King Leopold’s Ghost

After Morel succeeded in popularizing the “Congo Question,” the British Foreign Office ordered representatives to travel to the Congo to make their own reports. One representative was an Irishman named Roger Casement, who had first traveled to the Congo in 1883, and had then worked there for a number of years running a supply base. According to his superiors, Casement had a reputation for being “too kind” to the Congolese. In 1892, he went to work for the British in Nigeria; there, he witnessed human rights abuses, and sent a letter to Britain’s Aborigines Protection Society. Then, in 1900, he was asked to establish a British consulate in the Congo. Before traveling to the Congo again, Casement dined with King Leopold, who asked Casement to tell him if he heard of any human rights abuses. Casement reported not being charmed by Leopold.

Casement was frustrated during his time at the British consulate in the Congo. He had ambitions to be a poet, but published almost no verse. He was also gay at a time when homosexuality was considered “gross indecency.” Casement seems to have been aware that he would be open to blackmail for his sexual behavior; despite this, he kept a detailed diary of his homosexual experiences. He continued to send frequent reports from the Congo, describing the atrocities he’d witnessed, and in 1903, he was glad to receive an assignment to explore the rubber-producing areas of the territory.

In the rubber-producing areas of the Congo, Casement continued to send vivid reports of the horrors he’d witnessed. His reports reached the British government, as well as the Italian consulate in the Congo. At the end of 1903, he returned to England, where he gave many interviews describing the Congo. It was there that he first met Morel. Together, Casement and Morel formed the Congo Reform Association (CRA). By early 1904, the CRA had held meetings with more than a thousand attendees.

Morel and Casement were sincere people who genuinely believed in the human rights of the Congolese. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that they were “white men trying to stop other white men from brutalizing Africans.” There were hundreds of thousands of unremembered Africans who fought the Force Publique and died.