One king privately owned an African colony 76 times the size of Belgium

From 1885 to 1908 the Congo Free State wasn't a Belgian colony — it was the personal property of King Leopold II, run for his own profit. Agents enforced brutal rubber quotas with mutilation and hostage-taking, and the population fell by millions under forced labor and disease. International outcry eventually forced Leopold to cede the territory to the Belgian state in 1908.

— Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost — 1998
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