How the Murder of 132 Slaves Exposed Britain's Covert Slave Trade.
To date, the Zong massacre is the most notorious tragedy in the history of the British slave trade.
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Although Britain ended the slave trade 32 years before the United States, not much is known about her dark and covert slave history, which lasted from 1662 to 1807.
In 150 years, Britain had purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans of which 2,964,800 people survived the middle passage from Africa to the Caribbean where they were made to work tirelessly in plantations.Â
In British history books, slave traders were referred to as "West India merchantsâ and âWest India plantersâ
The slave trade remained covert until the murder of 132 slaves on the 29th of November, 1781.
How it started:Â
On the 6th of September, 1781, the Zong slave ship departed the coast of Africa for the Americas with 470 slaves, a Captain and several crewmen.Â
The slaves were so many for the size of the ship, but Luke Collingwood the ship's captain and his crew wanted to maximise profit to the fullest, so they jam-packed the slaves inside the ship chaining their right foot to left foot and right hand to left hand before sailing into the deep sea.Â
As the ship sailed to the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean also known as the Doldrum, it became stranded due to no wind.Â
The longer they stayed, the more their food supplies reduced, it didn't take long before diseases broke out and within a short time they began to die one after the other until they lost 17 crew members and 50 slaves, the epidemic was exacerbated by hunger and malnutrition.Â
Having lost so many crew members and slaves, Collingwood deduced that if they allowed other sick slaves to remain in the ship, the disease would spread to other healthy slaves making it extremely difficult or impossible for the owners of the ship to get an insurance claims on them if they died in the ship, so they made a decision to throw the sick slaves into the sea and claim that they died of natural causesÂ
Out of 133 slaves that were thrown into the sea, only one was able to climb back into the ship but 10 more slaves threw themselves into the sea as an act of defiance.Â
The Americas
Upon the ship's arrival in Jamaica, the shipâs owner, James Gregson, filed an insurance claim for their loss.Â
To back their claim, they claimed the crew had to throw the slaves over the ship because of water depletion.
But Thomas Gilbert, the insurance underwriter was quick to dispute the claim citing that the ship had 420 gallons of water when it left for Jamaica.Â
Even with overwhelming proof, the insurers lost the case but did not relent.Â
In 1783, they appealed the case; this time around, they won itÂ
This was due to the publicity surrounding the first case, which had provoked a great deal of public interest and the attention of British citizens and Great Britainâs abolitionists. Â
The Earl of Mansfield ruled in favour of the insurers but Granville Sharp a leading abolitionist was not satisfied with the ruling because no charge was brought against the Captain of the ship or the crew members
Granville and others made efforts to make The Solicitor General, Justice John Lee take up criminal charges against the captain and his crew, but they failed.Â
In Justice John's own wordsÂ
"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 murderâŠÂ
The case is the same as if the wood had been thrown overboard.â
The murderers were never brought to book, but these events inspired the actions of William Wilberforce who led the successful campaign to have Parliament abolish slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.
The aftermath of the Slave Abolition.Â
When Britain abolished slavery, 3000 families who participated in the slave trade demanded compensation from the government for their losses.Â
In agreement with their demands, the British government passed the Slavery abolition act,Â
In this act, Â
The formerly enslaved people were committed to slavery in another term called 'apprenticeship', where they were forced to serve six to twelve years of further unpaid services.
The government compensated the enslavers with a borrowed sum of 20 million pounds, an amount which was 40% of the total government expenditure for 1834, this amount is said to be worth about 20 billion pounds in today's value.Â
This money wasnât paid off until 2015.
Ironically, the descendants of the transatlantic slave trade helped to pay off this debt through taxes.
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Work Cited
Royal museum greenwich
Blackpast
USA today
Blackpast.org
BBC
The Guardian
Umich.edu
Bond vigilantesÂ