History's Greatest Monsters ... and 10 Must-Reads of the Week

Willem Adriaan van der Stel was officially described as “a scourge unto the inhabitants” of South Africa.

No matter the danger, the burghers knew they had to tell someone. After years of unfair treatment at the hands of Willem Adriaan van der Stel, governor of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa, the 63 men penned a document listing charges against van der Stel and managed to smuggle it onto a ship bound for Batavia, where the nearly all-powerful bosses of the Dutch East India Company hung out. It was a risky move, writes 19th-century South African historian and genealogist George Theal in Willem Adriaan van der Stel, “for if their names were to become known … they knew that they would be made to feel [the] vengeance” of a governor who had the “military power [of the colony] fully at his disposal.”

The whistleblowers’ fears were justified. When van der Stel got wind of the charges, he arrested their leader, Adam Tas, confiscated his writing desk — the 18th-century equivalent of seizing a laptop — and imprisoned him for nearly 14 months. Other prominent burghers were arrested or banished, some to Batavia (then the capital of the Dutch East Indies and now known as Jakarta), others to Amsterdam. But the burghers would have the last laugh.

King Leopold of Belgium couldn’t have wrought such havoc in the Congo Free State without the efforts of sadists like Léon Fiévez.

To King Leopold of Belgium, Léon Fiévez was a hero. He arrived in the Equateur District of the Congo Free State (CFS) in 1888 just three years after the king had founded it, and rose rapidly through the official ranks, lauded for the amount of rubber he was able to procure from his local subjects.

To natives of the region, he was a living nightmare. “All Blacks saw this man as the Devil of the Equator,” said Congo native Tswambe when describing Fiévez to the Catholic priest Edmond Boelaert some 45 years after Fiévez’s reign of terror. “From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets.” Tswambe described one of Fiévez’s subordinates drowning 10 natives in a net weighed down with stones.

Fiévez’s success was built on levels of cruelty that stood out — even by the brutal standards of the CFS. He eventually faced trial for his excesses on two separate occasions — and although he was acquitted both times, he was forced out of the CFS in 1900.

From saving pangolins to getting mindful in the sky, here is the best of OZY this week.

It’s been a busy week of delivery: In politics, President Donald Trump delivered an 82-minute State of the Union address; in religion, Pope Francis delivered his first papal Mass on the Arabian Peninsula; and on the internet, a new crop of disability-themed emojis will be delivered soon to a messaging app near you.

We also have something for you: 10 fantastic stories about people doing cool things, technology that can improve your life, a source of travel zen, a new sport to try and help for a cute, scaly creature. Here are our favorites on OZY this week.