Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 18 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 17 2 weeks ago, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week as well. This week we’re going to be diving back into learning about historic genocides as we learn about the Congolese genocide committed by King Leopold II of Belgium. We’ve talked about the Congolese Genocide previously on Day 11, Free Congo. But for today’s episode we’re going to go into much greater detail about this particular genocide and not just discuss it within the context of a current conflict. Now, before we get to The Alchemist’s Table I wanted to apologize that there wasn’t a new episode last week. Sometimes you just don’t have the energy, the motivation, the spoons or the spell slots. So, I took a week off. It might happen again. And now on to the booze! Today’s libation is called Cherries Jubilee. It’s 2 oz of Islay scotch. I'd recommend a Bowmore if you’re not a huge fan of the peat. Then 1 oz of creme de cacao. 1 oz of frangelico. Add .75 oz of cherry syrup. Shake and pour overice. Top with ginger beer or a hard cider. Garnish with luxardo cherries and enjoy. Now, with that out of the way let’s get into the Congolese Rubber Genocide. In order to understand this genocide we first need to understand European colonialism during this time. Colonialism has taken many forms over the years and in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century it transitioned from the classic form of American colonialism into what we would consider New Colonialism. New Colonialism would rely less on direct military control of an area and would rely more on having governmental institutions in power that would directly benefit those pre existing colonial power structures. So, near the end of the 19th century there was very little European colonial and mercantile presence in Africa. There were some port towns, to be sure, and there was trade, but very little of the African continent was under the control of European powers at this time. But, European greed for gold and, especially, ivory wouldn’t allow them to ignore African riches for much longer. The Berlin Conference was organized between November 1884 and February 1885 at the request of King Leopold II of Belgium and was organized by Otto von Bismarck of Germany.   The primary purpose of the Berlin Conference was regulating European colonization and trade during the New Imperialism period. It might seem strange to need to differentiate New Imperialism from the forms of empire building that came before. Afterall, the methodology was largely the same. Conquest. And the reasoning was, mostly the same. Resources and land acquisition. But New Imperialism also came with a good deal of “civilizing” flavor. You might be familiar with the poem White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling. If you’re not. You can fully understand the entire mindset of 19th and 20th century colonialism simply by reading that poem. Now, Leopold had been using the explorations of Henry Morgan Stanley, and his own organization, the International African Association to quietly try and create his own private colony in central Africa that would be called the Congo Free State, but France found out and started making moves, and then Britain and Portugal found out and began trying to grab land which led Germany to do the same. War was brewing quickly as these various European powerhouses all sought as much land, wealth, and power as they could grab. This, ultimately, would be why the Berlin Conference was called and why it was so successful. These European powers decided, instead of going to war and killing each other over Africa they’d just all meet and carve it up like a pecan pie and settle it all peaceful like. There were 14 nations/empires in attendance at