November 29, 1781
The captain and crew of the slave ship Zong threw overboard 133 of their still-living human cargo. They had run short of food and water, and historically the insurance company would reimburse slavers “when slaves are killed, or thrown into thrown into the sea in order to quell an insurrection” but would refuse to pay out if the enslaved people died from disease or malnutrition. The company filed a claim when they reached Jamaica but the insurers, smelling fraud, balked at payment. It went to court. The solicitor general argued: “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 case is the same as if horses had been thrown overboard.” The court agreed. No one was ever prosecuted for this crime, but the Zong murders provided a powerful example of the horrors of the slave trade, stimulating the development of the abolitionist movement in Britain. JMM Turner’s painting, “The Slave Ship,” was inspired by the Zong atrocity.
