Charles Henry Stokes (
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, 1852 – near the
Lindi River
The Lindi is a minor river of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It flows through the Tshopo and North Kivu
North Kivu (french: link=no, Nord-Kivu) is a province bordering Lake Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
...
(Congo), 1895) was an Irish missionary turned trader who lived much of his life in Africa and was the centre of the
Stokes Affair between the United Kingdom and
Congo Free State
''(Work and Progress)
, national_anthem = Vers l'avenir
, capital = Vivi Boma
, currency = Congo Free State franc
, religion = Catholicism (''de facto'')
, leader1 = Leopo ...
.
Life
Charles was born in Dublin and went to school in
Enniskillen
Enniskillen ( , from ga, Inis Ceithleann , 'Cethlenn, Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of ...
before his father died when Charles was twenty. When this happened, he went with his mother to
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, where he found work as a clerk for the
Church Missionary Society
The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...
. He decided to seek new horizons and trained as a lay evangelist with the Society in
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
. In May 1878 he arrived in
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...
. His first act was to set up a 300-strong vehicle caravan to the Great Lakes, because he wanted to Christianise
Buganda
Buganda is a Bantu peoples, Bantu kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Baganda, Baganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day East Africa, consisting of Buganda's Districts of Uganda, Central Region, inclu ...
. He was a skilled organizer and increasingly undertook expeditions.
In January 1883 he married in the Cathedral of Zanzibar with Ellen Sherratt, one of the nurses who were sent to him by the mission. She gave birth to their daughter Ellen Louise in March 1884, but died a week later. The following year Stokes married again, to an African woman named Limi relative of the chief of the Wanyamwesi, a tribe that supplied many of the bearers in his caravans. This was highly unusual at the time. He also had two African concubines, Nanjala and Zaria, with whom he had two children. He was
excommunicated
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
by the
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
Church and became a trader around central Africa, selling goods such as ivory.
Stokes was on good terms with the Arabo-Swahili and the British, and since 1890 with the
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
, trading with all of them. In 1894 he went for the first time with a large expedition to north-eastern Congo, with thousands of carriers and large quantities of guns and ivory. The Arabo-Swahili who he was trading with were at war with the
Congo Free State
''(Work and Progress)
, national_anthem = Vers l'avenir
, capital = Vivi Boma
, currency = Congo Free State franc
, religion = Catholicism (''de facto'')
, leader1 = Leopo ...
at the time and desperately needed weapons.
Arrest, trial, execution
Through intercepted letters, Captain
Hubert-Joseph Lothaire, the commander of the Belgian forces in the region, learned that Stokes was coming to the Congo to trade weapons. He sent Lieutenant Josué Henry with 70 men ahead to capture him. Henry took advantage of the absence of a large part of Stokes' caravan, who were scattered in the forest searching for food, and arrested him in his tent (December 1894). He was taken to Lothaire in Lindi, who immediately formed a
Drumhead court-martial
A drumhead court-martial is a court-martial held in the field to hear urgent charges of offences committed in action. The term sometimes has connotations of summary justice.
The term is said to originate from the use of a drum as an improvised ...
. Stokes was found guilty of selling guns, gunpowder and detonators to the Belgians' Afro-Arab enemies (Kilonga Longa, Said Abedi and Kibonge). He was sentenced to death and was hanged the next day (hoisted on a tree).
The procedure is said to have had many irregularities, including false statements. There was no penal code, no clerk, the verdict was not read, and Stokes did not appeal, although as a citizen he was entitled to.
Aftermath
In August 1895, the press began to report in detail on this case, including in the
Pall Mall Gazette
''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...
by journalist
Lionel Decle. As a result, the case became an international incident, better known as the
Stokes Affair. Together, Britain and Germany pressured Belgium to put Lothaire on trial, which they did, in
Boma. The Free State paid compensation to the British (150,000 francs) and Germans (100,000 francs) and made it impossible by decree martial or death sentences against Europeans. Stokes's body was returned to his family.
In April 1896 the court of Boma acquitted Lothaire after a short trial, in what is considered a questionable verdict. The appeal was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Congo in Brussels in August 1896, paving the way for the rehabilitation of Lothaire.
The
Stokes Affair mobilized British public opinion against the Congo Free State. It also damaged the reputation of King
Leopold II of Belgium
* german: link=no, Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor
, house = Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
, father = Leopold I of Belgium
, mother = Louise of Orléans
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Brussels, Belgium
, death_date = ...
as a benevolent despot, which he had cultivated with so much effort. The case helped encourage the foundation of the
Congo Reform Association
The Congo Reform Association (CRA) was a political and humanitarian activist group that sought to promote reform of the Congo Free State, a private territory in Central Africa under the absolute sovereignty of King Leopold II. Active from 190 ...
and the
annexation of the Congo by the Belgian state in 1908.
See also
*
Stokes Affair
Further reading
* Raymond Moloney, "Charles Stokes (1852-1895): An Irishman in 19th Century Africa", in: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 87, 1998, no. 346, pp. 128–134
* Robert Asketill 'Buganda History Part 39: The hanging of Charles Henry Stokes' in: The London Evening Post accessed on April 3, 2017
* 1895: Charles Stokes, in the heart of darkness
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stokes, Charles
Businesspeople from Dublin (city)
1852 births
1895 deaths
Irish Anglican missionaries
Anglican missionaries in Tanzania
People executed by hanging
People executed by Belgium
Irish people executed abroad