- #British parliamentary papers qwiki trial#
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The case helped encourage the foundation of the Congo Reform Association – by Roger Casement and E. It also damaged the reputation of King Leopold II of Belgium as a benevolent despot, which he had cultivated with so much effort.
#British parliamentary papers qwiki free#
The Stokes Affair mobilized British public opinion against the Congo Free State. In August 1896, the appeal was confirmed in Brussels by the Supreme Court of Congo, paving the way for the rehabilitation of Lothaire. Lothaire was acquitted twice, first in April 1896 by a tribunal in Boma. Stokes's body was returned to his family. 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 or death sentences on European citizens.
#British parliamentary papers qwiki trial#
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. Īs a result, the case became an international incident, better known as the Stokes Affair. The press began to report on these events in great detail, The Daily News emphasized 'bloodthirsty precipitation', The Times a 'painful and disgraceful death', The Liverpool Daily Post 'horrified amazement through the British race', The Daily Telegraph '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?". In August 1895, the attention of the British press was drawn to this case by Lionel Decle, a journalist for the Pall Mall Gazette. Sanderson, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 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.” When the German ambassador asked Sir Thomas H. Sir John Kirk, for years the British Consul in Zanzibar, 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. Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister at the time, commented that if Stokes was in league with Arab slave-trading, then ‘he deserved hanging’. To Lothaire, Charles Stokes was no more than a criminal whose hanging was fully justified. On 14 January 1895 he was sentenced to death and was hanged the next day (hoisted on a tree). Stokes was found guilty of selling guns, gunpowder and detonators to the Congo Free State's Afro-Arab enemies. Stokes was arrested and taken to Captain Lothaire in Lindi, who immediately formed a Drumhead court-martial.
Through intercepted letters, Captain Hubert-Joseph Lothaire, the commander of the Congo Free State forces in the Ituri-campaign, learned that Charles Stokes (born in Dublin) was on his way from German East Africa to sell weapons to the Zanzibari slavers in the eastern Congo region. Researchers should budget both time and patience when working with the Parliamentary Papers.Main articles: Congo Arab war and Stokes Affair Lastly, indexes vary in much the same way as the collections. Some of the collections overlap as to content. Some collections are in print format, while other collections are in a variety of micro-formats or online.
#British parliamentary papers qwiki series#
The papers are grouped in a variety of sets and series (collections), the arrangement of which vary. “Researching British Parliamentary papers and other British documents is not always a straightforward task. For more information about how Parliament works, visit the About Parliament and Publication sections of the UK Parliament website. The HCPP are vital to the historical record of Britain, its former Colonies, and the wider world. The House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) are the working documents of the British Government, encompassing all areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy, showing how issues were explored and legislation was formed.
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