Roger Casement was sent by the British government to investigate the situation in Congo and write a report to the British government.

The British Foreign Office didn’t want to get involved in any action that would cause problems to the Great Powers (Germany and France) and they were trying to capture the chance of attacking the Congo for mismanagement. Therefore, the British Foreign Office asked the British Consul in Congo, Roger Casement, to investigate. When Casement arrived, he interviewed victims from abuse in his research paper. Casement then established Congo Reform Association From March 1904-1913 with E.D. Morel. The purpose was to keep update to the public about Congo’s situation and call upon the government to immediately take action. At last, he was able to expose Leopold’s act with accurate information which led to Leopold giving up managing Congo. As a result, Belgian government took over the Congo.

Evidence

Casement traveled around CFS for three and a half months on a steamboat he rented from American missionaries. He didn’t rent a steam boat from the Belgian government because he knew it would restrict him from going to different regions in CFS. This allowed him to explore the areas Leopold didn’t want foreigners to see and helped him to write the his report:

“Over dozens of pages Casement recorded testimonies from victims of abuse.”

“I ran away with two old people, but they were caught and killed, and the soldiers made me carry the baskets holding their cut-off hands. They killed my little sister, threw her in a house, and se“I hid in a house with my little brother and sister. I heard guns fire. I took up my little sister and a big basket with native money in it, but had to leave the basket behind. My brother ran away. I tried to make my sister walk, but she was tired, and could not run through weakness. The soldiers took us, saying: ‘We might keep them both. The little one is not bad looking.’ But others said: ‘No, we must kill the younger girl.’ They put a knife through her stomach, left the body lying there. They also caught an old woman, cut her throat, divided her, ate her. They cut off the hands of those they had killed, and spread them out in a row and set it on fire.”

“Communities I had formerly known [Casement last visited in 1887] as large and flourishing centers of population are today entirely gone, or now exist in such diminished numbers as to be no longer recognizable.”

Casement is trying to expose Leopold II  for taking Congo under private ownership and imposed brutal treatment on the Congolese.

Colonialism in the Congo: Conquest, Conflict, and Commerce. Brown University, 2005.