The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man's Battle for Human Rights in South America's Heart of Darkness

by Jordan Goodman

THE STORY OF AN IMPERIAL TRAGEDY THAT SENT SHOCKWAVES AROUND THE WORLD

In September 1910, the activist Roger Casement arrived in the Amazon jungle on a mission for the British to investigate reports of widespread human-rights abuses in the forests along the Putumayo River. Accusations against the Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana had been making their way back to London, and the rumors were on everybody’s Arana was enslaving, torturing, and murdering the local Indians. Arana’s Peruvian Amazon Company, with its headquarters in London’s financial heart, was responsible.

Casement was outraged by what he nearly 30,000 Indians had died to produce 4,000 tons of rubber. When Casement’s 700-page report of the violence was published in London in 1912, it set off reverberations throughout the world. People were appalled that murderous acts were being carried out under the cloak of British respectability. The Peruvian Amazon Company was forced into liquidation, and its board of directors was publicly shamed.

From the Amazonian rain forests to the streets of London and Washington, D.C., Jordan Goodman recounts a tragedy whose exposure in 1912 drew back the curtain on exploitation and the wholesale abuse of human rights. Drawing on a wealth of original research, The Devil and Mr. Casement is a haunting story of modern capitalism with enormous contemporary political resonance.

Genres: History, Biography, Social Justice, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2009

About the author

Jordan Goodman has published extensively on the history of medicine and science, and on cultural and economic history. He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London.

Reviews

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

While searching for a biography about Roger Casement I came across this book in my local library. Goodman's book recounts Casement's career as a diplomat who helped expose not only the atrocities in the Belgian Congo but also by Peruvian rubber barons in the Amazon jungles. While Goodman's focus is more about Casement's fight for justice and an end to the abuse in the jungles, it still gave me more insight into Casement's fascinating life.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a pretty fast read, interesting and very readable. I disagree with the comments that the book was too long. It's both a bio and a history, not a work of fiction. If anything, the book should have been longer, with more in-depth information on the indigenous people at the heart of the book.

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the complaints of some, this book was not intended as a biography of Sir Roger Casement. Its focus is on the exploitation of the resources and native people of the upper Amazon, the political intrigue that nurtured it, and the criminal business-as-usual mentality that sustained it. Because the charges involved British interests - unlike the Congo - there was comparatively little international hysteria in addressing the genocidal doings along the Putumayo. This particular crusade has been largely forgotten, remaining under the rug where it was swept by South American, US, and British diplomacy a century ago.

This is instructive. This period bridges two eras: the colonial conquest - and extermination - of native peoples by European settlers and their governments; followed by the era of "totalitarian regimes". What we see is no break between the two, but continuity. These are not South American Nazis at work in this tale, but eminently respectable businessmen such as Sr. Arana and his British partners; ensconced in the financial and political world of the West, conducting the most gruesome slavery, unchallenged except by pesky mavericks like Casement. Bitterly ironic that he could be knighted by one hand, and executed by the other for "treason" - with both attached to the same body politic: indicative of the West's schizophrenia in facing up to its own moral accountability.

A good accounting of an issue far from resolved at the so-called democratic "end of history."

[Bill Kerrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first learned about Roger Casement’s work to uncover and expose exploitation in the Congo in late 19th century and then followed the footnotes to this subsequent book about his work to expose “crimes against humanity’ in the Putomayo region of Peru. Casement is a remarkable historical figure and this book has me looking fora book on the last chapter of his life for his support of the Irish Free State. ‘’Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth; a thing no more to be doled out to us or withheld from us by another people, than the right to life itself—than the right to feel the sun or smell the flowers—or to love our kind”—Roger Casement
‘

[Mallory Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well researched but i read it right after king leopolds ghost and couldn’t shake the comparison demon im afraid

[Christopher Rex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could've been excellent if the author had found a way to cut out about 50pp. It simply runs on too long in parts. Casement is a very interesting character, but the author doesn't introduce him until 100pp+ into the book and never really indulges into his "personal characteristics" until the very end - Casement's fate did come as a surprise to me and the book left me wanting to know more about the guy and his struggles. As for the "rubber" element of the book, the author never goes completely down the road of a "commodity history" which could've been very interesting as well - particularly the irony of how the fate of Native Americans in the Amazon was pushed to the verge of destruction by tree-rubber and is now being further undermined and destroyed by synthetic-rubber which is produced from the oil now being extracted in the Amazon.

The book is good, but it left me somewhere in the middle between a biography and a "commodity history" and it seems it would've worked better being one or the other. There are piles of connections to the modern global marketplace, particularly the exploitative sweatshop industry which is characterized by absentee, international capital with little or no concern for human rights and the brutal treatment of native populations by outsourced production companies. Sadly, since Casement's day (early 20thC) we have made little to no progress monitoring overseas investment and labor abuse in foreign countries. We may even be moving backwards - where Casement's exposure of slave-like abuse in early-20thC raised governmental and private ire, it seems today that exposure of slave-like conditions in the apparel industry earns little more than a shrug of the shoulders (and even praise from many neoliberal economists). Worth reading for those interested in Latin America, the Amazon, native populations, global economic systems, human rights and/or the early 20thC.

[Fatima]

ny times

[Meaghan Alvarado · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting and eye opening, however like the other readers, there were at LEAST 50 pages that could have been cut out. The last 50 pages were repetitive/summaries.

[Christine Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming in the Miami Herald