In the Rubber Coils
By Lily
"I believe that the moment is come for us to extend our territories. I think that we must lose no time, under penalty of seeing the few remaining good positions seized upon by more enterprising nations than our own."
In the Rubber Coils
In the Rubber Coils is a political cartoon created by Edward Linley Sambourne, showing that Leopold II the "snake" was squeezing life out of the Congolese people. ↓
Leopold the second from Belgium. ↑
Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II became the king after Leopold I died in 1865. He employed an exploring man named Henry Stanley to "explore" Congo, but actually seized most of Congo as his own thing. He was conferred by the "Cabinet of Belgium" to be the monarch of "Congo Free State" which he created in 1884, in 1885. A system of brutality was set, and exploitation started after Leopold became the emperor. Men were forced to harvest rubber, because their families were held by Leopold's army.
Edward Linley Sambourne
Sambourne's cartoon “In the Rubber Coils” is a primary source. Sambourne was living at the time when Congo was colonised by Belgium. He was born in England, and the colonisation was nothing to do with him. We are not sure about why he created the cartoon, but the reason is mostly likely to be, Sambourne was angry at Leopold's abusing of the Congolese people, he pointed out sharply in his cartoon, that Leopold was like a snake squeezing life out of the citizens who used to live in Congo happily, and how cruel, not just Leopold the Second, but also imperialism was.
A man's hand had been cut off by the Belgiumese.↑
A man was whipped because he wasn't working hard enough.↑
This is a Congolese family. You can see their ribs clearly, they were forced to work without enough food.↑
White king, red rubber, black death
It's a documentary film about what happened to Congo and Leopold II, I didn't get time to watch the whole movie but watched the first few minutes of it and thought it was a good movie.↓