In 1909 Conan Doyle, fueled by “a burning indignation, which is the best of all driving power”, wrote a book in only eight days. In ‘The Crime of the Congo’, Doyle documents the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State, the personal possession of Leopold II of Belgium. Thousands of native Africans were forced to labor on rubber plantations for the benefit of their colonial overlords. The abuses of the Congo Free State, and worldwide denunciations when they came to light, were instrumental in the Belgian government assuming responsibility of the territory, and renaming it the Belgian Congo.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, but he was also a physician, humanitarian, and successful non-fiction writer capable to write documented essential reports such as ‘The Crime of the Congo’.