Congo had been in contact with Europe, especially the Portuguese, as far back as the fifteenth century, but it remained an independent kingdom until it officially came under French and Belgian rule in 1885. At that point the Congo, which was 80 times the size of Belgium and extended over 9,000,000 square miles, came under the rule of the Belgian king, Leopold II. Christened Congo Free State, the territory was treated as a private estate of the king until it was taken over by the Belgian parliament for direct administration after the atrocities committed by officials of the king, which generated widespread international and domestic criticism. Due to the Belgians' particularly brutal and oppressive rule in the Congo, major popular protest did not emerge until late in the 1950s.