| |
| author |
Katelyn Rohlf
| | title |
King Leopold II & the American Syndicate's Chase for Capital in Congo
| | abstract |
At the turn of the 20th century, King Leopold II of Belgium's private dominion of the
Congo Free State stood amid the rise of the new market-oriented global order. Backed by the
Second Industrial Revolution, globalization, and colonialism, Leopold and a syndicate of
American capitalists laid the groundwork for a resource and labor extracting economy which still
remains in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a century later. The forward drive of national
purpose, bolstered by formulated ideologies through religious and duty-driven language, sent
American business searching overseas. These "men of empire" created a new type of global
order that dominated the following century, following the most profitable patterns of production,
resource, and labor, the cheapest of which was found in the global "periphery." This turning
point as the Congo Free State transitioned into a Belgian colony, shifting from rubber and ivory
extraction to mineral wealth, indicates a wider rising hegemony in a new privatized colonialism
in the 20th century.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2025)
|
| advisor |
James Carter
|
| committee |
Allan Charles Dawson
|
| full text | KRohlf.pdf |
| |
