Why did the crew of the Zong ship throw some?
Running low on water and having lengthened their journey due to a navigation error, the crew voted to jettison some of its human “cargo” in order to ensure the safe delivery of the rest, a loss for which the shipping company could be compensated under British law.
What type of ship was the Zong?
The Zong was an overloaded slave ship which crossed the Atlantic in 1781. Due to a navigational error, the ship missed its destination in the Caribbean and had to spend an extra three weeks at sea. Drinking water was growing short and sickness had spread among the enslaved people and crew.
Why did the captain of the Zong throw over 100 slaves overboard?
Both slaves and crew were afflicted. The captain, fearing that the blindness was permanent and knowing that blind slaves would be difficult if not impossible to sell, sent 39 slaves over the rails to their watery death. As with the captain of the Zong, he hoped that the insurance would cover the loss.
How many slaves were killed on the Zong?
The Zong massacre was a mass killing of more than 130 African slaves by the crew of the British slave ship Zong on and in the days following 29 November 1781.
What happened to Luke Collingwood?
The ship arrived in Black River, Jamaica, on 22 December. Captain Luke Collingwood died shortly afterwards, and the surviving 200 African captives were advertised for sale. The ship’s log – the formal record of everything that happened on the ship – had mysteriously disappeared.
What happened to the slaves on the Zong?
On 29 November, 54 women and children were thrown through cabin windows into the sea. On 1 December, 42 male slaves were thrown overboard, and 36 more followed in the next few days. Another ten, in a display of defiance at the inhumanity of the slavers, chose to commit suicide by jumping into the sea.
What was wrong with the slaves on Zong?
The crew claimed that the slaves had been jettisoned because the ship did not have enough water to keep all the slaves alive for the rest of the voyage. This claim was later disputed, as the ship had 420 imperial gallons (1,900 l) of water left when it finally arrived in Jamaica on 22 December.
How many African slaves were thrown overboard?
congressman that first came up with this claimed over 100,000,000 slaves were thrown overboard by slavers trying to avoid capture by British navel ships that were enforcing the empires ban on slavery.
Who insured the Zong?
It was insured by another syndicate that included a group of other Liverpool slave-ship owners. In mid-August 1781, the ship departed Ghana with 442 slaves on board—twice the number the ship was designed to safely carry—bound for Jamaica.
What happened to the captain of the Zong?
The historical William Garrow did not take part in the case, and because the Zong’s captain died shortly after arriving in Jamaica, his appearance in court for fraud is also fictional.
Was the Zong massacre the only massacre committed on an enslaving ship?
However, although the massacre on the Zong wasn’t the only massacre committed on an enslaving ship, the subsequent attention it garnered set the wheels in motion towards the abolition of enslavement in the British Empire.
What happened to the Zong ship?
The Zong’s captain, Luke Collingwood, overloaded his ship with slaves and by 29 November many of them had begun to die from disease and malnutrition. The Zong then sailed in an area in the mid-Atlantic known as “the Doldrums” because of periods of little or no wind.
How many slaves did the Zong ship carry?
The slave ship Zong departed the coast of Africa on 6 September 1781 with 470 slaves. Since this human chattel was such a valuable commodity at that time, many captains took on more slaves than their ships could accommodate in order to maximize profits.
What was the Zong incident and why was it important?
It was a campaign that traced its roots back to the Zong outrage. Though the Zong itself was subsumed into the broader campaign against the horrors of the slave ships, it was that ship which acted as a catalyst, propelling key players – Equiano, Sharp, the Quakers – to rouse public and political awareness.