Exploitation and Brutality

While colonialism was purported to bring civilization to those colonized, native people often suffered great exploitation and brutality at the hands of their colonizers. One of the most notable situations of exploitation occured in the Belgian Congo, as Congolese people suffered mutiliation, as shown in the middle picture above. Even the land was transformed to make way for plantations, building projects, and other structures needed by Europeans at the expense of the people who first lived in those lands.