William Tyler Grove

Greed Disguised as Humanitarianism:

The Story of the Congo Reform Movement

Appalachian Spring Conference in World History and Economics

March 4, 2010

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Introduction

Belgian King Leopold II felt that every true European monarch needed to have his

own colony. Leopold II looked around the world, making offers for colonies and

eventually took the large Congo River basin as his personal property. He professed to the

world through media and expositions that he was going to civilize these savages and take

them away from terrible Arab slave traders.

Edmund Dene Morel was a clerk for the British firm Elder Dempster that shipped

goods for King Leopold II from Antwerp to the Congo. An intelligent and bilingual man,

Morel realized that there was a massive trade deficiency. The vast amount of expensive

raw goods that were coming from the Congo did not even closely equal the amount of

goods being sent back to Belgium. The only items that were shipped back to the Congo

were tools of war: guns, ammunition and knives. In Morel’s mind, this meant only one

thing: slavery. Morel was an excellent writer who would make this issue his personal

campaign and found the Congo Reform Association.

In her article “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo,”

Sharon Sliwinski finds the writings of the Congo Reform Association as among the

earliest critics of empire and advocates of a secular human rights…. That can be regarded

as a forerunner to the work of present-day humanitarian groups such as Human Rights

Watch and Amnesty International.”1 This paper disagrees with this premise. Although

many historians have argued that this was the first humanitarian effort of the 20th century,

the motives were not humanitarian and were based solely on trade and greed by King

Leopold II. This effort was not a precursor to Amnesty International. It is easy to regard

the Congo Reform Association as a “humanitarian” organization, but that is an 1 Sliwinski, 334.

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oversimplification. The motives for the CRA and their beneficiaries did not always have

the welfare of the natives in mind. The people who supported the CRA were united in

their hatred of Leopold, but each person had different reasons to want a change of

government in the Congo. The reasons for change seem to be four-fold, some wanted

change for financial motives, religious motives, scapegoating (Leopold) and

philanthropic interests. Some simply wanted someone else to blame for the conditions of

European Imperialism. Members of the CRA may not have consciously realized their true

motivations for joining the group, but ultimately they were not driven primarily by

humanitarian aims.

Structure

The structure of this paper includes an introduction that includes arguments, a

theoretical bibliographic introduction, body which outlines the history of the Congo

Reform Association providing evidence and a conclusion.

Theoretical Bibliographic Introduction

There are an enormous amount of sources dealing with the history and aftermath

of the colonization of the Congo by Leopold II. The sources are scattered around the

world, but many are readily available. Many of these books are out of copyright but are

available in their entirety from Google Books. The writings about the Congo Free State

and the Congo Reform Association were originally written in both English and French.

The following is a chronological histiography of the sources. This is not a complete list;

many sources were not used due to time constraints.

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Primary Sources

This paper begins with articles from The New York Times dated March 28, 1877

and March 28, 1883. These are not the first to mention the Congo. This author also uses

an article from The Times of London, dated March 28, 1883. Henry Morton Stanley’s

address in 1884 to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce is used to give a perspective of

European opinions of Africa.

The first example of the protest movement was the 1890 ‘Open letter to King

Leopold the second of Belgium’ by George Washington Williams. It is located in John

Hope Franklin’s George Washington Williams: a Biography.

Morel was the protégé of Mary H. Kingsley, whose West African Studies (1899),

was the most progressive European opinion of Africans at the time. Kingsley believed

that trade was the essence of Britain’s relationship with West Africa.

The first work that E.D. Morel published under his own name was The Congo

Slave State: a Protest Against the New African Slavery; and an Appeal to the Public of

Great Britain, of the United States, and of the Continent of Europe in Liverpool in 1903.

The positive response to this book inspired Morel to work on African affairs full time.

With the success of his first book, Morel went on a writing spree publishing King

Leopold’s Rule in Africa in London in 1904. The Morel papers are located in the archives

of the London School of Economics. The archives are not available online. Morel would

also publish many other books that were not referenced in this paper.

As Morel’s anti-Leopold books came out, a propaganda war began with positive

accounts such as John MacDonnell’s King Leopold II: His rule in Belgium and the

Congo. Published in 1905, it was a secondary source at the time it was written; it contains

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many speech excerpts from Leopold II. American lawyer Henry Wellington Wack

published another positive account, The Story of the Congo Free State: Social, Political,

and Economic Aspects of the Belgian System of Government in Central Africa in New

York in 1905. The volume contains a transcript of the speech given by Leopold at the

Brussels Conference of 1876.

Morel’s seminal work was Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade

which Flourished on the Congo published in 1906, it was the most scathing and horrific

account of what was occurring in the Congo using all the knowledge available at the

time. It was considered the most important work of investigative journalism of the era.

E.D. Morel would die before he was able to complete his History of the Congo

Reform Movement. Morel had wanted a noted historian such as John Hobson to complete

his work if he could not. It was completed by historians William Roger Louis, an

American, and Jean Stengers, a Belgian. These two historians working on opposite sides

of the Atlantic completed Morel’s book in 1968 using all available resources and

deciphering his notes.

Secondary Sources

With the independence of the Congo in 1960, another group of scholarship

emerged. Neal Aecherson’s The King Incorporated: King Leopold II in the Age of Trusts

was published in 1964. This book was the first historical work to portray Leopold II as an

ingenious politician to achieve his colonial ambitions rather than to argue whether

Leopold was a devil or saint.

The 1972 printing of E.D. Morel’s The Truth and the War includes an

introduction by Catherine Ann Cline that provides a good synopsis of Morel’s life.

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Thomas Pakenham’s book The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark

Continent from 1876-1912 provides statistics of the exploitation of the Congo among

other things, and contains a history of all European involvement in Africa between 1876-

1912.

The most current scholarship is Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold's Ghost: a

Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa published in 1998. It was an

unexpected bestseller, telling the haunting story of the Congo in an engaging, narrative

style. This work was used to put Leopold in historical context. Hochschild covers all

sides of the establishment of the Belgian Congo in his book. Hochschild focuses

especially on the freedom movement lead by E.D. Morel and Roger Casement.

Hochschild is a journalism professor based in California and has become an expert in

Congo Affairs. In the New York Times book review for King Leopold’s Ghost, it is

described as “Genocide with Spin Control.”

In 2001, Kevin Grant wrote “Christian Critics of Empire: Missionaries, Lantern

Lectures, and the Congo Reform Campaign in Britain” in The Journal of Imperial and

Commonwealth History, which follows the history of the lantern lectures in Britain.

Sharon Sliwinski’s “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo” in the

Journal of Visual Culture in 2006 tells the story of how the media influenced the

outcome of the Congo Reform Movement. She also gives a background of the Congo

Reform Association and includes an extensive reading list. Leopold II and his Congo, if

history is our guide, will continue to be presented. But this author is unsure if any new

scholarship will emerge.

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The Founding of Belgium

Belgium was a relative late-comer to the European community formed in 1830

after a revolt with Holland. It was formed after the separation of Belgium and the

Netherlands. Like any good European country, it needed its own monarch. Leopold I, a

relative of Queen Victoria, became the king. His son, Leopold II would ascend to the

throne in 1865 at his father’s death. In King Leopold’s Ghost, author Adam Hochschild

finds that the king had an unhappy personal life. As with any monarch, his first duty was

to create a male heir; his wife did have one son, but he died at a young age. Hochschild

believes the most devastating moment of Leopold’s life was when his nine year old son

fell into a pond. He caught pneumonia and died. This was the only time that Leopold was

seen in public with tears in his eyes; his successor was dead.2 Hochschild finds that

Leopold II had a loveless marriage. Leopold’s life was plagued with traumatic and

unhappy events.

Despite a miserable personal life, Leopold recognized that he could make a name

for himself with his fellow monarchs by acquiring a colony. He also felt that having

colonies would ensure his country’s prosperity and his own personal fortune. Due to his

position as a constitutional monarch, Leopold knew he did not have the power to create a

colony for Belgium. The Belgian people would not support his affairs, so he would have

to work as an individual, not as king. His first attempt to gain a colony was trying

unsuccessfully to buy the Philippines from Spain. For Leopold, a man beginning close to

a century later than the rest of the imperialists, there was only one unclaimed area. In

1870 roughly 80% of sub-Saharan Africa was living under indigenous rulers. By 1910

2 Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998): 39.

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virtually all of it consisted of European colonies or white settler regimes. It was the

fastest land grab in history.3 Leopold would be an active participant in this second wave

of imperialism.

Stanley Exploration / Hiring

Leopold realized to become a serious player in the international exploration

community, he would need to become friends with the explorers who were discovering

these new lands. In 1876, he sponsored a conference in Brussels for these explorers. It

was a lavish public relations campaign and Leopold was happy with his position of

wielding control from the background. This conference was to discuss the issues of

Africa. The goal was “to open to civilization the only part of our globe where Christianity

has not yet penetrated and to pierce the darkness which envelops the whole population.”4

His other stated aim was to fight the Arab slave traders. Leopold II masqueraded as an

individual who had the native Africans’ best interests in mind.

Out of his 1876 conference, the International African Association was formed and

Leopold, the ever gracious host was elected its president. At the time, Leopold II believed

80% of Africa was ripe for conquest “for protection”.5 Leopold was at his best as the

“behind the scenes” sponsor of African exploration, but he knew he could not do it on his

own. Leopold needed a well-known explorer to make his case.

Henry Morton Stanley had traced the Congo River to its source. Stanley was

loved by the worldwide press and Leopold realized that this could be used to his

advantage. The New York Times wrote in 1877 that “it is very certain that if skill, bravery

3 Hochschild, Adam. Congo’s Many Plunders. Economic and Political Weekly. vol. 36, no. 4. (Jan 27- Feb 2, 2001) 287-288. 4 Parkenman, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912. (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1991.)21. 5 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 42.

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and perseverance could ensure success, Stanley would solve every problem of the

African geography within the next two years.”6 The idea plagued Europeans that

Africans could not solve their own problems and needed protection. Realizing the value

of having such a person as his representative, Leopold contacted Stanley to see if he

would be willing to open up Central Africa and the Congo River Valley to world m

Eventually, after finding that Britain was not interested in more colonies, Stanley agreed

to work for Leopold. Between 1879 and 1884, Stanley built a road around the Congo

River and created numerous trading posts on the Congo River. Henry Morton Stanley’s

comments to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce in 1884 represent the sentiments of

Europeans at the time:

arkets.

“There are 40 million naked people on the other side of the rapids, and the cotton-spinners of Manchester are waiting to clothe them...Birmingham's factories are glowing with the red metal that shall presently be made into ironwork in every fashion and shape for them... and the ministers of Christ are zealous to bring them, the poor benighted heathen, into the Christian fold.”7 While Stanley was working in Africa, Leopold created another organization, the

International Association of the Congo, which would be paying for its development.

Leopold was using deception in creating these organizations. A press report published in

the New York Times that was titled the “International Congo Association” which people

thought was written by a Belgian correspondent was actually written by Leopold

himself.8 The article said that “the International Congo Association does not seek to gain

money, and does not beg for aid from any state, (it) resembles in a measure…the society

of the Red Cross; it has been formed by means of large voluntary contributions and with

6 The New York Times. March 28, 1877, p. 4 column 4. 7 Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Address of Mr. H. Stanley. Manchester. A. Ireland, 1884, 26-27. 8 The Times, March 28, 1883, p. 3 column E.

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the noble gain of rendering lasting and disinterested services to the cause of progress.” 9

King Leopold declared in the founding of this organization that he had no intention of

ownership over the region.10 To deceive the public and politicians, he started

interchanging the names of the International Africa Association and International

Association of the Congo. But for his colony to be considered legitimate, Leopold

needed another country to recognize his claim.

In America, Leopold found some unlikely allies who, after the American Civil

War, considered the possibility of sending ex-slaves back to Congo. Through Leopold

II’s contacts, America officially recognize the claim of Leopold to the Congo on April 2,

1884. At age fifty, Leopold finally had his own colony.

Germany’s Bismarck called the European powers for a conference on Africa in

1884-85, which led to the “Scramble for Africa.” In this meeting, Leopold was given

complete control over the Congo Free State; in return, he guaranteed free trade rights, no

monopolies, no taxes and no tariffs. The act legally guaranteed the moral well-being of

the native tribes.11

In 1885, Leopold II was recognized and named the sovereign of the Congo.12 The

stated aim for his empire was a benevolent society, a group to bring civilization to these

people of the Congo.

“It (Leopold’s reforms in the Congo) will connect closely the Congo with the mother country, which will prompt Europe (whose eyes follow us) to take a benevolent and generous interest in all our labours, which will convey to our progress a more and more rapid and decisive

9 The New York Times. March 28, 1883, p. 4, column 5. 10 Leopold II. Speech given at the Brussels conference of 1876. As shown in MacDonnell, John. King Leopold the second his rule in Belgium and the Congo. (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1905.) 94. 11 “General Act of the Berlin Conference” 1885. As shown in Gavin, RJ. The Scramble for Africa: Documents on the Berlin West African Conference and Related Subjects 1884/1885 (Ibadan Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1973) 288- 301. 12 ibid.

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impetus, and which will soon introduce into the vast region of the Congo all the blessings of Christian civilization.”13

With the Congo under Leopold’s control, the extraction of resources began.

Leopold created a state run monopoly on natural resources. The first was ivory. In 1887,

the inflatable bicycle tire was invented and spawned, along with the car tire, a worldwide

rubber boom. The Congo just happened to have one of the largest natural reserves of wild

rubber in the world. The Congo was a “treasure house” teeming with resources.14

In 1891, the government seized all “vacant lands.” The law explicitly established

that “any attempt on the part of the aboriginal inhabitants of the State to utilize the fruits

of the soil would be regarded and treated as a penal offence, and that European merchants

residing for the time being within the confines of the State should seek to benefit from the

utilisation of the soil’s fruits by the aborigines through the normal operation of purchase

or sale, would be prosecuted in the courts.”15 This mass privatization of land

fundamentally contradicted the African ideal of land.

Early Attempts at Reform

An American, George Washington Williams, traveled up the Congo River and

wrote a letter to the king about the atrocities which were occurring. Written in 1890, it

was the first account of the tricks and cruel slave trade which were being forced upon the

Congo natives. Williams also wrote a letter to the U.S. President Benjamin Harrison

describing it as “crimes against humanity.”16 This was the first documented usage of this

term. A counter movement to defame Williams was quickly established by Leopold. But

13 Burrows, Guy. The Land of the Pigmies. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1898). 288. 14 Pakenham, 524. 15 E.D. Morel’s History of the Congo Reform Movement. William Roger Louis and Jean Stengers. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968). 44. 16 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 112

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in 1891, Williams’ death ended the opportunity for early reform efforts. 17 As Williams

was not mentioned in Morel’s History of the Congo Reform Movement, it appears that the

Congo Reform Association may have been unaware of his early actions.

The Force Publique

To enforce the rules of the Congo, a 19,000 men strong military force called the

Force Publique was formed. It was essentially Leopold II’s personal army. Segregation

was enforced with officers white, the soldiers black. The officers were mercenaries from

around the world.18 Its first responsibility was making sure that the government had a

monopoly on the trade of raw materials through the collection laws. The Force Publique

ruled with an iron hand. The leaders were sadistic; one officer, Leon Rom, was known to

have his garden lined with the heads of dead Africans.19 The Force Publique routinely

took and tortured hostages (mostly women), flogged, and raped the natives. At its height,

half of the state budget was used by the Force Publique. One instrument of torture that

would become notorious and unique to the Congo was the Hippo-skin whip called the

chicotte.20 Leopold had set up a vast labor camp. As deaths rose, so did Leopold’s profits.

The first news from the Congo Free State that garnered major international

attention was in 1895 when Charles Stokes, a white man, was killed. Stokes’ trading

competed with that of the State and a Force Publique expedition was sent out to find him.

Stokes was hanged on the spot.21 In response to public outcry after the death of Stokes,

17 Williams, George Washington ‘Open letter to King Leopold the second of Belgium’, in John Hope Franklin (ed.) George Washington Williams: a Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1985. 18 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 124. 19 ibid, 145. 20 Sliwinski, Sharon. “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo.” Journal of Visual Culture. Vol. 5 No. 3 (2006), 334. 21 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 174.

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Leopold established the Commission for the Protection of Natives (1895) to ensure the

well being of natives. This commission gave the illusion of progress in the Congo.

Early Missionaries

At first, missionaries were quiet about the atrocities. They would hear stories and

evidence but actually never viewed the atrocities first hand. There were two reasons.

First, they were concerned that if they mentioned this to the government, they would be

forced to leave the country. Second, the missionaries believed that although many

natives died of numerous atrocities, at least they died as Christians. There was

competition between the Protestant and Catholic missionaries for larger areas of

influence. But these missionaries were key witnesses and would eventually support the

public outcry against events in the Congo.

E.D. Morel’s Life

Georges Edmond Pierre Achille Morel de Ville was born in Paris on July 15,

1873. The product of a French father and English mother, Morel would not know his

father because he would die early in his life. He was raised by his Quaker mother in Paris

and would later take English Citizenship and change his name to Edmund Dene Morel.

In 1891, Morel was awarded a clerkship with the Elder Dempster Company, a

shipping firm. Morel moved to Liverpool and his French language abilities helped him

become the firm’s contact for shipping between Antwerp and the Congo. This position

stimulated his interest in West Africa and furnished him with information concerning the

developments in the region. This position served as the basis for the majority of his

writings. After viewing the Congo trade and analyzing the records, Morel noticed

someone was obviously skimming the profits because they greatly exceeded what was

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written on the books. Morel found that “something like 80% of the articles that were

being imported into the Congo were remote to trade purposes.”22 Morel states that upon

his discovery of this trade, it was as if “I had stumbled upon a secret society of murderers

with a King for croniman.”23

Morel modeled his arguments after those of his contemporary, author Mary

Kingsley. She saw the African “neither as the half devil and half child of the pseudo

Darwinists nor as the benighted brother of the Christian missionaries.”24 Of the three

groups of Europeans in Africa at that time (missionaries, government officials and

traders) Kinglsey approved only of the traders. Morel believed the only reason for the

European involvement was “We are in West Africa to trade not to preach.”25 The traders,

whose interests Morel defended, were “the most enlightened European element in

African affairs.”26 Increasingly, Morel mused on the “difficulties of the opposing

European civilizations in the tropics, finely questioning whether the benefit to the

Africans could possibly be worth the price they had paid in the loss of life resulting from

European penetration.”27 Morel could be considered a progressive thinker of his day; he

had a growing respect for African culture. Despite this progressive thinking, Morel’s

beliefs are not inline with those of Amnesty International. Morel believed that uplifting

the natives with better conditions would also help the ruling country. Morel was

“skeptical of the excuse, which he had himself offered earlier, which was African

barbarism, rather than the policy of the regime, which was responsible for the frequent

22 Morel, History of the Congo Reform Movement, 36. 23 Ibid, 42. 24 Morel, E.D. Truth and the War. ed. Catherine Ann Cline. (New York: Garland Publications, 1972) 14. 25 Ibid, 15. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid, 14.

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atrocities.”28 His opinions were definitely changing in response to the reports surfacing

from the Congo Free State.

Morel’s first series of articles about the Congo was titled “The Congo Scandal”

and was published anonymously in July of 1900.29 The positive reaction to these articles

encouraged Morel to quit the Elder Dempster shipping line in 1901, but not before his

superiors attempted to buy him off. At twenty seven, Morel was going to be a journalist

focusing on exposing the barbarities in the Congo. Morel began publishing the West

African Mail, a weekly illustrated newspaper in 1903, which kept people informed of

what was occurring in the Congo, based on the insider reports that were smuggled out.30

It also provided a forum of West and Central African questions. Morel’s journalism

abilities were all self-taught and impressive. He brought international concern over the

reports of atrocities and freely made himself the arch-nemesis of Leopold.

For Morel, even describing the Congo Free State as a state is “palpably a

misnomer, a fiction and a subterfuge.”31 Because there was no law making body, any

laws were simply decrees and all the respective districts were simply responsible for the

collection of taxes. The proceedings of the courts were not published, so there was no

legal accountability. Leopold operated as the legislative and executive branches as the

Sovereign of the Congo, a different role than the one he played as King of the Belgians.

There were no limitations on him and no oversight by any group. Morel describes

Leopold in chilling terms “in the fullest and most literal sense of the word, Leopold II

28 Ibid, 19. 29 Ibid, 17. 30 Grant, Kevin. “Christian Critics of Empire: Missionaries, Lantern Lectures, and the Congo Reform Campaign in Britain.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 2001. 32. 31 Morel, History of the Congo Reform Movement, 45

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was the supreme dictator, the sole arbitrator of the destinies of a vast population of

Africans whom he had never seen, inhabiting an immense territory.”32

In 1903, Morel completed his first book, The Congo Slave State: A Protest

Against the New African Slavery; And an Appeal to the Public of Great Britain, of the

United States, and of the Continent of Europe,33 which presented damning statistics of

the trade deficit between the Congo and Belgium. Even today, if you look at statistics

from the Congo at this time period, they probably originally came from Morel. He was

one of the few to see the actual documents and was noted for his painstaking accuracy

and few factual errors. “Over the years, enemies and allies alike have searched his w

for factual errors, with scant success.”

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Leopold was able to successfully fend off public accusations until 1903, when

humanitarian pressure eventually led to parliamentary debate on the Congo in the British

House of Commons. In May, the House of Commons passed a resolution urging that

Congo natives be governed with humanity. The House sent Consul Roger Casement to

report on the conditions in the Congo. Casement’s response was overwhelming, “I have

returned from the Upper Congo today with convincing evidence of shocking

misgovernment and wholesale oppression.”35 Which he accused European nations of

turning a blind eye to the atrocities, “It is an extraordinary thing that the conscience of

Europe which seventy years ago…put down the slave trade on humanitarian grounds

32 Ibid. 33 Morel, Edmund D. The Congo Slave State: A Protest against the New African Slavery; And an Appeal to the Public of Great Britain, of the United States, and of the Continent of Europe. (Liverpool: John Richardson & Sons, Printers, 1903.) 34 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 188. 35 Sir Roger Casement, Séamas Ó Síocháin, Michael O'Sullivan. The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and the 1903 Diary (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2003.) 2.

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tolerates the Congo state today. It is as if the moral clock had been put back.”36 Upon his

return to England, Casement wrote his report, which would be one of the most critical

reports on the situation of the natives in the Congo. The Casement Report of 1903 was

the first official government document exposing the atrocities in The Congo.

Casement was able to contrast conditions with those of his previous Congo travels

in 1890. In what were once thriving towns, the people had died or fled, leaving trails of

desolation. His descriptions of the decline of human and animal populations, the crippling

taxation of natives, and the provision of slave labor horrified the British public. The most

scandalous criticism was twofold: his confirmation of the Congo regime’s use of the

Force Publique for hostage taking, and the documentation of one particular mutilation

that became the icon of Leopold’s entire colonial regime: the cutting off of the hands.37

The Casement report suggested that Belgian officers required proof of native deaths by

bringing a right hand. These hands were usually smoked to keep them from decaying in

route to the officers. He found this information from a government informant, and also in

two interviews with victims of the atrocities.38 The Casement report was a fatal blow for

Leopold. It was the proof of atrocities of an established system. The second element was

the missionaries’ descriptions that confirmed the report.

Personally, Roger Casement wanted to be active in a campaign to bring attention

to the cause, but due to his government position Casement knew that he could not

personally do it, so he contacted his friend Morel to get him to start an organization. The

Congo Reform Association was founded and based in Liverpool. According to her article,

“The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo” Sharon Sliwinski considers

36 Pakenham, 656. 37 Sliwinski, 338. 38 Ibid, 339.

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this to be the first humanitarian effort of the 20th century.39 It was a machine designed by

Morel to arouse public opinion against the King. The images it published in 1905 became

the most effective in changing public opinion of the atrocities in the Congo.

The goals of the CRA were adapted in a resolution in 1905 which called “upon

His Majesty’s Government to convoke an assembly of the Christian Powers…. In order

to devise and put in force a scheme for a good government of the Congo territories.”40

The CRA had no clearly structured achievable goals. The CRA never stated they believed

that the people of the Congo deserved self-rule.

This alliance between the Congo Reform Association and the missionaries

consisted of two groups with a common goal but, differing motivations. Morel and his

group wanted to open the Congo to true free trade and honor the Berlin Act of 1884-85.

The missionaries wanted to have access in order to Christianize the native populations. In

his first six months of Congo Reform Association, Morel published fifteen thousand

brochures and wrote three thousand letters soliciting donations. The reasons for donations

to the Congo Reform Association were often not as noble as one might think. Some of

the largest donors, such as William Cadbury, simply wanted commercial access to the

area. Cadbury wanted to find raw materials for his confectionary business, particularly

cocoa beans.

For Hochschild, Morel was also good at fitting his message to his audience,

reminding them Leopold’s monopolistic system was also copied by the French in Africa

and had shut them (his businessmen audience) out of much trade.41

39 Sliwinski, 334. 40 Hochschild, 214. 41 Ibid, 213.

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Morel increasingly viewed himself as the leader of the Congo Reform Association

and he believed himself to be the link who could write under philanthropic, missionary,

scapegoating and commercial interests in a demand for British diplomatic action against

the Congo Free State. These beliefs were not exclusively commercial. By 1905, Morel

believed himself to be a “servant of the public cause,” not a journalist.42

In 1906, Morel published the infamous Red Rubber. The book was a deliberate

effort to arouse the emotions of its readers.43 Morel describes the treatment of the

Congolese as “a crime unparalleled in the annals of the world.”44

“I have stood on that quay of Antwerp and seen that rubber disgorged from the bowels of the incoming steamer, and to my fancy there has mingled with the musical chimes ringing in the old Cathedral tower, another sound – the faintest echo of a sigh from the depths of the dark and stifling hold. A sigh breathed in the gloomy Equatorial forest, by those from whose anguish this wealth was wrung.”…“But the Leopoldian conception of humanity is the humanity of the human tiger thirsting, not for blood, but for rubber.”45

Morel describes his radical beliefs for the time as the Congolese possessing

certain inalienable rights such as the right to property and control over their free labor.46

Red Rubber would become the most famous example of British investigative journalism

at the turn of the century.

Americans also were active in Congo Reform. In 1906, Mark Twain wrote King

Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule, which was a long monologue written

from the point of view of Leopold himself as he fusses and fumes about the state of his

42 Morel, E.D. Truth and the War 21. 43 Sliwinski, 344. 44 Morel, E.D. Red Rubber. xxvii. 45 Ibid, 99-100. 46 Ibid, xxviii.

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colony.47 Twain specifically brings up the influence of the Kodak. Leopold tells what he

thinks about the Kodak camera saying,

“The Kodak has been a soul calamity to us. The most powerful enemy indeed. In the early years we had no trouble in getting the press to expose details of mutilations as slanders, lies, inventions of busybody American missionaries and exasperated foreigners…. Then up all of the sudden came the crash! That is to say the incorruptible Kodak – and all the harmony with the hell.”48

As with any campaign, when well-known public figures became involved, it

provided more publicity for the cause. Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle also

became involved in Morel’s efforts writing the introduction to his 1909 book, The Crime

of the Congo. Doyle’s explanation for his interest in writing about the Congo was that he

believed that the crime against the Congo was the worst in the history of the world, “It is

this sordid cause and the uncitious hypocrisy which makes this crime unparalleled in its

horror.”49

The Missionaries

A key component of the Congo Reform Movement was the missionaries, which

spread information about the atrocities. They did this by delivering thousands of lantern

lectures with heartbreaking images throughout Europe and North America. In his article

Christian Critics of Empire: Missionaries, Lantern Lectures, and the Congo Reform

Campaign in Britain, Kevin Grant believes that “missionaries played a central role in

mobilizing popular support for the Congo Reform campaign in Britain, the largest

humanitarian movement in British Imperial politics during the late Victorian and

47 Sliwinski, 345. 48 Mark Twain, King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule. (New York: International Books. 1906): 68. 49Arthur Conan Doyle, The Crime of the Congo. (New York: Doubleday, Page and Company. 1909): iii.

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Edwardian eras.”50 The article tells the stories behind the most infamous photos that

came out of the Congo. These missionaries appealed to a mythic ideal of universal human

dignity and alternately used the Congo crisis to promote their respective ambitions for

Central Africa.51 In his article, Grant suggests the images that were included were

“simultaneously to embody the humanity of the Congo people and the inhumanity of

regime that literally consumed them in its accounting”.52 Grant believes this campaign

was the first humanitarian movement to use atrocity photographs as an essential tool.53

The reports from the Congo gave another perspective and gave credence to the claims.

“Missionaries reported the Congo State officials required their African sentries to

produce one hand for every shot fired, in order to ensure that cartridges were spent on

people, rather than wild game.”54

The Belgian Inquiry of 1905

In response to the Casement Report, Leopold established his own committee to

study the conditions of the natives in the Congo. Leopold was unable to control the

outcome of the committee that formed. One member of the inquiry was the missionary

John Harris, who would write of the atrocities that were occurring and provided images

and documents used by Morel and in the lantern lectures. In a remarkable move for the

time, Harris even asked in a widely printed letter if the King should be tried and hanged

at the newly established international tribunal in The Hague.55

50 Grant, 28. 51 Sliwinski, 335. 52 Grant, 33. 53 Sliwinski, 334. 54 Grant, 33. 55 Twain, 51-56.

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The Death of Leopold II

In August 1908, Leopold burned the Congo State Archive. Leopold was quoted as

saying, “I will give them my Congo, but they have no right to know what I did there.”56

In 1908, King Leopold II officially turned the Congo over to Belgium for 150 million

francs. The next year, Leopold II died. At the time, he was considered the most hated

man in Europe, largely due to the success of the anti-Leopold Congo propaganda. The

CRA chose a target, a person, Leopold II as their villain when he is gone, they claim

victory.

At its last meeting on June 13th 1913, the Congo Reform Association claimed

victory. Was this really a victory? Though life had improved for the natives, they were

still bound to the land by taxes. One system had been replaced by another. The problem

for the Congo Reform Association was with the death of Leopold, they had lost their

villain.

Conclusion

Demographers estimate that between 1880 and 1920, the Congolese population

was slashed in half, a loss of 10,000,000 people. 57 Instead of helping ‘civilize’ the native

population, King Leopold II established a regime that is thought to have been directly or

indirectly responsible for the deaths of half of the Congolese population and many more

were maimed for life.58 Leopold II became one of the richest men in Europe, but he did

not have a successor. During the time, Leopold made a profit from the territory equal to

at least $1.1 billion in today’s U.S. dollars “What happened in the Congo was indeed

mass murder on a vast scale, but the sad truth is that the men who carried it out for

56 Ibid, 294. 57 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 287. 58 Hochschild, Congo’s Many Plunderers, 288.

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Leopold were not more murderous than many Europeans then at work or at war

elsewhere in Africa.”59

For the Europeans this was simply a matter of economics. Leopold had shut off a

vast area of wealth from other Europeans. The lantern images were used to solicit

responses and donations, but these were merely a side show. The focus on the Congo is

puzzling, when you consider the conditions were not unique in Africa. “The exclusive

focus of the reform movement on Leopold’s Congo seems even more illogical if you

reckon mass murder by the percentage of the population killed. The death toll was even

higher in German South West Africa.” 60 The population loss in the French controlled

equatorial rain forest was equal to the loss in the Congo: 50%. 61

Despite George Washington Williams using the term “crimes against humanity”

first about the Congo, the members of the Congo Reform Association did not want

change because they share belief that Amnesty International has today, that all people

deserve human rights.

The Congo Reform effort was simply disagreeing with the actions of Leopold

because he was a safe target. The beauty of choosing the poor treatment of natives by

Leopold was that the “people in England’s ruling circles, therefore, could support his

(Morel’s) crusade without feeling their own interests threatened.”62 Hochschild describes

the Congo as a “safe target” and that “outrage over the Congo did not involve British or

59 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 283. 60 Ibid, 281. 61 Ibid, 280. 62 Ibid, 213.

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American misdeeds, nor did it entail the diplomatic trade, or military consequences of

taking on a major power like France and Germany.”63

For Morel the founder of the CRA ignored abuses by his own country’s (British)

use of forced labor in its African Colonies.64 For the English it was easy to blame another

country for their treatment of natives, especially a competitor nation. Though the

conditions were horrific, poor treatment of native population was a hallmark of European

Imperialism. It was easy to bring the focus of early media attention away from domestic

(British) affairs.

The world will never know if Leopold felt guilty about his reign of the Congo.

Morel describes the actions in the Congo as “a great crime against humanity.”65 Neal

Aecherson labels Leopold as a great deceiver but as a man with great charisma.66 Both

were correct. It was greed and competition that motivated the Europeans; the

philanthropic intentions were simply a politically convenient story for their true

ambitions.

63 Hochschild, 282. 64 Ibid, 210. 65 Morel, History of the Congo Reform Movement, 167. 66 Aecherson, Neal. The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts. (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964): 13.

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1898. MacDonnell, John. King Leopold II: His rule in Belgium and the Congo. New York:

Negro Universities Press, 1905. Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Address of Mr. Henry Morton Stanley. Manchester.

A. Ireland, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library, (1884): 26-27. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60230098

Morel, E. D. The Congo Slave State: a Protest against the New African slavery; and an

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Congo for Twenty Years 1890-1910. New and revised edition. Manchester: National Labour Press, 1919.

Morel, E.D. History of the Congo Reform Movement. William Roger Louis and Jean

Stengers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968. Morel, E.D. Truth and the War ed. Catherine Ann Cline. New York: Garland

Publications, 1972. The New York Times. March 28, 1877, p. 4 column 4. The New York Times. March 28, 1883, p. 4, column 5. The Times, March 28, 1883, p. 3 column E. Williams, George Washington. ‘Open letter to King Leopold the second of Belgium’, in

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Continent from 1876-1912. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1991. Sliwinski, Sharon. “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo,” Journal

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