What Do You Do When the Zong Massacre Stops You in Your Tracks?

In 1781, at the height of the trade in kidnapped Africans, the slave ship Zong, owned by a Liverpool syndicate, was en route to Jamaica from Ghana, West Africa. The ship was carrying around 470 enslaved people held in terrible conditions, controlled by a crew of just 17. It was twice the number the ship was designed for. It ran low on water due to navigational errors. The ship’s captain, Luke Collingwood, knew that if the enslaved Africans died of natural causes before they could be sold, they wouldn’t make as much profit as expected. (This was Collingwood’s first journey as a captain; he had previously worked as a surgeon on the ship William). Collingwood was motivated by the fact that their insurance policy for their cargo covered emergencies. He calculated that if the enslaved people were thrown into the water to “protect” the safety of those onboard, the crew and owners could recover their “value” through an insurance claim.

Therefore, between November 29 and the following days, the crew of the British ship Zong killed 133 of their African captives by throwing them overboard. These actions relied on categorising the human victims as cargo only. In the ensuing court case, the crew claimed that reduced food and water supplies created a necessity for the mass killing. So they were “cargo” that also needed food and water to survive. However, on the ship’s return to the UK, the insurers refused to pay, challenging the story that the ship had really run out of water.

A trial was held in March 1783 at the Guildhall in central London to settle the dispute. The court case, Gregson v. Gilbert (1783), ultimately decided on appeal, was focused only on the insurance claim and not the self-confessed killing of human beings that founded the claim. The jury in the trial of first instance found in favour of the slave traders, allowing them to claim insurance. The insurers appealed the decision. On appeal, Justice Mansfield held that a necessity had not been proven—it was not conclusive that the ship had run out of water since there was testimony that it was raining during the massacre. As Krikler argues, this finding suggests that had a necessity been proven, the killing of 133 human beings would have been justified. Krikler’s observation tells us something about the nature of Euro-modern law itself. At no point were the Africans considered human in the eyes of the law. At the appeal hearing instigated by the insurers, the barrister acting for the Zong’s owners illustrated that point bluntly thus:

‘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.’

In his judgment, Justice Mansfield noted:

“It has been decided, whether wisely or unwisely is not now the question, that a portion of our fellow-creatures may become the subject of property… The argument drawn from the law respecting indictments for murder does not apply.”

In law, you cannot murder property. Law determines what or who is property.

Olaudah Equiano, who had been freed from enslavement and was living in London, outraged at the massacre, had brought it to the attention of abolitionist Granville Sharp. Through the work of both men, the shocking details of the case galvanised the British abolitionist movement against the slave trade.

That is one response to the Zong. News of the brutality of the massacre boosted support for anti-slavery campaigners and helped drive change. In 1788, the first regulation limited the number of enslaved Africans a ship could carry. The British slave trade was outlawed in 1807, and all enslaved people in the British Empire were freed by law in 1833. This is the way in which the story of the Zong is often narrated. A triumph over slavery that took 52 years and countless unnamed lives and resulted in compensation for slave owners and continued servitude and dehumanisation for the formerly enslaved. 245 years after the events of the Zong, humanity is still discarding lives deemed not human enough to the open seas, to fire, to hunger, to war.