A British-Owned Congo: Roger Casement’s Battle with Slavery in Peru (1910-1914)

Roger Casement was the twentieth century’s first outstanding humanitarian. Best known for his 1904 chilling report on conditions in King Leopold’s Congo, Casement continued his campaign for human rights in the Putumayo Valley bordering Peru and Colombia, where a rubber company with headquarters in London was abusing and murdering indigenous people on a massive scale – nearly thirty thousand workers had died for a few thousand tons of rubber. Casement’s 1912 Foreign Office published report made for disturbing reading. He was widely celebrated as a hero in his battle to expose widespread abusive labour regimes. In 1916, Casement was hanged on a charge of treason by the British Government.

Speaker: Prof Jordan Goodman

Jordan Goodman is a historian presently affiliated as an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, UCL. He has written widely in the fields of the history of human rights, cultural history and the history of science for both a general and an academic audience. His talk is based on his book, The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man’s Battle for Human Rights in South America’s Heart of Darkness, (London, 2009/New York, 2010).

This event is the seventh of eight talks in the series titled The British Business of Slavery, curated by Deborah Lavin.