Stokes Affair

The Stokes Affair (French: L'Affair Stokes) or the Stokes-Lothaire Incident was a diplomatic incident between the Congo Free State and the British government in 1895. The affair emerged Charles Stokes, a British trader and former Christian missionary, was arrested for illegal trading in the Congo and hanged without trial on 15 January 1895. The Belgian officer responsible for the execution, Captain Lothaire, was convinced that Stokes had been selling guns to Muslim rebels in the Eastern Congo in exchange for ivory. Lothaire was accused by the British public of having failed to provide Stokes with due process of law. He was charged with murder in Belgium but was acquitted to public outcry in the British Empire.

The Stokes affair mobilized British public opinion against the Congo Free State, already accused of systematic humanitarian abuses by a British report published in May 1895. The campaign would eventually result in the formation of the Congo Reform Association and the annexation of the Free State by Belgium as the Belgian Congo in 1908.

Further reading

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