Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from

Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised.

In 1889 an American journalist named George Washington Williams was granted an

opportunity to sit down informally with King Leopold II of Belgium. Williams

was a groundbreaking published historian but his life was a don't fascinating

history. He was a black man born free in Pennsylvania who enlisted to fight for

the Union during the Civil War when he was just 14 years old. From there he went

to Mexico enjoying the army fighting to overthrow the European Emperor Maxime

Million. Later he became a college graduate of Baptist Minister and the first

black man to serve in the Ohio State legislature. By this point in Leopold's

reign he had become an expert in the trappings of monarchy. He was a master of

charm he was friendly self-effacing modest and above all diplomatic. He remembered

names of wives and children and he always asked after them. He welcomed

Williams into his palace and Brussels and told him with obvious relish about

all of the philanthropic work he had been doing in the Congo Free State. The

meeting went incredibly well. One side note one has to imagine that maybe

Williams youthful military service in Mexico didn't come up. After all the

imperialist queen he had been fighting against Carlotta of Mexico was Leopold

sister. But for Williams it was difficult not to be impressed with Leopold and

with Belgium. It's clean wide sweeping avenues and open national parks and the

stately facades of the palaces. It was a new country and a new monarchy. The

Belgian people had installed Leopold's father as the first king imported him

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