In the Rubber Coils: Scene—The Congo “Free” State. In this 1906 cartoon from the satiric magazine Punch, a Congo native is entrapped in a snake whose head is a portrait of King Leopold of Belgium. Published as Parliament was debating its response to the revelations of [Joseph] Conrad’s friend Roger Casement concerning conditions in the Congo, the cartoon emphasizes Leopold’s commercial stranglehold on his private colony, whose principal export was rubber.
Excerpt from Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling - Heart of darkness, “The man who would be king” and other works on empire edited by David Damrosch. ISBN 0-321-36467-8
Interesting read and good reminder that imperial colonization was the subject of debate even in it's prime—at the turn of the century.
