I have spent quite a bit of time trying to increase my knowledge by discovering what exactly was "Red Rubber" and what the correlation was between that and African colonization. After much research I finally found what I was looking for. Back when Kind Leopold II, was in charge of Europe's colonization of Africa there was there were dual campaigns of military pacification and economic explorations. These explorations of Leopold II's revolved around the harvesting of wild rubber.

Rubber is obtained for the tapping of rubber trees. This tapping allows for a milky secretion, which is referred to as latex to be collected. It is from the latex that we are able to create rubber.

Leopold II was a man focused on obtaining wealth no matter what. Him and his colonial representatives used force, coercion and extreme violence in order to obtain this new resource, that at that time was worth a nice amount of money. The United States and Europe heard many stories of Leopold II's actions, which they were very shocked and outraged. The reports lead to Leopold II's rule becoming tarnished by the image of "Red Rubber" - which is rubber stained by the blood of the Africans forced to gather it.

There are many resources that we use today,which most people are completely unaware of their origin. Many of these resources we have now are due to the exploration of the people that were many times forced to harvest them. Most of people are aware of how slaves were used to harvest cotton, yet we have been groomed to not think about it. It was something that was in the past and many choose to leave those thoughts there. Though in other countries even today, there are people that are still going through those same treatments for being ill treated in order to provide a majority with a product. The idea of "Red Rubber" is just another sad part of history where we learn that yet again another thing that we constantly use in our day to day lives has a sad history that many either do not know of or that they choose to not remember.