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 when Charles Stokes, an Irish 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, also 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.

Through intercepted letters, Captain Hubert-Joseph Lothaire, the commander of the Congo Free State forces in the Ituri-campaign, learned that Charles Stokes was on his way from German East Africa to sell weapons to the Zanzibari slavers in the eastern Congo region. In December 1894, Lothaire sent Lieutenant Josué Henry with 70 men ahead to capture Stokes. Henry arrested Stokes in his tent, taking advantage of the absence of a large part of his caravan, that was out in the jungle gathering firewood and searching for food. Stokes was taken to Captain Lothaire in Lindi, who immediately formed a Drumhead court-martial. Stokes was found guilty of selling guns, gunpowder and detonators to the Congo Free State's Afro-Arab enemies (Said Abedi, Kilonga Longa and Kibonge). On 14 January 1895 he was sentenced to death and was hanged the next day (hoisted on a tree).

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