The Casement Report was a 1904 document written at the behest of the

British Government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Roger Casement Roger David Casement (; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during World War I. He worked for the Britis ...

(1864–1916)—a British diplomat and future Irish independence fighter—detailing abuses in the Congo Free State which was under the private ownership of King Leopold II of

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. This report was instrumental in Leopold finally relinquishing his private holdings in Africa. Leopold had held ownership of the Congolese state since 1885, granted to him by the

Berlin Conference The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 was a meeting of colonial powers that concluded with the signing of the General Act of Berlin,

, in which he exploited its natural resources (mostly rubber) for his own private wealth.

Background

Stokes Affair

Through intercepted letters, Captain Hubert-Joseph Lothaire, the commander of the

Congo Free State The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...

forces in the

Ituri Ituri Province ( in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of the 21 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the Subdivisions of the DR Congo#New provinces, 2015 repartitioning. Ituri, Bas-Uele, Haut-Uele, and Tshopo provinces ...

-campaign, learned that Charles Stokes (born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

) was on his way from

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; ) was a German colonial empire, German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Portugu ...

to sell weapons to the

Zanzibar Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small Island, islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. ...

i slavers in the eastern Congo region. Stokes was arrested and taken to Captain Lothaire in Lindi, who immediately formed a Drumhead court-martial. Stokes was found guilty of selling guns, gunpowder and detonators to the Congo Free State's Afro-Arab enemies. On 14 January 1895 he was sentenced to death and was hanged the next day (hoisted on a tree). To Lothaire, Charles Stokes was no more than a criminal whose hanging was fully justified.

Lord Salisbury Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903), known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United ...

, the British Prime Minister at the time, commented that if Stokes was in league with Arab slave-trading, then 'he deserved hanging'. Sir John Kirk, for years the British Consul in

, remarked that "he was no loss to us, although he was an honest man." The news of Stokes' execution was received with indifference by the British Foreign Office. When the German ambassador asked Sir Thomas H. Sanderson, the

Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs This is a list of Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Permanent Under-Secretaries in the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (and its predecessors) since 1790. Not to be confused with Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State f ...

, whether the British government planned to take any steps regarding the execution of this "well-known character", Sanderson wrote: "I do not quite understand why the Germans are pressing us." In August 1895, the attention of the British press was drawn to this case by Lionel Decle, a journalist for the ''

Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed i ...

''. The press began to report on these events in great detail, The ''Daily News'' emphasized 'bloodthirsty precipitation', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' a 'painful and disgraceful death', The ''

Liverpool Daily Post The ''Liverpool Post'' was a newspaper published by Reach plc, Trinity Mirror in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. The newspaper and its website ceased publication on 19 December 2013. Until 13 January 2012 it was a daily morning newspaper, wi ...

'' 'horrified amazement through the British race', ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' 'death like a dog', adding, "Have we all been wrong in believing that the most audacious foreigner – not to speak of any savage chief – would think once, twice and even trice, before he laid hands on a subject of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

?". As a result, the case became an international incident, better known as the Stokes Affair. Together, Britain and Germany pressured the Congo Free State to put Lothaire on trial, which they eventually did, a first trial was held in the city of Boma. The Free State paid compensation to the British (150,000 francs) and Germans (100,000 francs) and made it impossible by decree to impose

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

or death sentences on European citizens. Stokes's body was returned to his family. Lothaire was acquitted twice, first in April 1896 by a tribunal in Boma. In August 1896, the appeal was confirmed in Brussels by the Supreme Court of Congo, paving the way for the rehabilitation of Lothaire. The Stokes Affair mobilized British public opinion against the Congo Free State. It also damaged the reputation of King

Leopold II of Belgium Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Leo ...

as a benevolent despot, which he had cultivated with so much effort. The case helped encourage the foundation of the

Congo Reform Association The Congo Reform Association (CRA) was a political and humanitarian activist group that sought to promote reform of the Congo Free State, a private territory in Central Africa under the absolute sovereignty of King Leopold II. Active from 19 ...

– by Roger Casement and E. D. Morel – which in its turn put pressure on the Belgian government, which helped lead to the annexation of the Congo Free State by the Belgian state in 1908.

Publicity 1895–1903

For many years prior to the Casement Report there were reports from the Congo alleging widespread abuses and exploitation of the native population. In 1895, the situation was reported to Dr

Henry Grattan Guinness Henry Grattan Guinness (11 August 1835 – 21 June 1910) was an Irish Nonconformist Protestant preacher, evangelist and author. He was the great evangelist of the Third Evangelical awakening and preached during the Ulster Revival of 1859 wh ...

(1861–1915), a missionary doctor. He had established the

Congo-Balolo Mission The Congo-Balolo Mission (CBM) was a British Baptist missionary society that was active in the Belgian Congo, the present day Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1889 to 1915. It was the predecessor of the ''Regions Beyond Missionary Union'' ...

in 1889, and was promised action by King Leopold later in 1895, but nothing changed. H. R. Fox-Bourne of the

Aborigines' Protection Society The Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) was an international human rights organisation founded in 1837,
...

had published ''Civilisation in Congoland'' in 1903, and the journalist

E. D. Morel Edmund Dene Morel (born Georges Edmond Pierre Achille Morel Deville; 10 July 1873 – 12 November 1924) was a French-born British journalist, author, pacifist and politician. As a young official at the shipping company Elder Dempster, Morel ob ...

also wrote several articles about the Leopoldian government's behaviour in the Congo Free State. On 20 May 1903 a motion by the Liberal Herbert Samuel was debated in the British

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

, resulting in this resolution: Subsequently, the British consul at Boma in the Congo, the Irishman

was instructed by Balfour's government to investigate. His report was published in 1904, confirmed Morel's accusations, and had a considerable impact on public opinion. Casement met and became friends with Morel just before the publication of his report in 1904 and realized that he had found the ally he had sought. Casement convinced Morel to establish an organization for dealing specifically with the Congo question. With Casement's and Dr. Guinness's assistance, he set up and ran the

, which worked to end Leopold's control of the Congo Free State. Branches of the association were established as far away as the United States.

Report

The Casement Report comprises forty pages of the Parliamentary Papers, to which is appended another twenty pages of individual statements gathered by Casement as Consul, including several detailing grim tales of killings, mutilations, kidnappings and cruel beatings of the native population by soldiers of the Congo Administration of King Leopold. Copies of the Report were sent by the British government to the Belgian government as well as to nations who were signatories to the Berlin Agreement in 1885, under which much of Africa had been partitioned. The British Parliament demanded a meeting of the fourteen signatory powers to review the 1885 Berlin Agreement. While the Report was issued as a Command paper in 1904, and was laid before the Houses of Parliament, the original was not published in full until 1985, in an annotated book by two Belgian professors of the history of colonialism.Vellut J-L, and Vangroenweghe D.; ''Le Rapport Casement (Enquêtes et documents d'histoire africaine)'' Université Catholique de Louvain: Centre d'Histoire de l'Afrique (1985). Pp. xxviii + 174. The Belgian Parliament, pushed by

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

political leader and statesman

Emile Vandervelde Emile Vandervelde (25 January 1866 – 27 December 1938) was a Belgium, Belgian socialist politician. Nicknamed "the boss" (''le patron''), Vandervelde was a leading figure in the Belgian Labour Party (POB–BWP) and in international socialism. C ...

and other critics of the King's Congolese policy, forced a reluctant Leopold II to set up an independent commission of enquiry. Its findings confirmed Casement's report in every detail. This led to the arrest and punishment of officials who had been responsible for murders during a rubber-collection expedition in 1903 (including one Belgian national who was given a five-year sentence for causing the shooting of at least 122 Congolese natives).

Aftermath

Despite these findings, Leopold managed to retain personal control of the Congo until 1908, when the Parliament of Belgium annexed the Congo Free State and took over its administration as the

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Repu ...

. However the final push came from Leopold's successor King Albert I, and in 1912 the

had the satisfaction of dissolving itself.

Background

Stokes Affair

Publicity 1895–1903

Report

Aftermath

References

Bibliography

Further reading