Part One: Roger Casement: The Gay Irish Anti-Colonial Knight

Margaret talks with author Wren Awry about Roger Casement, whose reporting helped end the brutal reign of Leopold II of Belgium.

Preorder Wren's book Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest & Mutual Aid, out Spring 2023: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1321

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
a show about people and movements and such that I
think are cool. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and with
me today is my guest Rent Awry, a writer whose
work kind of got me excited about the ways that
we can write history. So I'm excited to have them
on the podcast. Bren, How are you doing, I'm doing good.
How are you doing? I'm okay, I'm um. My dog

(00:24):
is running around outside and hopefully we'll stay doing so
for the next while. Uh So, when you have a
book coming out that is about what is about? What's
your book? Was happening? So it's actually an anthology that
I edited, UM and it's called Nourishing Resistance Stories of Food,
Protests and Mutual Aid UM and it's out. It's going

(00:44):
to be out from PM Press sometime next early winter
or spring. They're still kind of figuring that out. UM
And it's a collection of about twenty one pieces that
talk about the relationship between food and food culture and UM,
street protest, street movements, mutual aid history, all that sorts
of stuff. Yeah, which is why I have you wanted

(01:04):
to talk about something that has nothing to do about
but I thought that the topic of your book would
be interesting to people who listen to this podcast. So cool. Yeah,
we also have Sophie on the call. Who is our
our mean overlord? How are you doing Today's Sophie feeling? Next?
Your mean today? Margaret? What you do? Oh? And Ian

(01:28):
does our editing? And a woman wrote our theme music. Yeah,
you better say that. I'm just overlording what I mean
because I was three walks so much us that was
so funny. I was mean and Margaret couldn't handle it. Okay,
So today we are not talking about food. I mean,

(01:49):
I guess we'll probably talk about food a little bit,
but it's not the main topic. And instead I thought
I would pigeonhole you to talk about some Irish ship instead. Um,
so today you're talking about a guy who Okay, here's
some of the things that I've heard him called Ireland's
first gay icon, the man who brought down King Leopold,
the world's most important humanitarian, at least while he was alive.

(02:11):
He was this colonialist turned anti colonialist. He's one of
the martyrs of Ireland. He was hanged for treason for
the Easter Rising of nineteen sixteen and Okay, So, author
Rebecca Solnett once said quote, most of his biographers have
openly disliked him in a way that is almost unique
in the genre. A lot of people who wrote about

(02:34):
him wrote about him kind of like hate wrote about
him because he's a trader to England and he's not
the same as the other Easter Rising rebels, and or
he likes having sex with men. Yeah, all of good
reasons to hate right about someone. Yeah, exactly, you know. Yeah,
it's funny because, um, I don't know if this will

(02:56):
make it into the podcast, but I interview people kind
of a lot, and so I used to listening to
people and like smiling and nodding and trying not to
say anything. So this is gonna be a really good
challenge of like actually responding to what you're saying. Ah, yes, yeah,
because I'm used to being like, oh, yes, not smile,
not like get the person to keep talking about whatever
they're talking about. Yes, no, you should interrupt me instead

(03:18):
of just I'm gonna work on that. Yeah. Okay, So
today we are talking about Sir Roger casement Um, and
I'm not going to be on the list of biographers
who dislike him. When have you. Have you heard of
Sir Roger Casement before? Only the name? Okay, cool or

(03:39):
you're gonna learn a lot about him, including some of
his sexual preferences. Sounds great, great. So Roger David Casement,
he was Roddy to his to his family, was born
on September one, eighteen sixty four, outside of Dublin, to
a Protestant family in I guess what guess called teal poverty.

(04:01):
I don't really know how this relates to regular poverty.
But they have like a good name and they think
really highly of themselves, but they don't actually have any
money or property because they're you know, I don't understand England.
They have like the status, but not the economic cloud
or something. Yeah, that's the best I can tell. Like, okay,
so um. His grandfather had briefly been really rich. He

(04:24):
was a shipping merchant, uh and then he went bankrupt
and then died in Australia on one of his trips.
And his father, his father is kind of interesting. His father,
also Roger Casement, which is probably why he got called Roddy,
was a soldier who had resigned from soldiering in order
to fight in when, like all of Europe decided to
have different various types of revolutions, so he volunteered to

(04:48):
help Hungary free itself from Austria. I cannot find any reasoning,
Like no one's like, oh yeah, this is why it
is random irishman like went and joined Hungary. But he did.
And he was really big into democracy and not kings,
which was a big part of the eight thing, was
preferring not kings. He was also into not holding down

(05:12):
a job. And his family moved around constantly to England,
to France, to Italy, but not like as like rich
people bombing around, but like literally just as like Dad
was trying to find jobs. Totally took different jobs in
different places. He went off. He kept trying to go
off and join various revolutions. This is dad. Still we're
talking about elder Roger. He wanted to go yeah, yeah,

(05:35):
which is probably whateveryone called him. Uh So he wanted
to go off and join various revolutions. But his wife
basically is like, you can't actually do that. You need
a job. You need what you need to do is
get a job and pay for your kids. And he's like,
but what if I go join the French as they
fight against the Prussians or whatever, and his wife's like,

(05:55):
you probably shouldn't. And then he's like, okay, but what
if I joined in Irish rebellion And she's like, once again,
it's not I you think that's what you should do.
So that's dad. He was a very mixed message kind
of dad. He used to chase the kids around the
house with a rod in order to beat them with
the rod. Uh yeah, which is the style at the time,

(06:17):
but also not great. He also taught his kids to
be kind to animals and how to splint up the
broken wings of birds, so yeah, very both and here
yeah yeah um, which I have a feeling that this
is a major impact. I try not to, like always
just read into the people I'm writing about, being like

(06:39):
they're basically just what their parents made them to be.
But well you'll see, Okay, mom was Catholic sort of.
She was probably a convert, and supposedly she snuck the
kids off and had them secretly baptized when they were kids.
It is completely possible that this is part of the
myth making of Roger Casement, because Irish heroes aren't supposed

(07:01):
to be Protestant um, but they were raised somewhere between
Protestant and not very religious. They saw themselves as Protestant.
Dad for a while got into spiritualism, which everyone should
go and listen to Jamie Loftus's podcast Ghost Church to
learn about spiritualism. It's a very good podcast. Yeah, yeah,

(07:23):
it's so good. Yeah. I mean, there's no other history podcast.
This is the only history podcast, um ghost Churches, only
about contemporary matters. No, it's a really good history podcast. Okay.
So Roddy, as his family calls him, is the youngest
of four. This is the nineteenth century, so his parents
don't last very long. Sources argue exactly about when everyone died,

(07:46):
but probably his mom died when Roger was nine of
liver failure, probably in part because they couldn't afford proper
medical care like hers could have been treated. I think
that one of the things that kind of comes up
a lot in this stuff is that people sort of
forget that nineteenth century Ireland was it really fucking poor place,

(08:07):
like a place thrown into poverty by colonization. Yeah. So
after that, the kids go off and live with Dad's
family in Northern Ireland Ulster, and Dad does not live
with the kids. Dad lives nearby in a hotel that
just kind of further give you the idea of what
Dad is like weird, and Dad dies four years later.

(08:28):
He's laid low by friend of the Pod, the killer
of basically everyone who isn't killed by states or war suberculosis.
So his parents are dead and the kids are living
with an aunt. And instead of this going like wicked
step family, here he loves his his new family. Um,
he becomes a mama's boy, but for his aunt and

(08:49):
his cousins all remember him fondly. And also, this guy's
basically a folk hero, so everyone's like, oh, yeah, he
was great. I loved everything about him. So it's like,
I don't know, like it's really hard to tell, right,
And there's that mythologizing. Yeah, as a kid, he liked
to tell stories, especially stories about fairies. He loved reading

(09:10):
history and poetry. He sang and played piano and wrote
plays and acted. And I honestly cannot believe that people
are struggling to believe that he's gay. I just everything
about like all of the stories are like, he had
so many emotions and he loved his sisters, and like
it's just I mean you could be a heterosexual man
to do all of those things. I'm more power to

(09:30):
every heterosexual man who does these things. But I can't
believe people are surprised. But isn't this like history over
and over again, It's like very clear that some historical
figure was likely gay or queer in some way, and
people are like, no, no, no, he was just like
married to God or something. Yeah, yeah, totally totally, And
and then I almost feel bad for the people in
history who were just like straight up married to God

(09:52):
and we're like, no, I actually wasn't a lesbian. I
mean nothing against him, but yeah, like I feel like
a in history has also written out you know, um,
this man is not ace, he's a size queen. But
we'll get to that later. So I'm just gonna keep
dropping these hints, just really excited for when we start
talking about the measurements of various people's sticks or make

(10:16):
people really excited. Okay, so he he does well in school,
but it's this Northern Irish super colonized education, so they
doesn't they don't teach him anything about his own country, Ireland.
But he's really interested in Irish history, so he learns
that by going around and talking to old folks and
people who have been alive in the previous century, and um,

(10:36):
and he starts writing as a teenager. He starts starts
writing all this like nationalist poetry about Irish resistance to England.
And here I think it's probably worth pointing out for
anyone's listening who's not familiar. When I say nationalists in
this context, I don't mean like America were number one.
I mean like people who are like, wouldn't it be
cool if Ireland wasn't being colonized by England? Totally? Yeah,

(10:58):
important distinction, Yeah yeah, um yeah. It's also the whole
thing is kind of funny, right because Ireland is this
land of like nationalists being mostly left wing, not inherently,
and then like Republicans being like very actively left wing. Um,
and it doesn't map very well too us ignorance. But

(11:19):
then it also gets weirdly like all over the map
at times, right, Like there's there are certain contingents of
Irish nationalists and Republicans while most of them were left
wing that like do become fascists during World War Two
and stuff. Yeah, there's like all sorts of really weird. Yeah,
it's like doesn't map at all. Yeah yeah, and even
even this guy Casement, I have not found a like

(11:40):
a normal mapping to his politics or a mapping that
makes sense in twenty one century totally. Um yeah yeah.
But yeah, so now he's growing up. He is a
handsome lad. Everyone like that is kind of one of
the especially because he's in a lot of like gay
history podcasts and gay are articles and ship and they're like, Okay,

(12:01):
we're just gonna show you a lot of pictures of
this guy. He's real, he's nice to look at. Uh.
He's six ft three, is curly black hair, is gray,
blue eyes, and everyone's really charmed by him all the time.
And he gets a job and as a clerk in
England at some shipping company through an uncle who works
in shipping. And he's like, I am not sucking doing this.

(12:24):
Or rather, he writes his sister and says, I must
have an open air life or I shall die. He's
not a not dramatic guy in his way, he writes.
So he gets himself and so so he's raised right,
like I mean, he's like on this, like already's on
his Irish nationalist kick a little bit as a kid.
But He is raised in the era of like colonizing

(12:44):
Africa is where adventure is, and it's like how to
prove your life and have an interesting life or whatever.
So he's like, hell, yeah, I'm gonna go colonize Africa.
He gets himself onto one of his company's ships, and
he had down there and you know, a land of
adventure or whatever. The fuck. He gets really sick, as

(13:05):
post white people do at the time if they go
to Africa. He comes home and then he's like, no,
I'm going back. I'm going right back as soon as
he's better. In four he's nineteen or twenty, and he
goes off to the Congo, which means I get to
talk about one of the worst people in all of
history today, King fucking Leopold the Second Um. Sophie is

(13:30):
expressing her lack of interest in Leopold's well being um
through hand gestures that are employed. I My hypothesis is
the second is in his name because it's a reference
to second only to Hitler in terms of genocide numbers,
satisfactorally accurate. Yeah. Um, so if you're doing fact checking

(13:53):
for us, so let's talk about the Congo and Leopold.
When have you heard much about the ongoing Leopold I've
heard a little bit, um, but not as much as
I probably should know about it, um, considering it seems
like one of the worst atrocities in history. Yeah, and
it's I mean, that is one of the like absolute

(14:13):
things about this right, and that is so damning too,
especially white educations and like Western educations. It's like, I
am reasonably certain I learned about King Leopold as an adult.
If he was in my like high school history classes,
there was not so much attention to pay to it
that I like, it's stuck with me, you know, and

(14:36):
he is. I mean, this is like one of the
most evil things that's ever happened in history. I will,
for anyone's listening, I'm going to, like, um, describe some atrocities,
but I'm not going to linger avoid graphic detail all
of that kind of stuff. That's so King Leopold a
second is a creepy piece of ship guy who was

(14:57):
king of Belgium from eighteen sixty ninet No. Nine. He
got his kingdom from his dad, King Leopold the First,
who was not just the first King Leopold, but was
also the first King of Belgium since Belgium only became
independent and king Leopold. I think the best way to
understand him is that he hates music and loves money. Uh.

(15:18):
He also is like running around fucking preteen sex workers.
His wife, the Queen is terrified of him and spends
as much time as possible nowhere near him. But Leopold
has a problem not these things. Leopold has a problem
from his own perspective, which is that he's not an
autocrat um, and he's really bummed about that Parliament is

(15:39):
doing most of the ruling. And if only there were
somewhere for Leopold to rule autocratically. Let's talk about the Congo.
There's this guy. He's another not nice guy. His name
is Henry Morton Stanley. He's an explorer. Explorers are like
the rock stars of the era, only instead of making

(16:02):
music and being creeps and doing lots of drugs, explorers
shoot their way across Africa and murder everyone in their
bath and gets sick from tropical diseases. Not all the
explorers are equally murderous. Henry Morton Stanley is one of
the most murderous. I don't know if he's number one
I haven't done a he's up there. I don't know

(16:23):
if he's number one either, but he's definitely up there.
He's definitely on the on the top charts. Yeah yeah,
And they're probably all just really horrible. All the degrees
of murderous, any degree of murderous. It's true, Yeah, it's true.
Reason Yeah, fair enough. And as I was writing this,

(16:47):
I was thinking to myself, I don't want to linger
too long in these people. If only there was some
sort of podcast that explored the bastards of history. So
there's this podcast called Behind the Bastards. It's really good.
They talked about all this ship. No one would listen
to that kind of podcast. Yeah, it's it's really bash
for your mental health. But the host is really nice. Yeah,

(17:09):
totally very charming. So Okay, In eighteen seventy six, is
eight years before Casement heads to Africa, Henry Stanley was
off being a fucking Africa. He and three other white
people along with two hundred plus black people across the continent.
They took nine days to do it. I have a
feeling they were like rushing just to get that to

(17:32):
come in across the three digit line and along the
way the three other white people die, which is cool. Um,
he almost died, which is almost cool. And more than
a hundred of the black people who came with them
died and I can't speak to that one where or
the other. They all did all kinds of really horrific
ship everyone they ran across along the way. What an

(17:53):
adventure story. Everyone was very excited about it. He made
his living off of going around and telling about how
he would um kidnap people's families and say I will
give you back your children if you give us food.
But fortunately for every nobody, now they have maps of
the Congo River. And this is the first time that
Europe realizes that they can access Central Africa from the

(18:16):
west coast instead of the east coast, because the East
coast is dominated by Arab influences. And so this is
the first time Europe is like, hell, yeah, we can
rob the ship out of this place without have to
go through people who also have firearms. And so Stanley
is like, hey, I got this map to treasure a
k A exploitable land. He goes to Britain and he's like, hey,

(18:37):
develop the Congo River basin and Britain is like, oh,
that sounds kind of hard. We don't want to it.
So he's like, where will I find some piece of
ship who will give me money to develop this region,
and low and behold, he meets King Leopold the Second,
who had been hoping you to get into the colonization game.
So he's excited and he's like, hey, Stanley, let's talk.

(18:59):
I would like to this country that you're selling, which
is twice the size of Texas. It's like, I've heard
a bunch of different comparisons of the size of territory
that's being talked about, but it is like the size
of Western Europe. It is a not small trunk of
place and has millions of people living there. I mean
it's empty. So Stanley gets tasked with developing the means

(19:21):
to access the river, such as riverboat stops and a
road to bypass the worst of the rapids because at
the very base of the rivers a bunch of rapids.
And they're like, oh, we can't send a riverboat up.
But you'll be happy to know that none of this
is colonization. This is philanthropy. Uh, it's not presented as
colonization at all. Interesting perspective. Yeah, and it's not even

(19:45):
quite like white man's burden, like colonization. They like it's
like straight up at this point, it's like no, no, no,
we're just um, we're helping, he says. Leopold doesn't go
in there as Leopold at first. He goes in there
with all of these shell companies that are these philanthropic entities,
and he like fund raises. He doesn't put his own
money into this. He like goes around and he's like, um,

(20:08):
I'm going to bring them civilization. I'm going to bring
them free trade, which a ka means bring the rest
of Europe free trade. So please give me money, and
I'm going to end the slave trade was his big
pitch to the rabble, to the public opinion, because parts
of Africa that are under Arab influence at this time

(20:28):
were heavily involved in slave trade, and so this part
sounds great, right, ending the slave trade, drive out the slavers.
And I am impressed that Leopold managed to make things
even worse by several orders of magnitude um and managed
to be wildly racist against both Africans and Middle Eastern
folks in the process. So Stanley is down there building

(20:51):
roads and ports. He doesn't even know he's working directly
for Leopold, because these shall companies are all like fucking companies.
I don't think you would have cared. I don't think
you had any morals. I'm not sure. I haven't done
a ton of research about him. I just know he
did absolutely terrible things and I hate him. They go
around and they trick all the tribal chiefs into signing
the way their land. They use the essential kindness of

(21:13):
the the different tribes that they meet against them. Basically,
they say, hey, come sign a non aggression treaty and
we can all be friends. And they were like, great,
I will sign that nonaggression treaty, which was actually a
treaty that's like, henceforth, all your land is my land,
fuck you forever or whatever. But you know who else
is trying to steal everything that everyone has. I don't

(21:36):
actually know the products and services that support this podcast.
Ah those beautiful Margaret. Thanks, here's some advertisers, and we
are back, okay, and we are talking about all the
terrible tricks you can pull to get people to give

(21:58):
up things like he like they like make handbuzzers out
of a battery and like run wires up to their hands,
and so then when they shake people's hands, they like
electrocute them very slightly, and so people are like, holy ship,
these people are so strong, and their friends like, yeah,
that guy can like rip trees up out of the ground,
and there's like no particular reason to disbelieve someone who's

(22:20):
just like shaking your handle, like you know, it's yeah,
that's so creepy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so Europe. The
rest of Europe sees all this, and it's like, oh,
should we better hurry up and steal all the rest
of Africa? And you get what's called the Scramble for Africa.
They all meet up in Berlin, all the different countries
and they come up with some rules for their gentlemanly

(22:41):
competition to see who can rob Africa most effectively. Leopold
is actually kind of an evil genius and he's a
master of diplomacy, and he gets the country. He gets
Congo by playing Portugal in England off of each other.
In February, he declares the free state of Congo because

(23:03):
he and I have different definitions of what I was
going to say, free of what? Yeah, um, And ironically
you would be like, well, it just means free trade.
Oh no, he's completely lying about the free trade things
they pulled sucks, Like, I can't even emphasize they pulled
sex and we're not even we're not even into it yet.
Oh yes, yeah. So this new state needs a ruler,

(23:27):
and King Leopold is like, oh, I could be a ruler.
And he becomes the private owner of the Congo. It's
not under Belgian rule. It's something called personal union. I
had never heard of this before. It turns out you
can be the king of more than one distinct country
without the countries having anything legally to do with each other.
So he's two countries now and the Congo. He gets

(23:49):
to rule as an autocrat. Um and I think he
never once steps foot into this country that he rules autocratically.
He he owns this place for twenty three years and
he never fucking sees it with his own eyes. What
a good system, monarchy. So Roger Caseman, he's twenty and

(24:14):
he wants adventure and he's down. He heads on down
to the Congo to help Stanley out. This is a
year before is a year before the Free State is founded,
and he becomes like a major player. But not in
this like he's not second in command to Stanley or
anything like that. And he's like, but he's he's like
a manager. I think he's like a mid level guy
most of his career, and I think at this point

(24:37):
he's a true believer in this, uh, the philanthropic side
of colonization. Um, He's like, we'll bring the world to them,
they'll get to trade, they'll get to be a country,
will open them up to missionaries and make them all
Christian and say, if their souls will stop slavery, we're
the good guys. And he's like, basically, surely the things

(25:00):
that I'm down here doing building roads in the Congo
will win me a place on Margaret Kiljoy's hit podcast
series Cool People Did Cool Stuff. Yeah, Yeah, totally, there's
some it feels like there's some going back before your
joke right there. It feels like there's some true definition
of white saviorism happening. Yeah with Roger Casement at this point. Yeah,

(25:23):
so yeah, yeah, and a lot of the other people
at kind of his level, I believe are getting into
it for but also the wrong reasons totally, you know,
but yeah, what they think are the right reasons, but
but yeah, so Stanley heads back to Europe, Roger Casement,
a ton of the others stay by and they work
to expand territorial control within the congo Um. And one

(25:45):
of the reasons it's so interesting is because he's he
helps set up the infrastructure for this ship that's going
to be happening, right He's building transportation infrastructure, he's building
railroads to bypass part of the rivers. He's um and
you know, he's down there setting it all up. Everyone
writes at the time that he is the sweetest, most

(26:05):
gentleman who got upset at every injustice. Like they're kind
of pointed it out because they're kind of annoyed by him.
Everyone was like, oh, he's so great, but it's like
kind of this like forced smile. He's so great. He
doesn't let me get away with all the horrible things
and uh. And apparently he spends the whole time also
talking ship on England while he's like down there doing

(26:26):
fucking dirty work for colonization. At one point, one observer
talks about how oddly gentle he was among the rest
of his company, kind of implying almost like this, like
he's very athletic and strong or whatever. Right, but he's like,
people are kind of like, what the funk are you
doing down here? After all? This is how weak he is.
When his favorite dog is gutted in front of him

(26:47):
by a boar, he cries like a girl. And just
in case you thought I was going to mention dead
dogs on this podcast, the dog survives amazing. His friends
pick up the dog, put his insides back inside of it,
stitch it up. But yeah, so that's that's what a

(27:08):
weakling he is. He's down there, he starts figuring out
that something is wrong, and he's like, the whole place
is kind of being run as a private enterprise. This
is the first stuff he picks up on. We don't know.
He doesn't know about the worst stuff yet, right, but
he's like, why is my salary being paid by Americans
not the Belgian government? Um? And why are like and
the locals don't want to work, why are we making

(27:31):
them work? Um? You know. Basically he gets this like, hey, guys,
you could join the European economy and they're like, we're good.
The reason why we would do that. He learns a
bunch of indigenous languages. He makes friends with locals. Ever,
he went, or at least so go the biographies. Um, Like,

(27:52):
I literally and all of the stuff I read about
him did not find like one negative statement from about
how he interacted with indigenous fall everywhere he went. But
I don't know whether that is true. Yeah, totally, besides,
of course the fact that he helped build the infrastructure
of that. Okay, anyway, he gets fired for being an idealist,

(28:13):
and he starts moving from job to job and he's
basically private contractor down there. Eventually starts working for a
local mission, and he gets in trouble because he's actually
paying the locals well for food, and they're like, no,
no, no no, you gotta pay them as little as you
can get away with. And he was like, no, I
should pay them as much as we can afford. Like, no, no, no,
as little as you can get away with. He's like,
as much as we can afford. Uh. And he's like, oh,

(28:33):
even the fucking missions down here are just Leopold's private
evil thing, which was completely true, as we learned later.
Well we all learned right now because I'm about to
read the quote, but the world learned a little bit later.
In a speech to the Belgian missions Leopold said, they
know that to kill, to sleep with someone else's wife,
to lie and insult is bad. Have courage to admit it.

(28:56):
You are not going to teach them what they know already.
You're a central role is to facilitate the task of
administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret
the Gospel in the way that it will best protect
your interests in that part of the world. So he's
basically just naming what um, what the religious role in
colonization has always been, which is to just be a

(29:19):
tool of of subjugation and genocide and and conquest and
all of those really really terrible things. Yeah, I almost
appreciate how honest it is, almost, And so he hangs out.
He's like, he keeps quitting job after job, but he

(29:39):
he keeps not totally leaving because it's the only thing
he knows how to do. Um And around this time
he starts seeing some of the horrors, which means now
we're going to talk about the horrors of the congo.
Leopold ran the congo basically is a big place to
extract rubber from. There's other stuff too, like ivory, but
mostly rob he managed to kill between a third to

(30:03):
half of the population of the place, and the process
of extracting as much rubber as possible over about twenty
years up somewhere between eight and thirteen million people by
most estimates, and the estimates are very hard to come
by for reasons that will continue to talk about throughout UM.
He essentially enslaved the entire country. Ah, what he did
was he demanded the extraction of taxes from the population.

(30:27):
But they didn't use currency, not all of them. Some
of them use currency mostly. I think brass rods was
the primary currency at the time, but most of them
weren't using currency, so everyone could just pay taxes in labor.
What a deal. So he set up an elaborate hierarchy
to extract the resources while shifting blame around UM and
it's one of the most brilliantly evil things that's ever

(30:48):
been set up in the world. So, okay, here's what works.
Rubber grows and vines, and the grows in trees. The
congo is full of the vines. The trees are more
from the in the Amazon, but and the vines are
hard to get rubber out of. But it doesn't matter.
If you could just murder everyone who doesn't do the
hard work right. So he sets up a system. You've
got an army, the Force Publique, and it's run by

(31:10):
white people, Belgians, I think exclusively Belgians. And then you've
got the rest of the army pretty much exclusively African,
mostly from uh many from there in the Congo, and
many from elsewhere including um West Africa. And a lot
of these people are also essentially a slave army. It's
a little bit complicated, but there's a lot of forced

(31:31):
labor going on everywhere. Then you have everyone else. Every
village has a rubber quota. The guys who are running
the area, the white officers. They get a commission for
all the rubber and so they and they have zero
oversight and all the incentive in the world to do
this as dirty as possible and as quick as possible.
So they make people work by kidnapping their kids and families.

(31:51):
They burned down whole villages. They wi people to death
with whips made out of rhino hyde. Some of this stuff.
They got the idea for it from what they did
when they were first setting up, which is the thing
that I actually think that Casement must have known about
at least on some level. I can't see anyone acknowledging
this one way or the other. But I I struggled
to see how he didn't, which was that they needed
first tens of thousands and eventually, I think, like a

(32:12):
million porters to move all of this stuff on these roads,
because the steamboats only take you so far. Um. And
what they would do is that they would kidnap women
and children and say we'll let them go one for one,
or men who can work as porters. So all this
would be bad enough. Right, He's enslaved the entire country.

(32:33):
That would be up there on the list of worst
things that's ever happened. The officers are worried that the
soldiers are going to stockpile AMMO to murder them, which
is a reasonable worry because it is a reasonable thing
that the soldiers. Yeah, And they also didn't want the
soldiers hunting and wasting their precious AMMO that had to
come all the way from Belgium. So all of the

(32:54):
bullets go out on one condition. You only get so
many bullets, and for every bullet you fire, you have
to bring back the right hand of whomever you shot.
What the fuck? Yeah, which which creates a market for hands. Sorry,
I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no, sorry,
I'm just taking in how how absolutely horrific this is.
He's he's like, he's like the evilest of the evil. Yeah,

(33:21):
so he creates a market for hands. If you shoot
an animal because you're hungry, you just go find a
living person and cut off their hand. Um, the hands
are smoked to preserve them, and then they're just so
that they could be counted at like counting houses, and
they're basically currency at this point. Uh. Some soldiers were
told they could go home if they hit hit certain

(33:41):
quotas of hands. So baskets of hands was as much
the resource that was extracted from the congo. And what
was interesting is a strange word to use for this.
This wasn't legal even by like the rules of like
the very loose rules of colonization, right, and even the
ostensible rules of the congo. But there's no oversight, and

(34:02):
that's very intentional, and no one from outside the congo
was going to go up into the congo to find
out what was happening. Almost nobody And we'll get to
some of the people who did that soon. But first
I want to talk about the real histories of this
the heroes of this podcast more even more than Casement.
I like Casement a lot. The real heroes of this
history I struggled to find a lot of information about.

(34:23):
So it's gonna be a little bit of a shorter section.
I want to talk about the resistance to all this
from within the Congo itself. Awesome, Um one kingdom in
the Congo. And there's the other thing too, write there's
entire kingdoms. This is not a wherever I guess so
mad at my own bad education, where everything I've learned
about Africa, you know, when I'm like, oh that like anyway, Okay,

(34:44):
So there's entire kingdoms in the Congo. One of them,
Cuba repels three separate attacks and only fell in nine.
And they repelled three separate attacks without guns against people
who have maximum guns like machine guns, you know. And
there's a there's a Congolese fight song that I want
to quote. We are tired of living under tyranny. We

(35:07):
cannot endure are that our women and children are taken
away and dealt with by white savages. We shall make war.
We know that we shall die. We want to die.
We want to die. So yeah, it's just they were
fucking playing around. You know. Revolts spread across the entire country,
which is actually, I mean, one of the things that's

(35:29):
so complicated is that they did not conceive of themselves
as a country that was a European imposition. And you
know there's a lot of like shared culture and stuff.
And I'm not an expert in this. I read as
much as I could find, but um, the revolts spread
across the country. One medicine man at Chilly Capilli, he
spreads around a charm called the Tonga Tonga that was

(35:49):
supposed to protect his bear from the white man's bullets.
But it only worked if you refuse the white man's
food and other goods, which is I mean, it's it's clever,
right because it it sort of obviously doesn't successfully stop bullets.
But what it does is it disinvests people from the
system of colonization. Um. And it spreads insurrection because people

(36:10):
start refusing to trade because they no longer want the
white man's goods, and rebellion spreads because it gives people courage. Um,
they burn entire rubber factories and missions to the ground.
There's like reports from missionaries that are like, we came
home and our whole place was ashes, and I'm like,
oh no, I feel so bad for you. You survived,

(36:32):
That's all you could ask for. Across the whole of
the country. This is mostly a little bit later, This
is like nineteen o four, but they laid siege to
cities and they did all of this again without guns
in the English at the maximum gun um by n five,
that particular rebellion was crushed. And then the other form

(36:53):
that resistance took is people fled tens of thousands, hundreds
of thousands, maybe millions of people. Again I couldn't totally
find out. Um, they just moved entire villages of tens
of thousands of people which just disappear into the jungle
rather than do this work. So yeah, when the Belgians

(37:14):
threat a village, the entire village will suck off. And
my my realization after reading um some of this stuff
about the resistance was like that that the Congo wasn't
really conquered by Leopold. It was like fucked up by Leopold,
but it it never became this like stable structure that
was conquered, you know, mm hmmm. There was enough resistance

(37:37):
happening from within. Yeah, and I don't you know again,
like I don't know, but okay. And then earlier when
I said that no one would go investigate, I talk
about the people who did investigate. And the first person
to go investigate was a black American named George Washington
Williams Um. And he was fucking cool. So I'm gonna

(37:59):
tell you about him. Cool. I got really excited when I, like,
I don't know whatever, whenever I'm doing this and I'm like,
I read about a bastard, and I'm like, there's a
reason I run the podcast I run. So I'm like, oh,
I get to read about Stanley right now. Okay, that's fine.
And then I'm like, oh, ship the first fucking guy
who went there. He's like George Washington Williams. He was
born free in Pennsylvania. When he was fourteen, he ran

(38:21):
away from home. He used a fake name to enlist
in the Union Army because he's fucking cool. And then
as soon as the Union wins, Um he goes to
Mexico and he joins the Republicans. They're fighting against the
Emperor of Mexico. Uh so he's he's two for two
in my book at this point, right his his okay,

(38:42):
the one move, okay whatever, I'm not starting to sit
in judgment. But he comes back to the US in
eighteen sixty seven and he joins the U. S Army
and he fights in the Indian wars Okaya, which is
not as cool. He gets shot through the lung for
his trouble, which is sort of like, well, I mean,
I like you, but you're fighting in the Indian Wars
um But he survives. He becomes a Baptist preacher, a lawyer,

(39:05):
and he's the first black person in the Ohio State Legislature, UM,
and he wrote the first overall history of black Americans,
which is called The History of the Negro Race in
America six nine eight eight, UM and A. In that book,
he's one of the first people to use the phrase
crimes against humanity and the modern sense. And it seems

(39:26):
to me to be very fitting that that phrase comes
from the US treatment of black people. Mm hmm. So
he's this huge anti slavery guy, right, So he goes
to go meet Leopold because Leopold is also a huge
anti slavery guy. He's fighting this whole war against slavers
in Central Africa, and so he's like, hell, yeah, I'm

(39:46):
going to go down to the Congo and check it out.
After he means Leopold, and then he goes down there
and then he checks it out and he's like oh no,
m hm, oh no, not this, um. And so he
writes his findings up for the world to scene. He
frames it as an open letter to Leopold, as if

(40:08):
the atrocities would be like a surprise. It's like, boy,
but you didn't know what's going down in your country
while you're at you're at home, you know. I think
he knew that. Leopold now, um, And so he starts
the European movement to free the Congo from Leopold UM,
and Leopold puts his pr powers and demotion to counter

(40:29):
all of this. And it's the nineteenth century. So a
year after he gets back from the Congo, George Washington
Williams dies in England of fucking tuberculosis. Mm hmm okay,
like everyone else unfortunately. Yeah, basically, UM, there's a couple

(40:50):
of people throughout the story who die kind of mysteriously
after like fucking with Leopold. MM. I don't think I
think he just died of tuberculosis. Okay, let's talk about
Caseman again. His life gets boring for a while, or
rather full of adventures that I don't have time for.
He he's no longer in the Congo. He was only

(41:12):
in the Congo at the very beginning of the Congo
um or the Congo Free State, right. He starts working
for the British Console Service in various countries around Africa,
which is basically this weird job where you're like really
badly paid and in terrible conditions, but you're a mix
of a bureaucrat and an administrator and a spy like.
He gets sent to like a Portuguese colony for a

(41:33):
few years to run an office to um keep track
of what the Portuguese are up, to make sure that
the British ships get in and out of the colony okay,
and that all British citizens and subjects aren't being mistreated
by the Portuguese. And he spends most of his time
complaining about his ill health, writing poetry, having his poetry

(41:54):
rejected by everyone he sends it to. It's probably rejected
because it's not particularly good. Um. It's kind of like
the almost running joke about this guy just like he
really he wrote a lot of poetry. It's it's fine, um.
But also I actually think one of the things that
might have been working against him was how political it was,
and like he's working for the British Console Service and

(42:16):
he's just writing these poems about how like any African
who trust England is going to die, England is terrible.
What's happening? And that's like kind of the essential thing
that I sort of like, that's like the mystery of
Roger Casement, I think, is this time period where he
knows what's wrong, but he also still works for the wrong.

(42:39):
Yeah yeah, there's still like this very strong complicity and
what's happening. Yeah yeah, although it weirdly gives me a
certain amount of hope about um, the people who interact
with really bad infrastructure today, um that like might actually
uh have a little Roger Caseman in them, which could

(43:02):
be a sex joke, except he's a bottom, so really
it be them having a little bit in Roger Casements. Funny,
think you've ever said yes, yes, I win, you do
you do win? Okay? And so this is the time

(43:27):
period that a lot of the biographies argue about also
the most because everyone's kind of trying to figure out
what the funk is up with this guy, and some
of the Anglo focused ones. A lot of his biographies
come out from like mid twentieth century British people, right,
or like maybe some Irish people but loyalists and stuff,
you know, with people who are unsure if they're loyal
whatever anyway, so a lot of them are like, he

(43:49):
was a good royal subject until one day his mind
was broken by the tropical heat into like evil air
of Africa um, or you have a he was a
good loyal British citizen until he saw the atrocities and
finally realized colonialism was bad, or you have the really
Irish focused biographies will all focus on how he was

(44:11):
always a true believer in Ireland, always an Irish nationalist.
It's just a little bit weird. He worked for Britain
and he uh and he wanted to die while charging
an English castle in Ireland is actually something he said
to his friends at first points. Okay, they were like,
how are you gonna die? And he's like, I'm gonna
get hanged by the British. Um. It seems like maybe

(44:31):
his dreams maybe came true. Is this a spoiler alert?
I'm not going to tell you one way or the other. RN.
Do you have any good things that you would like
the show to be sponsored? You know, I was trying
to think about that because I thought this might come up.
I think that maybe when you go to a community
dinner and the food is not like, um, really mediocre

(44:56):
like burned lentils, but actually like really delicious, exciting food,
I would like to be sponsored by that in general.
So maybe the show would also like to be sponsored
by that. Like, it's just such a delight, the concept
of delicious communal food. Yeah, like I you know, the
occasional burn lentils. It happens if I'm invited and I
actually cook. We all have a little bit of acceptance

(45:18):
for burned lentils, for burn lentils, but there's other roles
or dishes to be washed. Yeah, okay, maybe that would
usually bring the seltzer. Yeah, perfect, Okay, I like that. Um,
we are sponsored by that and only that, And if
anything else interrupts this podcast, it was entirely a mistake,

(45:45):
and we are back from talking about all of the
delicious meals that we all will share together with no
other interruptions. So speaking of back, Roger Casement wants to
go back to Ireland. Okay, He's like, I don't know
whether he's just like done or whether he's just like
he feels stuck. He kind of can't quit a little bit.

(46:07):
He like, I think literally can't quit. I think he
does not have a ton of um autonomy over his
own life at this point. Um. And he's constantly like
faking sick to get to go home and also being
actually sick to get to go home. And he goes
home for surgeries and then kind of like takes a
little bit longer to recover than anyone wants them to

(46:27):
and stuff. And because he I think he increasingly hates
this work he does. And then he also does this
thing that I don't have the time or really I didn't.
I didn't have the time to really wrap my head around,
because it's really complicated. And he sticks his head into
the Boer War war the Boer War in South Africa.
He shows up on the British side, which is basically

(46:50):
when British imperialists fought against the Bowers, who are white
colonists who wanted independence. And he felt good about siding
with the British in this because he had seen how
the Bowers eat Africans. But later he was like, actually
fun both sides, and he never wore He like won
a medal for his service as a spy in the

(47:10):
Boer War, and I think he lad some ship um
and he he never wears the medal. And while he's
doing all of this, uh, and his entire fucking life,
he is just fucking people men, just and he's keeping
a journal about all of it, and he's like, fuck
these three guys today, a little bit tired. Um. And

(47:32):
it's very sexual, and he keeps in his journal exactly
how big everyone's dicks are. He is very excited when
he gets to funk the biggest dicks that he's ever gotten.
The fuck um. He feels completely uncomplicated about paining for sex,
which rules he um. He says pain for sex is
no worse than pain for a game game of billiards.

(47:53):
And it's It's interesting some of the more gay historians
talk about this about how it basically only experienced casual sex.
It seems like or we only have evidence of him
exploring casual sex because he's a very romantic soul right, okay,
and poetry and stuff. Yeah, I'm like crying when I

(48:14):
can't believe he cried when dog almost died, um right
in front of him. What a what a whimp? And
so some people have argued that maybe his casual affairs
were because he had to keep his homosexuality a secret.
A sustained relationship causes more of a stir, right, Yeah, absolutely,
I don't know. I could go either way, Like I
think a sweet romantic man could also just like sucking around.

(48:37):
And also the reason it's important is its basically makes
him a gay James Bond who then later turns on
his employers m m like he's sex christ handsome, charming,
chivalrous and speaks a million languages spy for the British. Um,

(48:57):
but then he fucking goes to war against the British
spoiler alert to second half of this. So I don't know,
I kind of like this, this is how James Bond
should be. That's what I'm saying. Totally. They're going to
really have to rewrite on that, you know. Absolutely, he
also saw homosexuality as a disease, but it was a

(49:18):
misfortune that was not the person's fault, and it should
probably be cured, but in the meantime everything's fine. And
you know, I I can't tell him how he should
have felt. You know. Yeah, he also drank and smoked
and danced and gambled, but all in very moderation, like
a lot of this stuff gets used against him later,

(49:40):
but he's like he tracks all of his gambling winnings
and losings. He only drinks in moderation, like he is
the like, you know, all things in moderation, including moderation.
That is this guy, mm hmm. And he starts hearing
more about what's going on in the Congo while he's
while he's doing the spy ship in other countries, and

(50:00):
he doesn't like what he's hearing. There's almost no trade
happening in the Congo, like everywhere else, there's at least
some vestiges of of European trade happening, right, but the
Congo rubber goes out, nice stuff does not go back in,
just guns and ammo. Another explorer, Edward Glave, who has

(50:21):
a cool name, decides to go and check out what's
going on in the Congo. Or maybe he's just off exploring.
It's hard to tell. I'm not super sure. Of his motives.
He dies mysteriously while he's off exploring the Congo. He's
a he's a white guy, and the Congo Free State
tries to destroy all of his journals. But they I mean,
they probably killed him, is what. I will go ahead

(50:41):
and on the record, come at me for slander, libel,
whatever I think. Probably if the Free State of Congo
wants to come at me. Um. Some of his journals
got out even though they destroyed a lot of them,
and his journals are basically, oh my god, oh my god,
my god, oh my god, oh my god, what the
fund is happening here? Um? Because it's really bad and

(51:05):
I don't want to linger. We went over the like
system of bad and I'm kind of choosing not to
linger on the bad but really fucking bad. So Casement,
a good civil servant, starts writing letters to the Free State,
being like, I think something bad is happening and you
should check it out and investigate yourself. You will be

(51:25):
shocked to know. This does not work, so he he
starts writing to England about it. England, they don't really
care about the mutilation and the slavery. They get upset
because the Congo isn't allowing free trade. Okay, the Belgians
in the Congo start murdering even white people who try
to set up shop, which is like and they're all like, wait,

(51:47):
that's illegal. You're not allowed to murder people for setting
up a store. You're killing white people. What's going on?
All of a sudden Now it's a political issue for
for for just the British, for the rest of Europe
bar at this point, I think it is starting to
become more of a thing for everyone. But I think
the I think the first couple of people who died

(52:08):
were English, and then also Casement very much cares, and
he's half able to get Britain to care that some
of it's uh, not its citizens, but its subjects from
British West Africa are being forced into forced labor or
being enslaved, being sent over there to work as centuries
because they can't get enough local people to do the murdering.

(52:30):
And theoretically Britain is supposed to His job is to
make Britain care about what's happening to British subjects. And
so Leopold does what any monarch would do, and he
sets up the Commission for the Protection of the Natives,
and it's full of Catholics and Protestants, and it tasks
them with basically never meeting and never doing anything, and

(52:54):
being an a thing in which if anyone complains about anything,
they can send it away to this commission to die. Okay,
you know, oh that's terrible that this bad thing happened.
We will send it to the Commission for the Protection
of the Natives. And then you know, and the whole
time in this pr he's like, you're right, terrible things
are happening because those slavers are still in there and

(53:15):
we've got to get them out. Give me more money. Yeah,
not all of the missionaries are there for well, okay,
once again, there's multiple as we talked about, there's more
than one bad reason to be there. There's the really
bad reason, and then there's the also really bad reason,
but without as much emphasis. You know, some of the
missionaries start coming award because there's some of the only

(53:36):
Europeans who are in Central Congo who aren't like Belgian
corporate people, you know, and some of them start coming
out and being like, hey, this is there's some like
not great stuff happening. So so Leopold he says, Oh,
I've heard about these mutilations. It's horrible. It's a practice
leftover from their savage tribal ways. Or maybe it was

(53:57):
brought by the you know, damn Arabs or whatever, and
it it was not casement and other people had basically
the records to prove that this is a lie. This
is this was not a a tribal practice within the area.
It was absolutely brought by the fucking Belgians. Um So

(54:17):
Leopold continues to spin his pr and he said he
lets journalists go. They get carefully guided tours and they're
all like, everything is fine down here, and it's a
really good way if you're a journalist, too, like make
your living is take Leopold's money, because he will pay
you a bunch, and he will get your stories in
the New York Times and you will be a famous

(54:39):
Yeah for repeating his the party line basically, yeah, which
totally isn't a thing to think about when we think
about journalism today. Absolutely anyway, that's actually part of the
reason I carry my heart on my sleeve about my
biases and stuff so much. Anyone who's listening. Part of
the reason I do that is so that you can like, no, oh,

(55:00):
my biases because you might not agree with my biases,
and that's good, that's fine. Um, I want to be
honest with you about them, with everyone about them, so
that people can um kind of have a sense of
what to filter. You know. Um, I don't know if
that's the right. And I'm also not really a journalist
about fucking entertainment podcaster, but I don't know. You've done
journalism stuff. You're a journalist smartt oh, thanks, Yeah, I

(55:25):
have in the past, but not in many years. Yeah.
So in the meantime, in England we get another awesome person,
a journalist named Edmund Moral Moral Moral. I don't know
MOREL will be a funnier name for him. It really
what I was going to say, let's go with that.
We're going with that. It's m O R E L.

(55:47):
For anyone who's googling at home. Um, he was raised
friend of the pod Quaker of the halfway decent white
people in history or Quakers. Is what I've learned by
writing this podcast, which is not a bias I came
into this podcast with. Just to also be clear, it's

(56:08):
just there everywhere. They They may show up again in
the second half yeah cool, Yeah, okay, and so um,
he didn't start out as a journalist. He actually started
out and actually the same way that Casement did. He
was a shipping clerk. But he notices he's a shipping clerk,
and he's like rubber comes out, guns and ammo go in.

(56:31):
This doesn't seem like a good thing, so he quits
his job to become a journalist. Uh. Specifically on this topic,
he right revitalizes a movement started by the late George
Washington Williams, the movement to Free the Congo, which had
kind of basically when it was only George Washington Williams
is word. Leopold's pr campaign was sort of kind of

(56:53):
effectively quashed the movement. Mm hmm. But so it is
worth noting that once again like Moral and Casement are
coming in and revitalizing the movement that was started by
a black man. And uh, you know, and again this
is the European movement. The Congolese were also well on
their way. They're very active in the Free the Congo
movement as well. And he discovers Moral discovers that the

(57:14):
money is being embezzled directly by Leopold himself. It's not
even like going to the companies, like he like is
doing the looking at the money and he's like, wait,
two fifths of the money is literally just going directly
to Leopold illegally, which is funny because you could do
all of this legally, you could be a monster legally.
But he has to go that extra little bit. His

(57:36):
free state isn't a state, it's a robbery. So Casement
he leaves. Um. He goes back to Europe from Africa,
and he goes to Brussels to find out more and
Leopold invites him to lunch because he wants to keep
Belgium in England. Buds um. This is not how Casement dies,
because it almost sounds like it would be. Leopold is like, oh,

(57:56):
I only care about the well being and good government
of the natives, and Casements like, then, why are you
forcing everyone to labor? It's like, it's not forced labor,
it's just bonus labor in lieu of tax. In Casement's like,
why are you cutting off everyone's hands and label it
is like there have been some cases of misconduct, which
is unfortunate and and this is a okay, the one
I'm paraphrasing but the climate in Africa had a deliterious

(58:19):
effect on some of the men. Used the word deliterious.
He was like that crazy Africa just made everyone crazy.
He blamed the climate of Africa for his men cutting around,
running around, cutting off everyone's hands, instead of like a colonizing, racist,
white supremacist system that is empowering these people to go
around doing that. Yeah. Yeah, So Casement is not convinced.

(58:44):
You always shocked to now uh And he petitions England
to get him up river and Cono to find out. Personally,
he knows the place well, he helped build it um
and it helps his case that British traders keep getting
assassinated and it takes a little while for him to
get permiss. In the meantime, the movement in England is
heating up. In nineteen o three, Moral writes a book

(59:05):
called Affairs of West Africa. Another guy writes a book
called Civilization in Congo Land subtitled History of International Wrongdoing
just kind of a cool subtitle. Another one is the
Curse of Central Africa, with the curse being the Free State.
And then in nineteen o two, during all of this,
novelist and not Friend of the pot Joseph Conrad publishes

(59:28):
Heart of Darkness, which is a thinly veiled critique of Leopold,
which I didn't know when I read this book in
high school. Conrad and Caseman actually met and we're friends
back in the day when Conrad was a riverboat captain
in the Congo Um. And I'm really not trying to
go to bad for that book, but it's it's worth
or Conrad, but he wrote it with that. But we

(59:48):
keep talking about these two types of colonial racism, you know, Um,
he wrote it with the but don't cut off people's
hands version of it, best intentions or whatever. Casement, for
his part, he's a public servant and he's not supposed
to be working public opinion. But mysteriously an Irish writer

(01:00:09):
starts writing stuff that just sounds exactly like what Casement
would write, because Caseman is either feeding him information or
just ghost writing for the guy. And and I'm gonna
tell you about one European who tried to cut to
the chase. One person who tried to solve this problem
directly was a guy named Gennaro Robino, who is an

(01:00:32):
Italian guy, and he got hired in London to spy
on the anarchists because he was, you know, a poor
worker or whatever, and they were like, hey, we'll give
you money. Goes spying the anarchists. So he goes in
the spies on the anarchists and then becomes an anarchist.
The best outcome of spying on anarchists. They're like, oh,
there's actually they're making a lot of sense here. Yeah,

(01:00:52):
but it's not a good way to start your career
as an anarchist. He gets outed by his fellow anarchists
as a police by so he figures, I know how
I can show my friends that I mean when I say,
I'll go kill King Leopold the Second. And I don't
think he really thought it through, Like I think he
just bought a revolver and then some postcards with like

(01:01:13):
Leopold and his family's faces on them, so he like
had a picture of the person he was trying to shoot. Oh, no,
you need to be more organized than that. This is
a yes, um. So he goes and he sees the
like royal parade of carriages and he shoots it the
one that he thinks as Leopold in it. It is
not the one with Leopold in it. He kills and

(01:01:35):
injures nobody. He shoots three shots of the Revolver. He
spends the rest of his life in prison. He still
didn't convince the anarchist he was one of them. Everyone
was like, now, this plan was so bad that it
was clearly an agent provoctor. It was clearly never designed
to kill Leopold. It it was he was an earnest man.
Um he died in prison. I wish he had done

(01:01:57):
his homework, is what I would like to say. Yeah,
all right. So Casement, basically Britain finally is like, all right,
we'll send Casement down there. And so they send to
Leopold a letter. They're like, I mean, I don't I
can't do a British accent say in my life, sorry
to bother you, old chap, but can we pop around

(01:02:17):
your congo for just a spot of investigation, just a
formal report. We're sure it'll exonerate you. And Leopold is like, whoops,
I'm magically nowhere near where your letter needs to go.
H right, So I can't consent because I never got
your letter. Um. He just leaves them unread. And English
Congress or whatever it's called parliament, they talk it over

(01:02:38):
and they're like, fine, fucket Casement, you can go to
the Upper Congo. And in NT. Three he sets out
they get a private steamboat to go up the river,
so they aren't beholding to the Congo authorities. And that's
where we're gonna leave it today. What's he gonna find.
That's a real cliffhanger right there. I know I put
that purposes a cliffhanger. Yeah, Rhan, Do you have anything

(01:03:01):
you'd like to plug at the end here? I'm sure? Well,
we already mentioned the anthology that I edited. Um, it's
called Nourishing Resistance. I know that my editors have asked
me to ask you to put a link to it
in the show notes, so I will do that later. Um.
And I also want to plug BCC Tucson, which is

(01:03:22):
where I am recording this. It's a radical community space,
social center, whatever you want to call it, that does
a lot of really cool things, um here in Tucson.
So yea, yeay, Margaret, you you have a book coming
out I do. It's called we Won't be Here Tomorrow.
I've already made the we'll be here on Wednesday joke. Yeah, okay,

(01:03:42):
I have Okay, it's called we Won't be here Tomorrow
and it is available for pre order from a k Press,
or if you're listening to this in the future, it's
available for regular order. And Sophie, what do you what
do you have to plug? I'm not trying to make
I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just
what do I want to plug today? I like to,
I like to. I'd like to pick a show on
our network to plug. I feel like I should plug

(01:04:04):
Behind the Bastards just because we're talking about King Leopold
and Robert did such a good job with Andrew t
who guessed on this pod not too long ago, discussing
King King Leopold not too long ago. So go check
out Behind the Bastards. It is a really good episode.
I am plagiarized some parts of my vehicle from it.
I love it. We'll be back by Cool People Who

(01:04:31):
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