In addition to those that I cited, I could have mentioned many more. Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, a Congolese scholar whose Histoire générale du Congo was published the same year as King Leopold’s Ghost, put the death toll at roughly thirteen million, a higher figure than I’ve suggested. Defensive Belgians sometimes point out that there were catastrophic death rates in other colonies in central Africa, and an even larger toll among American Indians. Both points are true. But this does not negate or excuse the enormous human loss in Leopold’s Congo.
