Roger Casement

Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary

Seamas O'Siochain

• Publisher: The Lilliput Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN:
  9781843510215
• eBook ISBN:
  9781843512363
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Roger Casement is among the most written about and mythologized figures in Irish history, yet has never, until now, been accorded such an impartial, full-scale documentary biography. Seamas O Siochaingives us an enthralling book equal to the expansive life of its subject. In its meticulous scholarship it supersedes all previous work in the field. Drawing upon an astonishing trove of official and personal sources, Seamas O Siochainshows how what began as an ordinary career in the British consular service became a singular crusade across three continents, against exploitation, cruelty and injustice. Casement served in the Niger, Mozambique, Angola and most momentously in the Congo, where he witnessed the appalling crimes of the Belgian colonial system and became a leading figure in the humanitarian campaign, eventually successful, to force King Leopold II to surrender his personal control of the colony. Casement later applied the same eye for injustice to the depressingly similar exploitation of natives of the Putumayo, in the upper reaches of the Amazon, where, as in the Congo, outsiders' hunger for rubber created misery for native peoples. His growing interest and involvement in Irish nationalism, culminating in his attempts to aid the 1916 Rising and execution for treason, is compellingly narrated. Seamas O Siochain'sanalysis, which closely examines the debate around Casement's controversial diaries, is also a model of clarity and attention to detail. This definitive biography, accompanied by additional maps and numerous photographs, many of them rare and unseen, is an enduring monument to one of Ireland's most enigmatic patriots of the past century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Illustrations
• Editorial Note
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• PART I
• 1: Early Life
• PART II : Africa
• 2: The Congo Free State, 1884–91
• 3: The Niger Coast Protectorate, 1892–5
• 4: Lourenço Marques, 1895–7
• 5: St Paul de Loanda, 1898–9
• 6: The Boer War: Special Commissioner, 1899–1900
• PART III : Ireland and Congo Reform
• 7: The Congo Free State, 1900–2
• 8: Congo Investigation, 1903
• 9: Congo Report and Congo Reform, 1903–13
• 10: Ireland: A New Commitment, 1904–6
• PART IV : South America
• 11: Brazil, 1906–9
• 12: The Putumayo Investigation, 1909–10
• 13: Putumayo Campaign, 1911–12
• 14: Putumayo: Mission and Select Committee, 1912–13
• PART V : Ireland and Germany
• 15: Ireland, 1913–14
• 16: Towards Berlin: The United States and Norway, 1914
• 17: Imperial Germany, 1914–16
• 18: Capture, Trial and Execution, 1916
• Appendix: The Black Diaries
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• A, B, C
• D, E, F
• G, H, I
• J, K, L
• M, N, O
• P, Q, R
• S, T, U
• V, W, X
• Y, Z
• Plates
• Copyright