Leon Rom was a Belgian soldier

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

 who became the district commissioner of Matadi

Matadi

Matadi is the chief sea port of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the capital of the Bas-Congo province. It has a population of 245,862 . Matadi is situated on the left bank of the Congo River from the mouth and below the last navigable point before rapids make the river impassable for a...

 in the Congo Free State

Congo Free State

The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...

, and later head of the Force Publique

Force Publique

The Force Publique , French for "Public Force", was both a gendarmerie and a military force in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1885, , through the period of direct Belgian colonial rule...

 army.

In King Leopold's Ghost

King Leopold's Ghost

King Leopold's Ghost is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908....

, author Adam Hochschild

Adam Hochschild

Adam Hochschild is an American author and journalist.-Biography:Hochschild was born in New York City. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government newspaper in South Africa and subsequently worked briefly as a civil rights worker in Mississippi in 1964...

 speculates that Rom was the inspiration for the character of Kurtz

Kurtz (Heart of Darkness)

Mr. Kurtz is a central fictional character in Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. A trader of ivory in Africa and commander of a trading post, he monopolises his position as a demigod among native Africans. Kurtz meets with the protagonist, Marlow, who returns him to the coast via steamboat...

 in Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

's novel Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon.The story centres on Charles...

. Rom was known to keep severed heads of Africans in his flower bed, and kept a gallows

Gallows

A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...

permanently in place at his station. Under his leadership, agents were known to kill African subjects for minor offenses.