Léon Rome

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Léon Rome

Léon Auguste Théophile Rom (born April 2, 1860 in Mons , † January 30, 1924 in Elsene ) was a senior Belgian officer and district commissioner of Matadi and Kasai in the Congo Free State . In his later role as commander in the Force Publique , he was instrumental in the atrocities of the Congo . The writer Joseph Conrad dealt with his cruel manner after a trip to the Congo in 1890 in his novel Heart of Darkness .

Life

At the age of 16, Rome volunteered as a carabinier . After eight years of service, he got a job as an accountant in Brussels in 1884 , which he gave up two years later and went to the Congo Free State, which was only awarded to the Belgian King Leopold II as private property in 1885 at the Congo Conference . He traveled to Matadi , where he accepted the position of registrar and rose to the position of district commissioner there. He later traveled on to Boma and Banana , where he temporarily worked as a judge . In 1890 he joined the Force Publique founded in 1885 in Léopoldville in the rank of sub-lieutenant . From 1890 he was often involved in punitive expeditions against local tribal leaders, which were conducted with extreme severity and ruthlessness. Already promoted to lieutenant , he led a contingent of the Force Publique in the Arab-Congolese War from 1892 to 1894. His military successes led to his appointment as district commissioner of Kasai . In 1895 he was promoted again and appointed commander and commissioner of the reconquered territories. His ruthlessness and brutality, with which he killed countless people or had them killed for no reason, was already known and notorious even in Brussels. After Rome retired from military service a year later with the rank of captain , he returned to Europe, but came back to the Congo several times until 1910 as part of professional activities for various trading companies . In 1924, Rome died near Brussels at the age of 63.

various

Rome was the bearer of various decorations, such as B. the Order of Lions , Order of Leopold , and the African Star Order .

On the same day as Rome, the later lieutenant governor of the Congo Free State Paul Costermans was born, who committed suicide as a result of his knowledge of the atrocities of the Congo .

Literary reception

African mercenaries of the Force Publique around 1900

Adam Hochschild explains in his book Shadows over the Congo (English: King Leopold's Ghost ) that only Rome could be the inspiration for the character of the mad Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness . Conrad traveled to the Congo himself in 1890 and then dealt very critically with colonialism and imperialism . Hochschild suspects that Conrad might have met Rome in Fort Stanley, who lined up countless skulls of killed natives around the fort and instructed his subordinates to severely punish the black indigenous population for trivialities.

literature

  • Adam Hochschild : King Leopold's Ghost. Macmillan, 1998
    • Shadows over the Congo. The story of one of the great, almost forgotten crimes of humanity. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-91973-2 ; Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 2002, ISBN 3-499-61312-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.kaowarsom.be/en/notices_rom_leon_auguste_theophile Biographie Coloniale Belge T.II, 1951, pp. 822-826
  2. ↑ http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/kristentellsthetruth/kurtz.html Excerpts from King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild on angelfire.com
  3. ↑ http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/35/181.html The Butcher of Congo by Baffour Ankomah in the New African, October 1999
  4. ↑ http://www.africaspeaks.com/articles/2004/3107.html Belgium's imperialist rape of Africa
personal data
SURNAME Rome, Léon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rome, Léon Auguste Théophile
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian lieutenant governor of the Congo Free State
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Mons
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1924
Place of death Elsene