King Leopold’s Ghost: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Morel’s newly-created CRA proved highly influential. He worked long hours writing articles for his newspaper and meeting with influential politicians and missionaries. Morel was a passionate advocate for the Congolese, but he wasn’t perfect. Like so many Europeans of the era, he believed that African men were dangerous to white women; in general, he seems to have thought of Africans as “noble savages.” And while Morel was outraged with King Leopold’s human rights abuses, he was silent, throughout his life, on his own country’s moral crimes: most strikingly, the use of forced labor in British colonies. Like many of Britain’s greatest 19th century humanitarians, Morel believed in protecting human rights, but he also believed in the greatness and morality of the British Empire. He criticized Leopold’s policies in the Congo, but seems not to have seen any moral problem with the principle of imperialism itself.

In spite of the limitations of his political and racial views, Morel campaigned vigorously against King Leopold’s policies in the Congo. He enlisted businessmen in his cause, convincing them that Leopold’s monopolistic, tariff-heavy system was harmful to British industry. He also spoke with many Christian luminaries of the era, convincing them that the Africans should be treated well and taught the principles of Christianity. Lastly, Morel mobilized key journalists at major British newspapers, causing news of the atrocities in the Congo to spread at an exponential rate. Missionaries held public rallies in which they denounced Leopold and his territory; some audience members were so moved that they immediately offered their jewels to support the humanitarian cause.

While Morel spread information about Leopold throughout Britain, Leopold began to monitor the situation in the Congo more carefully. He instructed his soldiers and governors to keep tabs on potential informants. One of these informants was a man named Hezekiah Andrew Shanu, a Nigerian man who had lived in Belgium and worked as a schoolteacher before coming to the Congo to work as an organizer. While Shanu began as a loyal ally to the Force Publique, he eventually had a change of heart and began to supply Morel with information about human rights abuses, endangering his own life in the process. Tragically, another man in the Congo (whom Morel believed to be an ally) betrayed Morel and exposed Shanu as Morel’s collaborator. Furious, the Force Publique prevented Shanu from leaving the country and began harassing him constantly. In 1905, Shanu committed suicide.

Around the same time that Morel was attacking Leopold in the press, a scandal came to light: Leopold, aged 65, had been having an affair with a 16-year-old girl. The combination of the news of the scandal and the news of Belgium’s human rights abuses destroyed Leopold’s reputation as a great man. Nevertheless, Leopold continued pursuing his affair with the young woman; after his wife died, he began inviting her to stay with him in his palaces. Leopold’s popularity plummeted still further when Belgium entered a period of economic depression. Though Leopold had always claimed to live modestly, his propensity for building huge palaces and monuments now infuriated his people. Leopold was incensed by his new unpopularity in Europe.