evidence: King Leopold II of the Belgians set in motion the conquest of the huge domain that was to become his personal fiefdom. The king’s attention was drawn to the region during British explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley’s exploration of the Congo River in 1874–77. In November 1878 Leopold formed the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo (Comité d’Études du Haut Congo, later renamed Association Internationale du Congo) to open up the African interior to European trade along the Congo River. Between 1879 and 1882, under the committee’s auspices, Stanley established stations on the upper Congo and opened negotiations with local rulers. By 1884 the Association Internationale du Congo had signed treaties with 450 independent African entities and, on that basis, asserted its right to govern all the territory concerned as an independent state.