FOR THE SAFETY OF THE SHIP

Two hundred and thirty years ago today, on the 29^th November 1871, an incident at sea caused a bit of a stir in the English courts. The incident occurred on a British ship called the Zong, out of Liverpool. A Mr. James Gregson and colleagues of a Liverpool mercantile firm owned the ship. The incident resulted in a court case brought as a civil action by the ships owners seeking compensation from the insurers for ‘lost cargo’.

The ship had taken on more slaves/cargo than it could safely transport when it sailed from Africa en route to Jamaica on 6 September 1781. By 29 November, this overcrowding, together with malnutrition and disease, had killed seven of the crew and approximately sixty enslaved Africans. With the journey prolonged by contrary winds and inept navigation, Captain Luke Collingwood had an increasing number of the dead and dying in his cargo hold. 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 their loss 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”

Collingwood called his officers and proposed that the sick should be thrown overboard. Although the First Mate James Kelsall initially disagreed, the plan was agreed, and so, over three days in the mid Atlantic Ocean, 133 sick slaves went over the side: 54 on 29 November, 42 on 30 November and 26 on 1 December. Another ten, in a display of defiance at the inhumanity of the slavers, threw themselves overboard and, in the words of a contemporary account, "leaping into the sea, felt a momentary triumph in the embrace of death." 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 22 December.

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.

Lord Mansfield

The insurers appealed. The court case was presided over by Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield. The Solicitor General for England and Wales, John Lee notoriously declared that "the case was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard" but Lord Mansfield 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. Lee declared that a master could drown slaves without "a surmise of impropriety". He stated:

John Lee

“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”.

No amount of performance writing can express feelings about this. One is left wordless.

The Slave Ship, J.M.W. Turner’s representation of the massacre