Discussion questions and response from King Leopold's Ghost

1. Why do you think King Leopold does not ever come to Africa to witness the bloodshed and slave trade?

2. What were the main reasons and or resources that the Europeans wanted to colonize Africa?

The part of the reading I liked was about the native African people such as priests and leaders of the community of the Kongo that eventually fell under the greed because of the goods received from the Europeans.  Even Affonso, the African ruler, submitted to the greed of the money and goods exchanged for their own people as slaves.  Reading this part was very interesting because it showed two sides of the situation by the view of the African people.  One was from the beginning when men, women, and children were being sold and shipped out to other countries as slaves.  The African's saw this as terrible and begged the Europeans to stop the slave trading.  When the African's realized that the Europeans would not budge they eventually started accepting the fact that their own people were being used as slaves.  Then they started to like the goods in which they were receiving and became greedy.