Congo Free State

The Congo Free State was a state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908 — the entity shown on the map — privately owned by King Leopold II, the constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Belgium. In legal terms the two separate countries stood in a personal union: the Free State was not a part of, nor did it belong to, Belgium, but was the king's own possession across the Congo basin, and its administration, army and concessions answered to him alone. Its seat of government moved early from Vivi up the Congo to Boma, where the Free State's independent judiciary was headed by a minister of justice ranked equal to the vice governor-general. The state's rule became notorious for the rubber regime imposed on the peoples of the basin — forced labour, hostage-taking and mutilations carried out by its agents and the Force Publique — which provoked one of the great humanitarian campaigns of the age and filled the 1890s and 1900s with reports and commissions of inquiry. International pressure forced the Belgian parliament to act, and in 1908 the Free State was annexed by Belgium as the Belgian Congo, ending the king's private empire.