Historiography and Bias Theme Analysis

King Leopold’s Ghost isn’t just a work of history; it’s a meditation on historiography, the study of how primary sources are interpreted, reinterpreted, and shaped into a supposedly “true” version of the past. In the course of examining the history of the Belgian occupation of the Congo, Hochschild asks a series of important questions. First, which people from the era of the Belgian occupation had the luxury of writing down their accounts of what happened? Second, which accounts of the Belgian occupation have been preserved over the last century? Finally, how might the answers to questions 1 and 2 skew our understanding of the Belgian occupation?

Hochschild emphasizes that, for the most part, only Europeans and Americans wrote accounts of the Congo before the middle of the 20th century. The Congolese people themselves had no written language at the time when they first made contact with Europeans. Furthermore, very few Congolese people learned how to write during the Belgian occupation, because Belgian authorities actively deterred Africans from educating themselves in any way. The striking absence of native Congolese voices in the history of the Congo skews our understanding of history in two important ways. First, it underrepresents the brutality of the Belgian regime in the Congo (since the people who endured this brutality rarely got a chance to tell their stories), which makes the Belgians seem somewhat more benevolent than they were. Second, it portrays the Congolese people as victims, rendering them as suffering bodies without any personality or individuality. In this way, the historical record reinforces the “soft bigotry” of the Congo reform movement (see Racism and human rights theme).

Hochschild admits that his own account of Congolese history suffers from bias, due in part to the lack of Congolese voices. However, he tries to counterbalance his historiographical problems in two main ways. First, he reads between the lines in Belgian administrators’ accounts of Congolese uprisings in order to paint vivid portraits of the Congolese people who heroically resisted tyranny in their homeland. In this way, he offers a version of history that respects the Congolese for their bravery and intelligence, rather than simply depicting them as passive victims. Second, he gives a thorough, unmitigated account of Belgian cruelty in the Congo. This is possible because many Belgian officials didn’t try to censor their actions—on the contrary, they were proud of killing and torturing Africans. In order to write a thorough account of the history of the Congo, Hochschild spent years researching historical records, including documents that the Belgian government kept hidden from the public for most of the 20th century. King Leopold’s Ghost isn’t a perfectly authoritative account of what happened in the Congo (as Hochschild would be the first to admit). Nevertheless, Hochschild maintains that by understanding the main sources of bias and then working around them, it’s possible to write a history of the Congo that at least approaches the truth.