The Congo Free State was a colony run exclusively for profit, and it became the site of some of the worst excesses and atrocities of the European colonization of Africa. One of the greatest, international humanitarian campaigns of the twentieth century brought about its fall, but left people questioning what had been accomplished.

Containing the Criticism

In 1890, an African-American man named George Washington Williams, who had traveled to the Congo to write a book, published the first indictment of the Regime's abuses.


His pamphlet produced a brief flurry of question, but few were prepared to believe his accusations - and no one came forward publicly at the time to corroborate them. 

Over the next ten years, protestant missionaries working in the Congo also began hearing more about atrocities from their congregations, and a few witnessed the violence themselves. They wrote home about their concerns, and a few published protests. These gained little public attention, however, and King Leopold contained the flood through a successful counter-campaign. The King and his supporters published their own articles on the good work supposedly being done in the Congo, and the public proved far more prepared to believe a monarch known for his philanthropy over missionaries, who many believed were being taken in by the exaggerations of 'the natives.'

The Congo Reform Association

Finally in 1902, the critics of the Congo Free State got a champion, E. D. Morel, formerly a clerk in the shipping firm that transported goods in and out of the Congo Free State.

Morel realized from the shipping records what was going on, and he resigned his position in order to devote himself to bringing about reform. He began a newsletter that became an outlet for missionaries, travelers, and a few anonymous officials who had witnessed the atrocities being carried out in the Congo or received reports from the many Congolese who were themselves waging a public relations war by using the few sympathetic Europeans in the Congo to pass on information about what was occurring. Most importantly for the reform movement, Morel received pictures of the mutilations being carried out.

Morel published furiously, and the ensuing outrage led the British Parliament to send an agent, Roger Casement, to investigate. What Casement saw and heard from Congolese people led him to become one of Morel’s strongest allies. Together they formed the Congo Reform Association.

The Slow End to the Free State

The Reform Association quickly gained the support of major celebrities and wealthy philanthropists like George Cadbury, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mark Twain, and Sir Author Conan Doyle. Again, Leopold fought back with his own public relations campaign. He continued to throw doubt on the extent of the violence and blamed the mutilations and other brutalities on the Congolese themselves, particularly the African soldiers of the Force Publique. He also touted his work fighting the slave traders who had dominated and terrorized parts of the Congo before him, but to limited effect since Leopold had initially worked with some of these slavers - even appointing one a governor.

In the face of mounting public pressure, Leopold even appointed his own, supposedly sympathetic committee to investigate the reports. The testimony of the many Congolese people who traveled long distances and ignored violent threats from officials swayed the judges of this supposedly sham hearing, and even their report called for reform. It was 1905. After a further year of accusations and counter-attacks, Leopold accepted that he had lost - sort of. He began negotiations to sell the Congo Free State to the Belgian government, for a tidy sum.

By 1908, the Free State became the Belgian Congo. The worst atrocities had ended, but the forced labor continued. Morel wanted to keep fighting, but his supporters declared victory. A truly great reform movement was over, but the results fell short because support for imperialism remained too strong.