The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement

by Roger Casement, Angus Mitchell (Editor)

This book, from the previously unpublished manuscript in the National Library of Ireland, is a valuable and deeply detailed edition of the diary kept by Casement during his journey into the South American rainforests. He had been sent by the British government to report on atrocities against tribal people while being forced to collect rubber in the Putumayo region in the north-west Amazon. Genocide among the Amazon Indians has continued, but external investigations of this kind have been rare. The way in which Roger Casement carried out his work is still relevant to all kinds of humanitarian and whistle-blowing activities. It is also a key text charting Casement's transition from observer to anti-imperial revolutionary and Irish independence leader, culminating in his execution by the British government in August 1916 after the Easter Rising.

Genres: Ireland, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, History

546 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1900

About the author

Sir Roger Casement Kt. CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours[1]—was a humanitarian campaigner and an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist.

He was a British consul by profession, famous for his reports and activities against human rights abuses in the Congo and Peru but better known for his dealings with Germany before Ireland's Easter Rising in 1916. An Irish nationalist and Parnellite in his youth, he worked in Africa for commercial interests and latterly in the service of Britain. However, the Boer War and his consular investigation into atrocities in the Congo led Casement to anti-Imperialist and ultimately to Irish Republican and separatist political opinions. He sought to obtain German support for a rebellion in Ireland against British rule. Shortly before the Easter Rising, he landed in Ireland and was arrested. He was subsequently convicted and executed by the British for treason.

Reviews

[Todd Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unflinching and uncomfortable look at the early forces of globalization and the brutal exploitation of local labor. Casement’s eyewitness account exposes how commerce, empire, and human cruelty intertwined deep within the Amazon, revealing the moral cost of progress and the silence that often accompanies it.

[Carlos Zúñiga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Casement, desde su esperable racismo, guiños frenológicos y tintes homoeroticos, fue capaz de poner el dedo en la barbarie que el país entero ejerció sobre decenas de miles de indígenas, a diferencia de sus supuestos compatriotas. Un recuento que lamentablemente no ha perdido ninguna vigencia.

[Roger Melmoth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valioso registro del boom del caucho en la Amazonía y sus serias repercusiones que tuvo en las poblaciones originarias.


Valuable register of the rubber boom in the Amazon and its serious repercussions on native populations.