Leopold’s Force Publique coerced the native population to extract rubber sap from the vines of rubber trees deep in the Congolese rain forest. They whipped natives into submission using the chicotte, a flesh-shredding whip fashioned from twisted hippopotamus hide. They kidnapped the wives and children of village men and ordered them to meet a quota of three to four kilos of rubber sap per fortnight. If they returned from the forest without meeting their quotas, the hands, noses, or ears of their loved ones were chopped off.
