The Congo Free State was an extreme case whose abuses became impossible for other European powers to ignore. Their pressure on Leopold II was partly moral condemnation and partly fear that his conduct discredited imperial rule more broadly. That comparison does not absolve Britain, the United States, or any other empire of violence against subject peoples. It separates a relative judgment about one exceptionally notorious regime from the false claim that its critics therefore governed humanely everywhere else.
Notable Point · 2:17:36-2:19:09
Why the Congo Free State embarrassed other empires
Leopold II's rule in the Congo became so visibly abusive that rival imperial powers pressed him to stop, without making their own empires innocent of coercion and violence.