Young shipping clerk Edmund Dene Morel was working as for the Liverpool firm Elder Dempster when he noticed what appeared to be a discrepancy in the figures. What Morel found in his investigation of that discrepancy would expose one of the most notorious systems of violence of the colonial era: the Congo Free State, ruled personally by King Leopold II of Belgium.

Leopold founded the Congo Free State in 1885. It was his private colonial possession, not a Belgian colony. During Leopold’s 23-year rule, millions of Congolese died amid widespread atrocities – murder, torture, mutilation, forced labour – driven by the extraction of ivory and rubber.

Morel would become the most effective public campaigner against Leopold’s regime. His writings helped transform what had been scattered missionary testimony into an international scandal. But while dedicating much of his energy to exposing Leopold’s crimes in the Congo, Morel proved far less willing to confront abuses linked to some of his own allies and financial supporters.

Born Georges Edmond Pierre Achille Morel de Ville in Paris in 1873, Morel moved to Britain with his English mother following his father’s death. In 1891 he joined Elder Dempster as a clerk. Four years later, when the firm opened a shipping route between Antwerp and West Africa, the bilingual Morel was an ideal candidate for the job.

He supplemented his income with journalism, drawing on information from sailors, traders and officials who passed through Elder Dempster’s offices. While researching an article, Morel noticed a striking imbalance in Congo trade statistics. Large quantities of rubber and ivory were being shipped to Belgium, but almost nothing flowed back to Africa except firearms........

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