Morel published a book, Affairs of West Africa, in 1902, which included a blistering indictment of the Congo Free State. He assigned responsibility for the exploitative system to Leopold, who had “invented a form of slavery more degrading and more atrocious than any slavery which has existed previously.”4 Morel’s book led the UK House of Commons to debate the issue on May 20, 1903. Roger Casement, British consul to the Congo Free State, was ordered to conduct a formal inquiry. Casement published The Casement Report in early 1904 based on his investigations in the Congo rain forest and the
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