal white people. Because there's an Arab slave trade

0:33:02.280 --> 0:33:05.080
<v Speaker 1>in Africa, like traders moving through the Congo, and the

0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:07.720
<v Speaker 1>abolition movement is very big at this point in time,

0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:09.600
<v Speaker 1>and so these people are being like, we've got to

0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:12.160
<v Speaker 1>stop the slave trade in Africa. So Leopold's like, we

0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:14.680
<v Speaker 1>can do that. And there's a bunch of people who

0:33:14.680 --> 0:33:17.120
<v Speaker 1>are like, we've got to Christianize the Africans, and Leopold's like,

0:33:17.200 --> 0:33:19.720
<v Speaker 1>we can do that, and like so that's that's what

0:33:19.760 --> 0:33:21.200
<v Speaker 1>he's claiming this association.

0:33:21.520 --> 0:33:23.760
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so this is right, This is like definitely like

0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:26.720
<v Speaker 2>colonialism two point zero or three point zero.

0:33:26.880 --> 0:33:29.960
<v Speaker 1>He steps ahead of everyone. Yeah yeah, he's not even

0:33:30.000 --> 0:33:32.800
<v Speaker 1>framing this as colonialism. He's framing this as a charitable

0:33:32.840 --> 0:33:36.640
<v Speaker 1>endeavor to exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he suggests that

0:33:36.680 --> 0:33:39.000
<v Speaker 1>Belgium would be a great place for this new international

0:33:39.000 --> 0:33:41.000
<v Speaker 1>body to meet because it's a neutral country and it's

0:33:41.000 --> 0:33:44.040
<v Speaker 1>centrally located in Europe. And then he suggests that he

0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:46.160
<v Speaker 1>might be a good person to run the association just

0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:48.280
<v Speaker 1>for its first year. You pitch yourself, you know, you

0:33:48.400 --> 0:33:51.640
<v Speaker 1>got to be for its first year. And he assures

0:33:51.640 --> 0:33:53.280
<v Speaker 1>them all that he's doing this from the goodness of

0:33:53.320 --> 0:33:56.960
<v Speaker 1>his heart. He says, Belgium is small, she is happy

0:33:57.000 --> 0:33:59.440
<v Speaker 1>and satisfied with her lot. I have no other ambition

0:33:59.520 --> 0:34:01.920
<v Speaker 1>than to serve well. And it was true that Belgians

0:34:01.920 --> 0:34:05.280
<v Speaker 1>were pretty happy with their lot. But Leopold did have

0:34:05.320 --> 0:34:08.680
<v Speaker 1>some ambitions. So he gets elected head of the International

0:34:08.760 --> 0:34:12.760
<v Speaker 1>African Association the first year, and then he gets elected

0:34:12.800 --> 0:34:14.600
<v Speaker 1>the head of it the second year too, even though

0:34:14.600 --> 0:34:16.960
<v Speaker 1>that was supposed to be illegal. Back to back, and

0:34:17.000 --> 0:34:20.719
<v Speaker 1>then the association kind of stops existing, and Leopold replaces

0:34:20.719 --> 0:34:23.280
<v Speaker 1>it with the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo,

0:34:23.680 --> 0:34:26.560
<v Speaker 1>and then he replaces that with the International Association for

0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:30.880
<v Speaker 1>the Congo. On paper, these are all different international philanthropic groups.

0:34:31.200 --> 0:34:33.839
<v Speaker 1>Their names were deliberately forgettable and similar, so the public

0:34:33.880 --> 0:34:36.719
<v Speaker 1>would assume they were all the same thing. In King

0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:40.120
<v Speaker 1>Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hoschild writes that Leopold directly told his

0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:42.799
<v Speaker 1>aides quote, care must be taken not to let it

0:34:42.840 --> 0:34:45.239
<v Speaker 1>be obvious that the Association of the Congo and the

0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:49.080
<v Speaker 1>African Association are two different things. The public doesn't grasp that.

0:34:50.040 --> 0:34:54.240
<v Speaker 1>So in reality, all of these philanthropic groups are shadow

0:34:54.280 --> 0:34:57.520
<v Speaker 1>fronts for Leopold's plan to conquer the Congo. So they're

0:34:57.560 --> 0:35:01.200
<v Speaker 1>all charity organizations that he gets international aid money getting

0:35:01.239 --> 0:35:03.840
<v Speaker 1>sent into, and he's able to pour Belgian government funds

0:35:03.840 --> 0:35:08.640
<v Speaker 1>into as rights and donations, just like Hillary Clinton. Exactly

0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:12.479
<v Speaker 1>like Hillary Clinton. Yes, you've watched the documentary Clinton Catch

0:35:12.560 --> 0:35:14.040
<v Speaker 1>by Deniche Desoza. Yes.

0:35:16.920 --> 0:35:20.960
<v Speaker 2>The thing that's amazing about this is it's so complicated

0:35:21.000 --> 0:35:25.920
<v Speaker 2>a plan that doesn't feel like I mean, I don't

0:35:25.960 --> 0:35:27.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, I'm a super smart person.

0:35:27.440 --> 0:35:28.480
<v Speaker 1>Of course I'm not.

0:35:28.680 --> 0:35:32.160
<v Speaker 2>Finding a place where you could improvise your way into this.

0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:34.640
<v Speaker 1>You just gotta wait, because we're not even halfway through

0:35:34.680 --> 0:35:39.120
<v Speaker 1>the planet. Like this, he's he is a legitimate like okay,

0:35:39.160 --> 0:35:41.799
<v Speaker 1>so the villain that Marvel keeps trying to write and

0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:43.719
<v Speaker 1>like failing to write in my opinion, where it's like

0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:45.920
<v Speaker 1>the low key character where there he's got all these

0:35:45.960 --> 0:35:49.440
<v Speaker 1>plans within plans and the step ahead Leopold actually was

0:35:49.520 --> 0:35:51.880
<v Speaker 1>that guy to the whole world, but in sort of

0:35:51.880 --> 0:35:54.840
<v Speaker 1>the same villainous way. You're like, this is insane.

0:35:54.920 --> 0:35:56.919
<v Speaker 2>There's so many things that could go wrong in this.

0:35:57.040 --> 0:36:01.120
<v Speaker 1>So he's now created three different philanthropic associations just because

0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:04.399
<v Speaker 1>like the backers will start realizing that the association's fake

0:36:04.440 --> 0:36:07.600
<v Speaker 1>and they'll pull their money, but he'll keep the organization alive,

0:36:07.680 --> 0:36:10.520
<v Speaker 1>or he'll roll its assets into a new organization. And

0:36:10.560 --> 0:36:13.560
<v Speaker 1>nobody who got caught, who realized that this was some

0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:15.839
<v Speaker 1>weird show company, wants to admit that they got caught,

0:36:15.840 --> 0:36:18.279
<v Speaker 1>so they just don't say anything, and the public just

0:36:18.320 --> 0:36:21.520
<v Speaker 1>hears like, oh, it's the new thing is out the

0:36:21.560 --> 0:36:24.640
<v Speaker 1>International African Association. It's that group of people trying to

0:36:24.640 --> 0:36:28.920
<v Speaker 1>make life better in Africa, right, So he all these

0:36:28.920 --> 0:36:32.440
<v Speaker 1>groups are basically funneling money into the work of Henry

0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:35.480
<v Speaker 1>Morton Stanley, that explorer who Leopold sent back to Africa.

0:36:36.040 --> 0:36:38.880
<v Speaker 1>So Leopold sent him back in eighteen seventy nine, and

0:36:38.920 --> 0:36:41.960
<v Speaker 1>his job was to start building, using the association money,

0:36:42.239 --> 0:36:45.200
<v Speaker 1>a series of stations along the Congo River to act

0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:49.319
<v Speaker 1>as like waypoints for steamboat traffic. He also met with

0:36:49.480 --> 0:36:51.960
<v Speaker 1>hundreds of local chiefs all throughout the Congo, all the

0:36:51.960 --> 0:36:54.400
<v Speaker 1>different people who had chunks of land throughout the Congo,

0:36:54.440 --> 0:36:56.680
<v Speaker 1>the different villages and chiefs, hundreds and hundreds of them.

0:36:56.840 --> 0:36:58.520
<v Speaker 1>He meets with these guys and he gets them to

0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:02.279
<v Speaker 1>sign treaties giving up their rights to the land. Here's

0:37:02.320 --> 0:37:04.840
<v Speaker 1>a quote from Hostchild's book. The very word treaty is

0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:06.920
<v Speaker 1>a euphemism. For many chiefs had no idea what they

0:37:06.920 --> 0:37:08.960
<v Speaker 1>were signing. I few had ever seen the written word before,

0:37:08.960 --> 0:37:10.719
<v Speaker 1>and they were being asked to mark their excess to

0:37:10.960 --> 0:37:14.239
<v Speaker 1>documents in a foreign language and in legalese. These guys

0:37:14.239 --> 0:37:16.719
<v Speaker 1>weren't ignorant of the concept of diplomacy. They knew it

0:37:16.840 --> 0:37:19.520
<v Speaker 1>meant to write treaties of friendship with neighboring tribes or villages.

0:37:19.560 --> 0:37:21.920
<v Speaker 1>They understood the idea of a non aggression pact, and

0:37:21.960 --> 0:37:25.200
<v Speaker 1>that's what they thought these were. The reality was somewhat different.

0:37:25.480 --> 0:37:28.640
<v Speaker 1>Quote in return for one piece of cloth per month

0:37:28.680 --> 0:37:31.600
<v Speaker 1>to each of the undersigned chiefs, besides present of cloth

0:37:31.640 --> 0:37:34.400
<v Speaker 1>in hand, they promised too freely of their own accord

0:37:34.520 --> 0:37:38.359
<v Speaker 1>for themselves and their heirs and successors, forever give up

0:37:38.440 --> 0:37:41.840
<v Speaker 1>to set association the sovereignty and all sovereign and governing

0:37:41.960 --> 0:37:46.520
<v Speaker 1>rights to all their territories. So basically he gives them cloth.

0:37:46.680 --> 0:37:49.480
<v Speaker 1>They think that they're getting some sick ass clothes just

0:37:49.520 --> 0:37:50.640
<v Speaker 1>for Agia.

0:37:51.400 --> 0:37:53.839
<v Speaker 2>This is this is a thing. Here's our everyone gets

0:37:53.840 --> 0:37:54.800
<v Speaker 2>a jersey.

0:37:54.760 --> 0:37:56.600
<v Speaker 1>You give us shirts. We promise we won't shoot you.

0:37:56.640 --> 0:37:58.399
<v Speaker 1>We don't want to shoot you anyway. That sounds great.

0:37:58.719 --> 0:38:02.759
<v Speaker 1>In reality, these are all statements saying that they give

0:38:02.840 --> 0:38:05.840
<v Speaker 1>up other rights to the International African Association, and the

0:38:05.920 --> 0:38:09.120
<v Speaker 1>Association will have the right to collect taxes on the

0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:11.839
<v Speaker 1>people who gave up their rights to their land, and

0:38:11.920 --> 0:38:14.960
<v Speaker 1>those taxes, because there's no currency in most of the Congo,

0:38:15.440 --> 0:38:20.160
<v Speaker 1>those taxes can be paid in labor. So Leopold gets

0:38:20.320 --> 0:38:27.480
<v Speaker 1>hundreds of chiefs from Stanley to sign these agreements. Yeah, Jesus,

0:38:27.600 --> 0:38:31.480
<v Speaker 1>so Europe thinks Stanley's over there doing valuable philanthropic work

0:38:31.520 --> 0:38:33.920
<v Speaker 1>fighting with the slave traders and trying to open the

0:38:33.960 --> 0:38:36.920
<v Speaker 1>Congo up to free trade. That's the buzzword everyone's using.

0:38:36.960 --> 0:38:38.480
<v Speaker 1>It's like, we're going to open the congoup to free

0:38:38.480 --> 0:38:41.000
<v Speaker 1>trade and it'll benefit the Africans, it'll benefit Europe. Everyone

0:38:41.000 --> 0:38:45.360
<v Speaker 1>will benefit if there's free trade in the Congo. Meanwhile,

0:38:45.400 --> 0:38:48.319
<v Speaker 1>what he's actually doing is getting pieces of paper that

0:38:48.440 --> 0:38:51.000
<v Speaker 1>give Leopold the rights to the Congo, that make it

0:38:51.040 --> 0:38:53.239
<v Speaker 1>look like all these chiefs have come together and said,

0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:55.040
<v Speaker 1>we want this guy to be our king, and we

0:38:55.080 --> 0:38:58.440
<v Speaker 1>want to be a country. So I feel like I

0:38:58.480 --> 0:39:00.600
<v Speaker 1>should break for just a second and talk a little

0:39:00.640 --> 0:39:02.640
<v Speaker 1>bit more about Henry Morton Stanley. Who's the guy who's

0:39:02.640 --> 0:39:04.600
<v Speaker 1>actually doing all this leg work. He was one of

0:39:04.640 --> 0:39:06.840
<v Speaker 1>the greatest explorers in history, and he was also a

0:39:06.920 --> 0:39:10.839
<v Speaker 1>human garbage fire sort of a definitely a Darth Vader too.

0:39:11.280 --> 0:39:13.200
<v Speaker 1>He was terrified by the thought of being touched by

0:39:13.200 --> 0:39:16.279
<v Speaker 1>a woman, just like Darth Vader. He once cut off

0:39:16.280 --> 0:39:18.279
<v Speaker 1>his own dog's tail, cooked it, and fed it to

0:39:18.320 --> 0:39:23.080
<v Speaker 1>the dog for no real reason. And he basically, when

0:39:23.120 --> 0:39:25.560
<v Speaker 1>I say he was an explorer, he shot his way

0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:29.520
<v Speaker 1>through Africa. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a quote from a description

0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:33.120
<v Speaker 1>of one of Stanley's expeditions in King Leopold's Ghost. To

0:39:33.160 --> 0:39:35.719
<v Speaker 1>those unfortunate enough to live in its path, the expedition

0:39:35.760 --> 0:39:38.000
<v Speaker 1>felt like an invading army, for it sometimes held women

0:39:38.040 --> 0:39:42.279
<v Speaker 1>and children hostage until local chiefs supplied food. So, yeah,

0:39:42.480 --> 0:39:45.720
<v Speaker 1>he's shooting his way through these tribes taking their food,

0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:49.640
<v Speaker 1>taking their shit, burning down villages if there's any resistance.

0:39:50.600 --> 0:39:54.080
<v Speaker 1>One of his men described just hunting people like the predator,

0:39:54.200 --> 0:39:56.680
<v Speaker 1>like laying in wait and just shooting random strangers.

0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:01.800
<v Speaker 2>Like less ethical than the predator who lead out has

0:40:01.920 --> 0:40:02.800
<v Speaker 2>a certain code.

0:40:02.920 --> 0:40:05.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah, way less epical than the predators. So these

0:40:05.200 --> 0:40:09.600
<v Speaker 1>guys are predatoring their way through through Africa, but they're not.

0:40:09.840 --> 0:40:13.200
<v Speaker 2>Particularly worse than any other explorer of the time.

0:40:13.320 --> 0:40:15.640
<v Speaker 1>I would he's one of the worst. Okay, they vary.

0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:18.759
<v Speaker 1>So Henry Morton Stanley, you know, the doctor Livingstone. I

0:40:18.840 --> 0:40:22.360
<v Speaker 1>presume he's that guy. Yeah, yeah, And doctor Livingston was

0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:24.920
<v Speaker 1>apparently a pretty nice guy. He was also an explorer

0:40:24.920 --> 0:40:27.600
<v Speaker 1>and actually would like get to know people and like

0:40:27.760 --> 0:40:30.239
<v Speaker 1>invocate himself into the local culture. So some of these

0:40:30.239 --> 0:40:33.719
<v Speaker 1>guys are legitimately just in it for the sake of exploration,

0:40:33.960 --> 0:40:37.360
<v Speaker 1>and they're scientists and they're good to the people they encounter.

0:40:37.800 --> 0:40:39.960
<v Speaker 1>And some of them, like Stanley, just want to make

0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:43.680
<v Speaker 1>a shitload of money and they're creepy. And Stanley is

0:40:43.719 --> 0:40:46.640
<v Speaker 1>one of the kills thousands of people while he's exploring.

0:40:46.680 --> 0:40:47.319
<v Speaker 1>Got it, got it?

0:40:47.480 --> 0:40:49.200
<v Speaker 2>I just want to I guess when I met not

0:40:49.320 --> 0:40:51.600
<v Speaker 2>as a mitigating thing of like everyone was doing it,

0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:55.520
<v Speaker 2>but like, uh, if not the only standard practice, it was.

0:40:55.440 --> 0:40:58.680
<v Speaker 1>Not what you're describing is not not he's a standard

0:40:58.840 --> 0:41:02.080
<v Speaker 1>he's it's definitely common practice on a lot of these guys.

0:41:02.080 --> 0:41:04.319
<v Speaker 1>But he's not near to the only one. But he's

0:41:04.360 --> 0:41:09.120
<v Speaker 1>one of the worst, Yeah for sure. Okay, So yeah,

0:41:09.160 --> 0:41:12.080
<v Speaker 1>While Stanley's expedition is going on, Leopold also hires a

0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:14.880
<v Speaker 1>bunch of other expeditions to explore other parts of Africa.

0:41:15.200 --> 0:41:18.840
<v Speaker 1>These were deliberately showy expeditions meant to distract public attention.

0:41:18.960 --> 0:41:21.560
<v Speaker 1>One of them involved a team of four Indian elephants

0:41:21.600 --> 0:41:23.879
<v Speaker 1>being sent to Africa to see if they could reed

0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:26.840
<v Speaker 1>with African elephants. All of the elephants died horribly, but

0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:30.000
<v Speaker 1>the news covered the story the whole time. So nobody's

0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:32.719
<v Speaker 1>reading about what Stanley's doing because they think it's a

0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:35.960
<v Speaker 1>boring philanthropical mission and there's this crazy story about elephants,

0:41:36.000 --> 0:41:39.319
<v Speaker 1>let's read about that. It's so fucking dark, holy sh

0:41:40.160 --> 0:41:43.480
<v Speaker 1>So he's clearly understands the media well enough that he's

0:41:43.560 --> 0:41:45.719
<v Speaker 1>not just thinking about how to accomplish his plan, but

0:41:45.760 --> 0:41:48.640
<v Speaker 1>how to distract public attention and while he does it.

0:41:49.680 --> 0:41:53.160
<v Speaker 1>When Morton Stanley gets back from his expedition, he writes

0:41:53.200 --> 0:41:56.640
<v Speaker 1>a book. It's an instant bestseller. King Leopold edits it himself.

0:41:56.680 --> 0:41:58.480
<v Speaker 1>That's one of the things he'd insisted on is that

0:41:58.520 --> 0:42:01.600
<v Speaker 1>Stanley could write a book about this, but King Leopold

0:42:01.640 --> 0:42:03.600
<v Speaker 1>would get to edit it. And most of what he

0:42:03.640 --> 0:42:05.960
<v Speaker 1>did was correct the times when Stanley mixed up the

0:42:05.960 --> 0:42:09.160
<v Speaker 1>different associations and committees that he was supposedly working for,

0:42:09.320 --> 0:42:11.640
<v Speaker 1>because nobody could keep it straight but Leopold.

0:42:12.080 --> 0:42:15.440
<v Speaker 2>That's such an attention to detail, that's unbelievable.

0:42:15.560 --> 0:42:19.759
<v Speaker 1>Like I said, he's the first modern, truly modern bastard. Yeah,

0:42:21.040 --> 0:42:23.840
<v Speaker 1>so this book is sort of framed as like Henry

0:42:23.840 --> 0:42:27.120
<v Speaker 1>Morton Stanley's helping the Congo Free State be born and

0:42:27.160 --> 0:42:30.920
<v Speaker 1>helping these Africans like take their stab at nationhood and

0:42:31.000 --> 0:42:33.880
<v Speaker 1>joining the international community and whatnot. So that's how all

0:42:33.920 --> 0:42:36.360
<v Speaker 1>this is being played in the outside world. The reality

0:42:36.520 --> 0:42:40.000
<v Speaker 1>in the Congo is very different, and what happens next

0:42:40.280 --> 0:42:44.000
<v Speaker 1>is not what anyone but Leopold had expected. And we're

0:42:44.000 --> 0:42:48.040
<v Speaker 1>going to get into that in a minute. But right now, Andrew,

0:42:48.400 --> 0:42:51.960
<v Speaker 1>do you have too much money? Oh? Hell yeah? Well,

0:42:52.360 --> 0:42:54.279
<v Speaker 1>one of the great things to do with too much

0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:57.400
<v Speaker 1>money is spend it on products, products like the ones

0:42:57.440 --> 0:43:06.279
<v Speaker 1>that I'm going to talk about now Here's so we're

0:43:06.320 --> 0:43:09.759
<v Speaker 1>back and King Leopold has sent an explorer off to

0:43:09.800 --> 0:43:12.279
<v Speaker 1>the Congo to trick a bunch of tribes people into

0:43:12.280 --> 0:43:14.680
<v Speaker 1>signing away their rights to the land, while he's distracted

0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:18.160
<v Speaker 1>the rest of Europe with a bunch of showy expeditions.

0:43:18.200 --> 0:43:20.440
<v Speaker 2>So it's just like it used to be, just like

0:43:20.560 --> 0:43:24.800
<v Speaker 2>cannons and soldiers swords, I guess, and now it's pr

0:43:24.960 --> 0:43:27.720
<v Speaker 2>and fake treaties and stuff.

0:43:27.800 --> 0:43:30.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Wow, it's really modern in a lot of ways.

0:43:32.160 --> 0:43:35.919
<v Speaker 1>So Leopold has this new best selling book that's talking

0:43:35.920 --> 0:43:37.600
<v Speaker 1>about the great stuff he's trying to do in the

0:43:37.600 --> 0:43:39.640
<v Speaker 1>Congo that gets the public jazz, and he's able to

0:43:39.680 --> 0:43:42.319
<v Speaker 1>sort of further push the legitimacy of his project by

0:43:42.320 --> 0:43:46.160
<v Speaker 1>getting the US President Chester A. Arthur to recognize the

0:43:46.160 --> 0:43:49.360
<v Speaker 1>Congo Free State. Leopold had charmed the former US Minister

0:43:49.400 --> 0:43:52.000
<v Speaker 1>to Belgium, a guy who called himself General Sanford, even

0:43:52.040 --> 0:43:56.320
<v Speaker 1>though he wasn't actually a general, but he was a

0:43:56.480 --> 0:43:58.400
<v Speaker 1>rich guy who had a lot of money and like

0:43:58.440 --> 0:44:01.040
<v Speaker 1>an orange plantation. Because he was a rich guy. He

0:44:01.160 --> 0:44:04.400
<v Speaker 1>was able to get the president's ear General Sandford appealed

0:44:04.400 --> 0:44:07.840
<v Speaker 1>to President Arthur's dislike of Arabs because again, there were

0:44:07.880 --> 0:44:09.160
<v Speaker 1>all these Arab slave traders.

0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:14.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so just yes, nothing's changed, Yeah, okay, nothing's new.

0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:18.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so Chester A. Arthur was. He also pointed out

0:44:18.760 --> 0:44:20.839
<v Speaker 1>that the Congo had been discovered by an American because

0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:23.480
<v Speaker 1>Henry Morton Stanley called himself an American. He wasn't. He

0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:25.360
<v Speaker 1>was actually British, but he light his whole life and

0:44:25.400 --> 0:44:28.080
<v Speaker 1>said he was American. Everyone lies about everything in the

0:44:28.120 --> 0:44:31.799
<v Speaker 1>eighteen hundred Yeah, internet, because there yeah, yeah, nothing like

0:44:31.840 --> 0:44:34.800
<v Speaker 1>you you run into a thousand colonels when you're reading

0:44:34.840 --> 0:44:37.239
<v Speaker 1>anything in this period, and none of them are colonels. Sure,

0:44:37.320 --> 0:44:40.000
<v Speaker 1>none of them were ever in the military. Like I'm

0:44:40.000 --> 0:44:42.880
<v Speaker 1>going to be fried chicken colonels. Fine, And in this

0:44:42.960 --> 0:44:46.839
<v Speaker 1>case of General anyway, Chesterry Arthur was like, sounds great,

0:44:47.239 --> 0:44:49.200
<v Speaker 1>Congo free straights, sounds like a great idea. You're going

0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:53.640
<v Speaker 1>to fight some Arabs. Hooray. Yeah. So he included this

0:44:53.760 --> 0:44:57.000
<v Speaker 1>next bit in his State of the Union speech, recognizing

0:44:57.160 --> 0:45:00.040
<v Speaker 1>the Congo free state. Quote from Chester A. Arthur, the

0:45:00.880 --> 0:45:03.360
<v Speaker 1>rich and populous valley of the Congo spelled with a

0:45:03.440 --> 0:45:06.040
<v Speaker 1>K in. This is being opened by a society called

0:45:06.040 --> 0:45:08.719
<v Speaker 1>the International African Association, of which the King of the

0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:11.880
<v Speaker 1>Belgians is the president. Large tracts of territory have been

0:45:11.920 --> 0:45:15.320
<v Speaker 1>ceded to the Association by native chiefs. Roads have been opened,

0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:17.760
<v Speaker 1>steamboats have been placed on the river, and the Nuclei

0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:21.040
<v Speaker 1>of states established under one flag, which offers freedom to

0:45:21.080 --> 0:45:25.200
<v Speaker 1>commerce and prohibits the slave trade. Oh my god, So

0:45:25.480 --> 0:45:27.680
<v Speaker 1>that's how Chester A. Arthur pictures it.

0:45:27.760 --> 0:45:31.360
<v Speaker 2>So he got paid placement for his propaganda. Yeah, in

0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:32.280
<v Speaker 2>the State of the Union.

0:45:32.400 --> 0:45:35.319
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, in the State of the Union. So far the

0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:38.160
<v Speaker 1>people of Belgium and the other European states are fooled

0:45:38.160 --> 0:45:41.600
<v Speaker 1>pretty well. But France and some other folks and like

0:45:41.719 --> 0:45:44.480
<v Speaker 1>the British government and whatnot are starting to catch on

0:45:44.480 --> 0:45:47.120
<v Speaker 1>the Leopold's plan and realize that he's making a power grab.

0:45:47.520 --> 0:45:49.920
<v Speaker 1>This helped us spark a general what's known as the

0:45:49.920 --> 0:45:52.520
<v Speaker 1>Scramble for Africa, where all these European powers are like,

0:45:52.520 --> 0:45:54.640
<v Speaker 1>oh my god, we're running out of Africa to take over,

0:45:55.320 --> 0:45:57.520
<v Speaker 1>so they start shooting out expeditions to claim the last

0:45:57.520 --> 0:46:00.399
<v Speaker 1>pieces of the continent before it fills up. This all

0:46:00.400 --> 0:46:03.440
<v Speaker 1>culminates in the Berlin Conference of eighteen eighty four to

0:46:03.480 --> 0:46:06.040
<v Speaker 1>eighty five, and a bunch of stuff is decided there.

0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:09.239
<v Speaker 1>But Leopold's main goal is to get recognition for what

0:46:09.320 --> 0:46:12.239
<v Speaker 1>he starts calling the Congo Free State. He's basically like,

0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:14.160
<v Speaker 1>I've got all these treaties. Like he gets up in

0:46:14.200 --> 0:46:16.279
<v Speaker 1>front of Europe and he's like, I got all these treaties. Look,

0:46:16.480 --> 0:46:18.479
<v Speaker 1>the people of the Congo want to be their own state.

0:46:18.480 --> 0:46:20.520
<v Speaker 1>They want me to be their king. They've given this

0:46:20.640 --> 0:46:23.920
<v Speaker 1>the state, the rights to their land. And if you

0:46:24.040 --> 0:46:26.200
<v Speaker 1>all back me in establishing the state, it'll be a

0:46:26.239 --> 0:46:28.400
<v Speaker 1>free trade zone, so all everyone will be able to

0:46:28.400 --> 0:46:31.279
<v Speaker 1>trade freely and buy and sell freely in there. It'll

0:46:31.280 --> 0:46:34.520
<v Speaker 1>make a bunch of money for everybody. So that's Leopold's

0:46:34.520 --> 0:46:38.960
<v Speaker 1>pitch man, and Europe buys it. In eighteen eighty five,

0:46:39.120 --> 0:46:42.200
<v Speaker 1>the Congo Free State is established. Leopold had to go

0:46:42.239 --> 0:46:44.200
<v Speaker 1>in front of Belgium Senate to ask if he could

0:46:44.200 --> 0:46:47.040
<v Speaker 1>be two kings at once. He promised that the Congo

0:46:47.080 --> 0:46:48.919
<v Speaker 1>would be its own independent nation and that it would

0:46:48.920 --> 0:46:51.080
<v Speaker 1>pay its own way in the world. He told Belgium

0:46:51.120 --> 0:46:52.920
<v Speaker 1>he thought it was his duty to quote help the

0:46:53.000 --> 0:46:55.879
<v Speaker 1>nations of second rank become useful members of the great

0:46:55.960 --> 0:46:59.719
<v Speaker 1>family of nations. Then he asked for money, a little

0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:02.000
<v Speaker 1>loone to help the fledgling new nation. And he asked

0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:04.400
<v Speaker 1>his fellow Belgians to volunteer to help in this bold

0:47:04.440 --> 0:47:08.160
<v Speaker 1>project quote more than any other. A manufacturing and commercial

0:47:08.160 --> 0:47:11.040
<v Speaker 1>people like ourselves ought to strive to obtain a market

0:47:11.080 --> 0:47:15.080
<v Speaker 1>for all its workers, for thinkers, capitalists and workmen. So

0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:18.400
<v Speaker 1>the Congo Free State is on paper a country with

0:47:18.520 --> 0:47:21.520
<v Speaker 1>Leopold the Second as its absolute ruler. So he's gone

0:47:21.520 --> 0:47:23.400
<v Speaker 1>from the King of Belgium. Yeah, he doesn't really have

0:47:23.440 --> 0:47:28.760
<v Speaker 1>any power to be of a country like twenty times

0:47:28.760 --> 0:47:32.839
<v Speaker 1>the size of Belgium. Jesus Christ. So the Congo Free

0:47:32.840 --> 0:47:35.640
<v Speaker 1>State is to all intends and purposes of state. It

0:47:35.680 --> 0:47:38.080
<v Speaker 1>has its own army, the Force Publique, which is made

0:47:38.120 --> 0:47:41.360
<v Speaker 1>up of African soldiers led by Belgian officers. It's illegal

0:47:41.440 --> 0:47:43.920
<v Speaker 1>for black men to be officers in the Army of

0:47:43.920 --> 0:47:44.360
<v Speaker 1>the Congo.

0:47:44.640 --> 0:47:47.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah that sounds about right.

0:47:47.880 --> 0:47:56.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So Man Leopold has acquired himself an African empire. Unfortunately,

0:47:56.520 --> 0:47:59.440
<v Speaker 1>he didn't want an empire. He had no desire to

0:47:59.520 --> 0:48:03.960
<v Speaker 1>actually rule and others wanted money. He just wanted money.

0:48:04.080 --> 0:48:08.320
<v Speaker 1>So the Congo Free State is entirely a money making

0:48:08.400 --> 0:48:11.919
<v Speaker 1>scheme and it's all based around rubber. So the late

0:48:11.960 --> 0:48:14.959
<v Speaker 1>eighteen hundreds is when rubber really started to take off.

0:48:15.400 --> 0:48:17.680
<v Speaker 1>That's like in the mid eighteen hundreds or so is

0:48:17.680 --> 0:48:19.640
<v Speaker 1>when they figure out how to vulcanize rubber, which is

0:48:19.640 --> 0:48:22.239
<v Speaker 1>what makes it like nice and shiny and stable and

0:48:22.280 --> 0:48:26.080
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't smell weird and fall apart. It's so the

0:48:26.120 --> 0:48:29.160
<v Speaker 1>Macintosh coat becomes popular around this time. People like in

0:48:29.239 --> 0:48:31.640
<v Speaker 1>Europe are just like covered headed tone rubber, Like it's

0:48:31.760 --> 0:48:34.239
<v Speaker 1>it's everywhere. It's like the fashion of the time, right,

0:48:34.320 --> 0:48:38.680
<v Speaker 1>people are just flipping out over rubber. Fetishes are born

0:48:39.120 --> 0:48:45.120
<v Speaker 1>tons exactly, hot air balloons. It's like this one. It's

0:48:45.120 --> 0:48:47.560
<v Speaker 1>a wonder material. It's like the first time people they

0:48:47.600 --> 0:48:51.200
<v Speaker 1>don't have to use glass for everything. Yeah, so everyone's

0:48:51.200 --> 0:48:53.239
<v Speaker 1>in love with rubber. But there's only two ways to

0:48:53.360 --> 0:48:57.200
<v Speaker 1>make rubber at that time, vines and trees. Now, rubber

0:48:57.320 --> 0:48:59.600
<v Speaker 1>vines grew wild all around the Congo.

0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:02.879
<v Speaker 2>It was the two ways are vines and trees. There's

0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:05.600
<v Speaker 2>rubber vines and there's rubber. Yeah, I thought it was

0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:07.600
<v Speaker 2>going to be vegetation and chemistry.

0:49:08.040 --> 0:49:11.200
<v Speaker 1>No they didn't. They do now we can make yeah, yeah,

0:49:11.239 --> 0:49:14.760
<v Speaker 1>but they hadn't figured that shit out. Yeah. Yeah. So actually,

0:49:14.800 --> 0:49:17.120
<v Speaker 1>harvesting all of the rubber from vines like the ones

0:49:17.160 --> 0:49:19.360
<v Speaker 1>who grew in the Congo required thousands and thousands of

0:49:19.360 --> 0:49:21.520
<v Speaker 1>people climbing trees in the jungle. There's the risk of

0:49:21.560 --> 0:49:26.040
<v Speaker 1>snake bite and monster attacks, and it's just a nightmare harvesting, yeah,

0:49:26.680 --> 0:49:30.200
<v Speaker 1>at large scale in the Congo. Harvesting rubber from trees,

0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:32.680
<v Speaker 1>on the other hand, is really easy, and some enterprising

0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.400
<v Speaker 1>people had already started planting groves of rubber trees in

0:49:35.440 --> 0:49:38.600
<v Speaker 1>South America, but those trees took about twenty years or

0:49:38.640 --> 0:49:42.080
<v Speaker 1>so to really get going. So Leopold standing here in

0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:44.640
<v Speaker 1>charge of the Congo, knows that he has about twenty

0:49:44.800 --> 0:49:48.200
<v Speaker 1>years to be the world's leading producer of rubber. The

0:49:48.280 --> 0:49:52.160
<v Speaker 1>Congo Free State wasn't basically just a giant rubber factory.

0:49:52.400 --> 0:49:54.920
<v Speaker 1>That was his whole vision for this land filled with

0:49:54.920 --> 0:49:55.640
<v Speaker 1>millions of people.

0:49:55.760 --> 0:49:59.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is like the actual story of Willy Wonk.

0:50:00.320 --> 0:50:04.839
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he's the real Willy Wonka. Yeah, exactly. Jesus Christ.

0:50:06.239 --> 0:50:09.000
<v Speaker 1>So now I remember when I said that Leopold had

0:50:09.000 --> 0:50:11.080
<v Speaker 1>the right to collect taxes in the form of labor.

0:50:11.160 --> 0:50:14.719
<v Speaker 1>Mm hmm, Well, he used these taxes to make Congolese

0:50:14.719 --> 0:50:17.200
<v Speaker 1>people go harvest rubber for him. In theory, I think

0:50:17.200 --> 0:50:19.239
<v Speaker 1>he was allowed to only demand like forty hours a

0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:21.279
<v Speaker 1>month from them or something. But what happened is that

0:50:21.320 --> 0:50:23.440
<v Speaker 1>he would have his soldiers go from village to village

0:50:23.440 --> 0:50:26.600
<v Speaker 1>and take hostages. These hostages would be put in concentration

0:50:26.680 --> 0:50:29.040
<v Speaker 1>camps where they'd be starved and beaten until the village

0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:31.759
<v Speaker 1>met its rubber quota. So if you didn't get all

0:50:31.800 --> 0:50:34.040
<v Speaker 1>the rubber that you were supposed to get soon enough,

0:50:34.200 --> 0:50:38.839
<v Speaker 1>your family would just starve. Today, Leopold's government did have

0:50:38.880 --> 0:50:42.200
<v Speaker 1>a problem because obviously it needs soldiers to enforce these

0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:46.080
<v Speaker 1>nightmarish rules. But white people die like crazy in the Congo,

0:50:46.880 --> 0:50:48.960
<v Speaker 1>Like more than a third of the Belgians who went

0:50:49.000 --> 0:50:51.960
<v Speaker 1>there died there. And since again it's illegal for Africans

0:50:51.960 --> 0:50:55.200
<v Speaker 1>to be officers in the Force Publique, there would wind

0:50:55.280 --> 0:50:57.760
<v Speaker 1>up being like four or five Belgian guys commanding hundreds

0:50:57.760 --> 0:51:01.520
<v Speaker 1>and hundreds of African soldiers. So that's obviously you're treating

0:51:01.520 --> 0:51:04.120
<v Speaker 1>these guys terribly. You're making the massacre their own people,

0:51:04.160 --> 0:51:06.400
<v Speaker 1>and there's five of you for every five hundred of them.

0:51:06.880 --> 0:51:10.399
<v Speaker 1>That's like a recipe for a revolution, or it would

0:51:10.480 --> 0:51:14.239
<v Speaker 1>be if the soldiers had free access to bullets. One

0:51:14.280 --> 0:51:16.960
<v Speaker 1>of the ways the Belgians controlled their army was by

0:51:17.040 --> 0:51:20.120
<v Speaker 1>heavily restricting when anybody would get bullets, and by policing

0:51:20.160 --> 0:51:22.799
<v Speaker 1>their AMMO so they couldn't hide any away. So each

0:51:22.840 --> 0:51:25.239
<v Speaker 1>soldier would only be issued a certain amount of AMMO

0:51:25.280 --> 0:51:27.640
<v Speaker 1>when they'd go out to get rubber, and if they

0:51:27.719 --> 0:51:30.360
<v Speaker 1>fired any rounds, they had to account for them. The

0:51:30.440 --> 0:51:33.560
<v Speaker 1>general policy in the Congo became that if you fired around,

0:51:33.560 --> 0:51:36.080
<v Speaker 1>you had to provide a right hand from a corpse

0:51:36.320 --> 0:51:38.480
<v Speaker 1>for every round that you shot. This was meant to

0:51:38.480 --> 0:51:40.640
<v Speaker 1>stop people from stockpiling AMMO, and it was meant to

0:51:40.640 --> 0:51:43.319
<v Speaker 1>stop them from like hunting for animals, Yeah, when they

0:51:43.320 --> 0:51:48.160
<v Speaker 1>should have been, you know, shooting people. What this actually meant, yeah, exactly.

0:51:48.400 --> 0:51:52.480
<v Speaker 2>So but that creates a market for right hands exactly. Yeah,

0:51:52.560 --> 0:51:54.160
<v Speaker 2>so possibly go wrong.

0:51:54.239 --> 0:51:56.799
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. For one thing, these soldiers aren't fed enough, so

0:51:56.840 --> 0:51:59.120
<v Speaker 1>they're starving and they start hunting, and then once they

0:51:59.200 --> 0:52:01.319
<v Speaker 1>fired a couple rounds hunt and animal they need to

0:52:01.320 --> 0:52:03.800
<v Speaker 1>pick up Okay, well we fired three rounds getting that

0:52:04.600 --> 0:52:07.480
<v Speaker 1>whatever it is. Now we need three hands. So we

0:52:07.520 --> 0:52:09.480
<v Speaker 1>need to go into a village. We need to take

0:52:09.520 --> 0:52:12.480
<v Speaker 1>some people's hands. And in addition to that, like it

0:52:12.520 --> 0:52:16.560
<v Speaker 1>becomes common if a village refuses to provide rubber, like

0:52:16.560 --> 0:52:17.880
<v Speaker 1>people are like, we're not going to work to you.

0:52:17.880 --> 0:52:19.719
<v Speaker 1>We're not going to give up a relatives as hostages.

0:52:20.120 --> 0:52:22.200
<v Speaker 1>The Force Publique would just burn down the whole village.

0:52:22.480 --> 0:52:26.440
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes they just kill everybody in the entire village. And

0:52:26.520 --> 0:52:30.680
<v Speaker 1>this is happening on basically an industrial scale. In nineteen

0:52:30.719 --> 0:52:33.319
<v Speaker 1>oh three, a single rubber collecting post was sent more

0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:36.720
<v Speaker 1>than forty thousand replacement rounds of ammunition to every round

0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:40.920
<v Speaker 1>that they're being sent. They've got a hand. Yeah, So

0:52:41.120 --> 0:52:43.560
<v Speaker 1>like the military units and the Force Publique even would

0:52:43.600 --> 0:52:45.640
<v Speaker 1>have a keeper of the hands whose job was to

0:52:45.760 --> 0:52:48.480
<v Speaker 1>smoke all of the severed hands so that they preserve,

0:52:48.560 --> 0:52:51.160
<v Speaker 1>so that you could go back to the authority of evidence.

0:52:51.320 --> 0:52:54.320
<v Speaker 1>We need twenty thousand more bullets. Here's twenty thousand human hands.

0:52:54.760 --> 0:52:58.840
<v Speaker 1>Jesus Christ. Yeah. So in eighteen eighty five, when this

0:52:58.880 --> 0:53:01.200
<v Speaker 1>whole operation is just getting off the ground, King Leopold

0:53:01.239 --> 0:53:03.400
<v Speaker 1>is named in British court as a client of what

0:53:03.440 --> 0:53:06.640
<v Speaker 1>the British called a disorderly house. Can you guess what

0:53:06.680 --> 0:53:12.239
<v Speaker 1>a disorderly house was? Uh? Probably not enough. It's a punishment,

0:53:13.120 --> 0:53:14.799
<v Speaker 1>is what I'll go for it. Yeah, I know it's

0:53:14.840 --> 0:53:19.960
<v Speaker 1>a brothelh So while this is all starting off, King sorry,

0:53:20.120 --> 0:53:22.000
<v Speaker 1>a whorehouse in England, I thought, I.

0:53:22.000 --> 0:53:25.399
<v Speaker 2>Thought you disorderly house meant like his dukedom didn't have

0:53:25.560 --> 0:53:27.640
<v Speaker 2>like x or y like paperwork filed.

0:53:28.160 --> 0:53:30.759
<v Speaker 1>No, no, no. While he's freshly the king of the

0:53:30.800 --> 0:53:34.480
<v Speaker 1>Belgian Congo, he's named in British court as a client

0:53:34.560 --> 0:53:37.359
<v Speaker 1>of a whorehouse, and they say that he had been

0:53:37.360 --> 0:53:40.360
<v Speaker 1>paying eight hundred pounds a month for a steady supply

0:53:40.440 --> 0:53:42.640
<v Speaker 1>of young women, some of whom were ten to fifteen

0:53:42.719 --> 0:53:45.680
<v Speaker 1>years old. That's so, I mean, that's what Leopold's doing

0:53:45.719 --> 0:53:49.560
<v Speaker 1>in between administering the Congo. Yeah. And while he's doing that,

0:53:49.640 --> 0:53:52.520
<v Speaker 1>his men in the Congo are building a system of roads, railways,

0:53:52.560 --> 0:53:54.640
<v Speaker 1>posts and steamboats that are meant to allow the rubber

0:53:54.680 --> 0:53:57.520
<v Speaker 1>making operation to prosper. Leopold doesn't want to pay for

0:53:57.560 --> 0:53:59.799
<v Speaker 1>all this himself, so he claimed the infrastructure is nes

0:54:00.440 --> 0:54:03.080
<v Speaker 1>so that the Free States army can fight those dastardly

0:54:03.200 --> 0:54:07.279
<v Speaker 1>Arab slavers. Got the US to pay for it, or

0:54:07.320 --> 0:54:09.960
<v Speaker 1>just generally he got everyone else to pay for it.

0:54:10.040 --> 0:54:12.000
<v Speaker 1>So he got in Europe on board with this by

0:54:12.000 --> 0:54:14.360
<v Speaker 1>saying the Congo is going to be a free trade zone.

0:54:14.520 --> 0:54:16.080
<v Speaker 1>But then he's like, we need to build all this

0:54:16.160 --> 0:54:19.600
<v Speaker 1>infrastructure in order to fight the slavers, so we're gonna

0:54:19.640 --> 0:54:20.840
<v Speaker 1>have to collect import taxes.

0:54:20.840 --> 0:54:24.680
<v Speaker 2>Now nice, He's.

0:54:24.560 --> 0:54:26.720
<v Speaker 1>Just he like. The one thing you can trust Leopold

0:54:26.760 --> 0:54:30.560
<v Speaker 1>to do is he will fuck over every single person. Yeah. Yeah.

0:54:30.600 --> 0:54:33.040
<v Speaker 1>So now even these countries who had gotten on board

0:54:33.040 --> 0:54:34.839
<v Speaker 1>because they thought this was a free trade zone, they're

0:54:34.880 --> 0:54:37.560
<v Speaker 1>getting screwed. And of course the millions of people whose

0:54:37.600 --> 0:54:40.160
<v Speaker 1>hands he's having severed being screwed. I guess the key

0:54:40.280 --> 0:54:43.000
<v Speaker 1>is just never stop lying. Yeah, no, that's the thing.

0:54:43.200 --> 0:54:45.480
<v Speaker 1>Whenever you read about any of these guys. That is

0:54:45.520 --> 0:54:48.960
<v Speaker 1>the most important thing. He's never ever stop lying. If

0:54:48.960 --> 0:54:52.080
<v Speaker 1>you're going to be a monster, you have to lie

0:54:52.200 --> 0:54:56.680
<v Speaker 1>consistently for decades about everything. All right, Yeah, I'm in.

0:54:56.880 --> 0:55:01.640
<v Speaker 1>It works, Yeah no, I mean I'm in. Well, you'll

0:55:01.680 --> 0:55:05.799
<v Speaker 1>be a great king of the Congo. Ha ha. So

0:55:06.719 --> 0:55:09.720
<v Speaker 1>to Leopold's credit. His men did fight Arab slave traders,

0:55:09.719 --> 0:55:12.560
<v Speaker 1>but most of the fighting was done by conscripted African

0:55:12.640 --> 0:55:16.760
<v Speaker 1>soldiers who were themselves basically slaves. Yeah yeah. King Leopold

0:55:16.800 --> 0:55:19.839
<v Speaker 1>personally endorsed a system where white agents of the Free

0:55:19.840 --> 0:55:21.800
<v Speaker 1>State got a bonus if they were able to find

0:55:21.960 --> 0:55:24.920
<v Speaker 1>more recruits for the Force Public. Many agents wound up

0:55:24.960 --> 0:55:27.200
<v Speaker 1>buying them in from various chiefs and effect doing the

0:55:27.200 --> 0:55:29.440
<v Speaker 1>same thing as the Arab slavers they bragged about fighting.

0:55:29.760 --> 0:55:33.799
<v Speaker 1>State agents also got bonuses for quote reducing recruiting expenses,

0:55:34.040 --> 0:55:36.600
<v Speaker 1>so if they outright enslaved people rather than paid them

0:55:36.640 --> 0:55:39.279
<v Speaker 1>to join, they got more money in their pocket. As

0:55:39.280 --> 0:55:42.080
<v Speaker 1>many as three quarters of all volunteers for the Force

0:55:42.120 --> 0:55:45.120
<v Speaker 1>Public died before they could receive training. Most of those

0:55:45.200 --> 0:55:47.040
<v Speaker 1>volunteers were teenagers.

0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:52.520
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah, so they're just volunteers quote unquote, that's fucking incredible.

0:55:52.719 --> 0:55:56.160
<v Speaker 2>So it was like, we have our indentured servant army

0:55:56.160 --> 0:55:57.680
<v Speaker 2>as going to fight your slave army.

0:55:58.480 --> 0:56:01.640
<v Speaker 1>So basically the Congo at this point is groups of

0:56:02.719 --> 0:56:05.400
<v Speaker 1>white guys with soldiers going into the jungle to collect

0:56:05.400 --> 0:56:07.640
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of other soldiers and they'll put them in

0:56:07.760 --> 0:56:09.839
<v Speaker 1>chains and like march them through the jungle and most

0:56:09.880 --> 0:56:11.439
<v Speaker 1>of them will die, and then they'll train those guys

0:56:11.520 --> 0:56:13.480
<v Speaker 1>up to fight. Then they'll take those guys into the

0:56:13.520 --> 0:56:16.360
<v Speaker 1>jungle to tell people to collect rubber from people, and

0:56:16.400 --> 0:56:19.400
<v Speaker 1>to kill everyone who doesn't provide enough rubber, and to

0:56:20.239 --> 0:56:22.280
<v Speaker 1>kill a lot of the people who do provide enough rubber,

0:56:22.360 --> 0:56:25.400
<v Speaker 1>just because these kids are like starving to death, and

0:56:25.440 --> 0:56:28.080
<v Speaker 1>maybe they have to shoot an animal, or maybe there's

0:56:28.239 --> 0:56:30.520
<v Speaker 1>rebels and they get into a firefight, but they don't

0:56:30.560 --> 0:56:32.640
<v Speaker 1>have killing it. Yeah, and then you got to take

0:56:32.719 --> 0:56:35.640
<v Speaker 1>hands from these So it just keeps spiraling out of

0:56:35.680 --> 0:56:39.160
<v Speaker 1>control and becoming even more of a nightmare to everybody

0:56:39.160 --> 0:56:41.959
<v Speaker 1>but Leopold, because again he's sitting back in Belgium. This time,

0:56:43.640 --> 0:56:46.040
<v Speaker 1>since Leopold was the absolute monarch, he got to rule

0:56:46.080 --> 0:56:49.000
<v Speaker 1>by royal decree. His first decree was that all quote

0:56:49.160 --> 0:56:52.360
<v Speaker 1>vacant land was now property of the state. He didn't

0:56:52.400 --> 0:56:55.400
<v Speaker 1>explain what vacant meant, because obviously farmers don't live on

0:56:55.480 --> 0:56:57.880
<v Speaker 1>every inch of their farmland, so basically most of the

0:56:57.960 --> 0:57:00.760
<v Speaker 1>land in the Congo was now just his. He leased

0:57:00.800 --> 0:57:03.080
<v Speaker 1>this land to a series of private corporations, and this

0:57:03.120 --> 0:57:05.760
<v Speaker 1>gets to the real brilliance of his scheme. Because Leopold

0:57:05.760 --> 0:57:08.080
<v Speaker 1>didn't have to dirty his hands actually running any of

0:57:08.080 --> 0:57:10.920
<v Speaker 1>the rubber harvesting, he was able to private right. Yeah,

0:57:11.200 --> 0:57:13.960
<v Speaker 1>other people paid for the right to mine rubber and

0:57:14.040 --> 0:57:16.320
<v Speaker 1>cut off hands and do all the actual work, and

0:57:16.400 --> 0:57:19.240
<v Speaker 1>Leopold owned the rights to a huge chunk of their profits.

0:57:19.440 --> 0:57:22.000
<v Speaker 1>So basically, these companies would come in and give him

0:57:22.040 --> 0:57:24.320
<v Speaker 1>an owning stake in the corporation, they.

0:57:24.240 --> 0:57:30.640
<v Speaker 2>Would license the scheme of enslaving people, cutting off their hands, etc.

0:57:31.120 --> 0:57:35.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Adam Hoschild in King Leopold's Ghost compares the Congo

0:57:35.120 --> 0:57:38.040
<v Speaker 1>Free State to a venture capital firm. Quote, he had

0:57:38.120 --> 0:57:40.800
<v Speaker 1>essentially found a way to attract other people's capital to

0:57:40.840 --> 0:57:43.920
<v Speaker 1>his investment schemes, while he retained half the proceeds. In

0:57:43.960 --> 0:57:46.240
<v Speaker 1>the end, what with various taxes and fees the companies

0:57:46.240 --> 0:57:49.200
<v Speaker 1>paid the state, it came to more than half Jesus.

0:57:49.280 --> 0:57:52.040
<v Speaker 1>So in the eighteen nineties, the Congo Free State really

0:57:52.080 --> 0:57:54.480
<v Speaker 1>starts putting out rubber, and suddenly King Leopold is one

0:57:54.480 --> 0:57:56.560
<v Speaker 1>of the richest guys in the world. He starts buying

0:57:56.640 --> 0:58:00.720
<v Speaker 1>gigantic monuments and palaces and shit for Belgium big show projects,

0:58:00.720 --> 0:58:03.160
<v Speaker 1>some of which are still there. It is to make

0:58:03.200 --> 0:58:05.160
<v Speaker 1>people like him, it's to keep him popular at home.

0:58:05.480 --> 0:58:07.920
<v Speaker 1>He's succeeding beyond his wildest dreams in the business side

0:58:07.960 --> 0:58:10.160
<v Speaker 1>of things, but his personal life is just kind of

0:58:10.160 --> 0:58:14.280
<v Speaker 1>one series of train wrecks after the other. Yeah, his

0:58:14.360 --> 0:58:16.880
<v Speaker 1>son had died in eighteen sixty four, which led to

0:58:16.920 --> 0:58:20.040
<v Speaker 1>an understandable estrangement between Leopold and his wife. It took

0:58:20.080 --> 0:58:21.960
<v Speaker 1>eight years before they could stand to be around each

0:58:21.960 --> 0:58:25.400
<v Speaker 1>other and try again. This passage from Leopold's biography tells

0:58:25.440 --> 0:58:28.720
<v Speaker 1>you a lot about the relationships between the sexes. In

0:58:28.760 --> 0:58:32.240
<v Speaker 1>the eighteen sixties quote, Leopold the Second was anxious to

0:58:32.240 --> 0:58:34.680
<v Speaker 1>have a male heir, and in eighteen seventy two, Queen

0:58:34.720 --> 0:58:38.720
<v Speaker 1>Marie Henriette consented to resume conjugal life with her royal spouse,

0:58:38.840 --> 0:58:42.560
<v Speaker 1>from whom she had separated sometime before. She sacrificed herself,

0:58:42.600 --> 0:58:45.400
<v Speaker 1>as one may say, for her country. A child was

0:58:45.440 --> 0:58:47.640
<v Speaker 1>born unto them, but alas it was a daughter and

0:58:47.680 --> 0:58:50.960
<v Speaker 1>not a son, which was given unto them. So that's

0:58:50.960 --> 0:58:53.200
<v Speaker 1>messed up for a lot of reasons, Jesus, one of

0:58:53.200 --> 0:58:55.960
<v Speaker 1>which is just that even in the pro Leopold biography,

0:58:56.080 --> 0:58:59.960
<v Speaker 1>it just admits that having sex with Leopold is a sacrifice.

0:59:00.120 --> 0:59:04.080
<v Speaker 2>Actually, I'm surprised that the amount of agency she has, Like,

0:59:04.760 --> 0:59:07.560
<v Speaker 2>you know, she is the queen facing pressure, but wasn't

0:59:07.680 --> 0:59:10.640
<v Speaker 2>forced at guillotine point or whatever to.

0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:13.600
<v Speaker 1>She kind of was. I guess that's true.

0:59:13.760 --> 0:59:15.520
<v Speaker 2>I guess that's between the lines, of course.

0:59:15.680 --> 0:59:18.440
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Jesus, it's I mean, she probably has more agency

0:59:18.480 --> 0:59:20.480
<v Speaker 1>than the average, but at the same time, in a

0:59:20.520 --> 0:59:23.800
<v Speaker 1>way she has less because it's less important for a

0:59:23.840 --> 0:59:26.439
<v Speaker 1>commoner to have a son. Yeah, yeah, because like the king,

0:59:26.520 --> 0:59:28.439
<v Speaker 1>that's like the whole dynasty thing. So you might say

0:59:28.440 --> 0:59:29.280
<v Speaker 1>she has even less.

0:59:30.400 --> 0:59:33.120
<v Speaker 2>We probably should say that, Yeah, we probably would be

0:59:33.200 --> 0:59:34.240
<v Speaker 2>respected for the record or that.

0:59:34.400 --> 0:59:38.560
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So yeah, Leopold did not take having a daughter

0:59:38.720 --> 0:59:42.400
<v Speaker 1>very well. This quote is from King Leopold's ghost. When

0:59:42.400 --> 0:59:45.480
<v Speaker 1>the last daughter, Clementine, was born, according to his sister Luis,

0:59:45.720 --> 0:59:48.520
<v Speaker 1>the king was furious and thenceforth refused to have anything

0:59:48.560 --> 0:59:52.400
<v Speaker 1>to do with his admirable wife from the beginning. She wrote, quote,

0:59:52.440 --> 0:59:55.280
<v Speaker 1>the king paid very little attention to me or my sisters,

0:59:55.840 --> 0:59:58.280
<v Speaker 1>so he doesn't pay attention to his daughters, and he

0:59:58.320 --> 1:00:00.320
<v Speaker 1>mostly seems to care when one of them, like fucks

1:00:00.360 --> 1:00:04.400
<v Speaker 1>with his garden. Here's a recollection from Luis. Large juicy

1:00:04.400 --> 1:00:06.120
<v Speaker 1>peaches grew on the walls of the gardens, and the

1:00:06.200 --> 1:00:08.240
<v Speaker 1>king was very proud of them. I had a passion

1:00:08.240 --> 1:00:10.439
<v Speaker 1>for peaches, and one day I dared eat one, which

1:00:10.440 --> 1:00:13.160
<v Speaker 1>was hidden away among the leaves. And that year peaches

1:00:13.200 --> 1:00:16.080
<v Speaker 1>were plentiful. But the following day the king discovered the theft.

1:00:16.200 --> 1:00:18.920
<v Speaker 1>What a dramatic moment. At once suspected, I confessed my

1:00:19.000 --> 1:00:21.760
<v Speaker 1>crime and was promptly punished. I did not realize that

1:00:21.800 --> 1:00:25.760
<v Speaker 1>the king counted his peaches. So while Leopold is running

1:00:26.280 --> 1:00:30.240
<v Speaker 1>a nightmare hand harvesting rubber making scheme in the Congo,

1:00:30.600 --> 1:00:32.640
<v Speaker 1>he's got enough time to make sure that his daughter

1:00:32.720 --> 1:00:33.640
<v Speaker 1>doesn't steal a peach.

1:00:34.400 --> 1:00:37.320
<v Speaker 2>Fuck, Because it's like, at least Ivanka Trump has the

1:00:37.400 --> 1:00:40.960
<v Speaker 2>decency to pretend that she loved her time with her dad,

1:00:41.000 --> 1:00:44.200
<v Speaker 2>even though, like in all those stories she tells, it's

1:00:44.240 --> 1:00:46.880
<v Speaker 2>sad and weird too, But it's like, at least she's like,

1:00:46.920 --> 1:00:48.640
<v Speaker 2>I love him. He's my dad, you know, And I

1:00:48.680 --> 1:00:50.640
<v Speaker 2>believe in all this shit. He couldn't even get his

1:00:50.720 --> 1:00:52.240
<v Speaker 2>daughters to be like I.

1:00:52.200 --> 1:00:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Love Well, there's gonna be more about his daughters coming

1:00:55.600 --> 1:00:59.000
<v Speaker 1>in here. He's he is not a great dad. Yeah,

1:00:59.040 --> 1:01:02.880
<v Speaker 1>if you can't tell that, huh. There's in fact, no

1:01:03.000 --> 1:01:05.840
<v Speaker 1>evidence that Leopold cared about any of his children as

1:01:05.840 --> 1:01:09.400
<v Speaker 1>anything more than vehicles for his legacy. Even that fawning

1:01:09.520 --> 1:01:12.000
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ten biography can't make it seem like Leopold had

1:01:12.000 --> 1:01:15.080
<v Speaker 1>a single fuck for his family. As King Leomara, I'm

1:01:15.080 --> 1:01:17.680
<v Speaker 1>gonna be honest, that's so far the most relatable thing

1:01:17.760 --> 1:01:18.160
<v Speaker 1>about it.

1:01:18.280 --> 1:01:23.240
<v Speaker 2>I'm not liking his family, Yeah.

1:01:21.920 --> 1:01:25.120
<v Speaker 1>Just kidding. I love your fam As King Leopold grew

1:01:25.120 --> 1:01:27.680
<v Speaker 1>older and richer, he also became a full on hypochondriac.

1:01:27.760 --> 1:01:30.520
<v Speaker 1>He took to wearing a waterproof bag around his gigantic

1:01:30.560 --> 1:01:33.520
<v Speaker 1>beard whenever he went outside in the rain or when

1:01:33.520 --> 1:01:36.840
<v Speaker 1>he swam. He required his palace tablecloths to be boiled

1:01:36.840 --> 1:01:39.360
<v Speaker 1>every day to kill any germs, which is at least

1:01:39.400 --> 1:01:46.080
<v Speaker 1>a character evolution from not letting them wash his sheets. Yeah, snapkin, Yeah,

1:01:46.760 --> 1:01:49.880
<v Speaker 1>so he's changing. He's had his own little hero's journey. Yeah, yeah,

1:01:49.880 --> 1:01:53.560
<v Speaker 1>we all get there. Yeah, hypochondriac. This wound up being

1:01:54.240 --> 1:01:56.880
<v Speaker 1>another really really long one. There was just so much research,

1:01:57.120 --> 1:01:59.760
<v Speaker 1>So this is going to be a two parter podcast,

1:02:00.040 --> 1:02:02.400
<v Speaker 1>and the second part is going to drop on Thursday,

1:02:03.400 --> 1:02:06.720
<v Speaker 1>so we'll be getting into the rest of Leopold's story

1:02:06.760 --> 1:02:09.560
<v Speaker 1>in the tremendously dark story of the Congo. So stick

1:02:09.600 --> 1:02:12.640
<v Speaker 1>around check back out on Thursday. It's going to be great.

1:02:12.920 --> 1:02:15.240
<v Speaker 1>In the meantime, you can check out Andrew T's podcast,

1:02:15.360 --> 1:02:17.680
<v Speaker 1>os This Racist. You can also check out every other

1:02:17.720 --> 1:02:20.000
<v Speaker 1>episode of Behind the Bastards. You can find us on

1:02:20.040 --> 1:02:23.200
<v Speaker 1>Twitter at Bastards Pod and Instagram as well. You can

1:02:23.240 --> 1:02:25.800
<v Speaker 1>find us on the internet at behind the Bastards dot

1:02:25.800 --> 1:02:27.680
<v Speaker 1>com and you can find me on Twitter at I

1:02:27.800 --> 1:02:30.960
<v Speaker 1>Write Okay, So Andrew and I will be back on

1:02:31.000 --> 1:02:35.840
<v Speaker 1>Thursday with more Leopold, so check us out then. Behind

1:02:35.880 --> 1:02:38.640
<v Speaker 1>the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For

1:02:38.760 --> 1:02:42.280
<v Speaker 1>more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Foolzonemedia dot

1:02:42.320 --> 1:02:46.200
<v Speaker 1>com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1:02:46.240 --> 1:02:47.640
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you get your podcasts.