Zong Massacre
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The Zong Massacre was the name given to the mass-killing of African slaves that took place in 1781 on the Zong, a British slave ship owned by James Gregson and colleagues in a Liverpool slave-trading firm.
The resulting court case, brought not by the authorities as a mass-murder charge against the ship-owners, but as a civil action by the ship-owners seeking compensation from the insurers for the slave-traders' lost "cargo," was a landmark in the battle against the African slave trade of the eighteenth century.
The term "Zong Massacre" was not universally used at the time. It was usually called "The Zong Affair," the term "massacre" being used mainly by those considered to be "dangerous radicals," as late eighteenth-century politics stood. At the time, the killing of slaves—individually or en masse—was not considered to be murder. In British law, the act was completely legal and could be freely admitted to the highest court in the land, without danger of prosecution. The publicity over this case was, however, one of the factors that led to the legal situation being completely changed within a few decades.
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[edit] Massacre
The British ship Zong, out of Liverpool, had taken on more slaves than it could safely transport when it sailed from Africa en route to Jamaica on September 6, 1781. By November 29, 1781, this overcrowding, together with malnutrition and disease, had killed seven of the crew and approximately sixty African slaves. With the journey prolonged by contrary winds and inept navigation, Captain Luke Collingwood found himself with a large number of dying slaves on his hands. If he delivered them and they died onshore the Liverpool ship-owners would have no redress; but if they died at sea they were covered by the ship's insurance. As in law the slaves would be considered cargo, the "jettison clause" covered the loss of this human cargo at £30 a head.
| “ | The insurer takes upon him the risk of the loss, capture, and death of slaves, or any other unavoidable accident to them: but natural death is always understood to be excepted: by natural death is meant, not only when it happens by disease or sickness, but also when the captive destroys himself through despair, which often happens: but when slaves are killed, or thrown into the sea in order to quell an insurrection on their part, then the insurers must answer.[1] | ” |
Collingwood called his officers and proposed that the slaves should be thrown overboard. Although the First Mate initially disagreed, the plan was agreed, and so, over three days in the mid Atlantic Ocean, 122 sick slaves went over the side: 54 on 29 November, 42 on 30 November and 26 on 1 December. Another ten, in a fine display of defiance at the inhumanity of the slavers, threw themselves overboard and, "leaping into the sea, felt a momentary triumph in the embrace of death."[2][3]
Later, it was claimed that the slaves had been jettisoned because it was required "for the safety of the ship" as the ship did not have enough water to keep them alive for the rest of the voyage. This claim was later disproved as the ship had 420 gallons of water left when it arrived in Jamaica on December 22.
[edit] Legal case
The ship's owners filed their insurance claim, but the insurers disputed it, backed by the evidence of the First Mate. In this first court case, even with the First Mate's testimony - the ship had plenty of water, Jamaica was near - the court found for Collingwood and the owners. The insurers appealed. It is at this point that Granville Sharp, one of the first of the anti-slave-trade activists, enters the story. He was visited on 19 March 1783 by Olaudah Equiano, a famous freed slave and later to be the author of a successful autobiography, and told of the horrific events aboard the Zong. Sharp immediately became involved in the court case, facing his old adversary over slave trade matters, Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield. Mansfield notoriously declared that "the case was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard"[4] but ruled that the ship-owners could not claim insurance on the slaves because the lack of sufficient water demonstrated that the cargo had been badly managed.
No officers or crew were charged or prosecuted for the deliberate killing of 133 slaves. Indeed, the Solicitor General, John Lee, declared that a master could drown slaves without "a surmise of impropriety".[4] He stated:
| “ | What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honourable men of murder. They acted out of necessity and in the most appropriate manner for the cause. The late Captain Collingwood acted in the interest of his ship to protect the safety of his crew. To question the judgement of an experienced well-travelled captain held in the highest regard is one of folly, especially when talking of slaves. The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.[5] | ” |
Sharp's attempts to mount a prosecution for murder never got off the ground.[2]
[edit] Abolitionist movement
Two famous activists who emerged from the Zong Massacre were Thomas Clarkson, who wrote an "Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species", and James Ramsay, who wrote an "Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies".
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/slavery/the_zong.html
- ^ a b Sheppard, John (2007). Granvile Sharp: Father of the Anti-Slavery Movement in Britain. London: London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
- ^ Donaghue, Eddie (2008). Black Breeding Machines: The Breeding of Negro Slaves in the Diaspora. AuthorHouse. ISBN 1434398021. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DnvxcWO8NpgC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=zong+slave+ship&source=web&ots=0kEFpDtVkg&sig=rMU4Ui2PRyWIs4D4I4PvpCGeWBo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA118,M1.
- ^ a b http://www.understandingslavery.com/teachingslavetrade/introduction/keyhistorical/?page=4
- ^ http://www.ngbiwm.com/Exhibits/04-SlaveShipZong.pdf
[edit] Further reading
- Gregson v. Gilbert (1783), 3 Dougl 232; 99 ER 629
- Baucom, Ian (2005). Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822335581.
- Oldham, James (2007). "Insurance Litigation Involving the Zong and Other British Slave Ships, 1780-1807". Journal of Legal History 28 (3): 299–318. doi:.
- Rupprecht, Anita (2008). "'A Limited Sort of Property': History, Memory and the Slave Ship Zong". Slavery & Abolition 29 (2): 265–277. doi:.
- Shyllon, F. O. (1974). Black Slaves in Britain. London: Oxford University Press.
- Webster, Jane (2007). "The Zong in the Context of the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade". Journal of Legal History 28 (3): 285–298. doi:.
[edit] External links
- Information on The Zong
- Slave Ship Zong (1781)
- Understanding Slavery
- The Middle Passage Educational activity tool for learning about the massacre. The National Great Blacks In Wax Museum.
- Granville Sharp and the Zong massacre
- Lists of archival sources held by the National Archives (UK) relating to the court case
