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Missionaries througout Asia and Africa were both an element of colonial rule and governence as well as a force for tremendous good. Missionaries in the Congo were permitted only with the approval of Leopold's Congo Free State (CFS). He was able to keep the Belgian Catholic missionaries silent. This proved more difficult for other missionaries. British missionaries in particular compiled evidence of the terrible abuses. [Grant] Reports from missionaries proved to be some of the most compeling evidence against King Leopold's CFS. Witnessing a native killed, a Danish missionary wrote, "The soldier said 'Don’t take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don’t bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service.'" Eyewitness reports from missionaries such as those submitted by American William Henry Sheppard exposed terrible abuses. He was the son of a former slave. He managed to pursue a childhood dream of going to Africa as a missionary and in the process search for his identity. Sheppard attended Hampton College. The missionary reports came mostly from Protestant missiinaries. The King's spkesmen dismissed these reports as attempts by Protestants to smear honest Roman Catholic priests. King Leopold successfully supressed the truth for more than a decade. As the Kodak Brownie and similar camera made it possible for the missionaries to take photographs and send them out, this proved more difficult to do. The photographic evidence was material the King's spolesmen could not refute. And missionaries were located throughout the CFS to take and send out photographs.
Grant, Kevin. "Christian critics of empire: Missionaries, lantern lectures, and the Congo reform campaign in Britain," The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Volume 29, Issue 2, (2001), pp. 27-58.
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