Belgium become an independent country not before than 1830 and by law was a neutral country. Therefore, it could not participate in adventures along with the big powers such as Britain and France. Although the Belgian people were not enthusiastic, king Leopold was desperate to make an Empire out of Belgium; his philosophy was that no country is complete without overseas possessions, more precisely, colonies. He did not want Belgium to be left behind the other European countries who had colonies in Africa. Leopold felt pushed out by Britain and France, and the growing power of Germany.
When Leopold heard of the American explorer Henry Stanley who had completed several expeditions in Congo, he hired him as his agent and between 1880 and 1884, Stanley established several trading stations, mostly in the lower Congo, and got local natives to sign agreements, not knowing they were giving away their land to Leopold. The area Stanley was able to get consisted of nearly 905,000 square......

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Title: King Leopold's Scramble For Congo
Approximate Word Count: 762
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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