Last Year's Lesson: Zong Massacre - Nov. 29, 1781

The Zong Massacre began on this day in 1781.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to
you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this day in
History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from
the desk of Stuff you Missed in History Class. It's
the show where we explore the past one day at
a time with a quick look at what happened today
in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

(00:25):
and it's November twenty nine. The Zong massacre began on
the day in seventy one. The Zong was a slave ship,
and conditions on slave ships in general were brutal and horrifying,
but aboard the Zong they became even worse. The Zong
left the African coast on September sixth of that year.

(00:46):
It was heavily overloaded with four hundred and forty two
enslaved Africans, and while crossing the Atlantic, many of these
people became ill and died because of disease and thirst
and malnutrition. And again this was common aboard slave ships,
but it became a lot worse in this case because
the crew accidentally sailed past their destination of Jamaica and

(01:08):
then on the other side of Jamaica, they were becalmed.
By the time they became stranded at sea, having lost
the wind, three hundred and eighty of those original four
hundred forty two enslaved people were still living. While they
were stuck there, conditions got worse, and the crew made
a decision. They threw some of the enslaved people aboard

(01:32):
off the ship to try to conserve resources. They focused
on the ones who were sick or dying. Over the
span of just a few days, the crew threw a
hundred and thirty two people overboard, and about ten people
also jumped overboard to avoid this fate. Luke Collingwood was
the captain of the ship, but he wasn't the ship's owner.

(01:54):
The owner was a man named James Gregson, and once
the Zong finally did get out of the city Waition
and arrived in Jamaica, Gregson filed an insurance claim for
his lost property, that property being the enslaved people who
had been jettisoned from the ship. Collingwood also died not
long after arriving, and the manifest of exactly who and

(02:17):
what had been on board disappeared. So it wasn't at
all uncommon for the owner of a slave ship to
ensure the enslaved people aboard, and it also wasn't all
that uncommon for the insurer to pay claims on so
called cargo that was lost during the trip, but in
this case the insurance company refused to pay. The insurance

(02:39):
inspector said that there was more than four hundred gallons
of water aboard the Zong when it got to Jamaica,
so it shouldn't have been necessary to reduce the numbers
aboard the ship. There was also evidence that the crew
had passed up the opportunity to replenish the stores of
water on the ship, and that the killings had continued
after rains replenished the water supply that was there this

(03:02):
matter whence the court and the court found in favor
of James Gregson, but the insurance company appealed the decision.
This appeal became a matter of national attention in Britain,
as abolitionists use it as an example of the horrors
of slavery. William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield and the
Lord Chiefs Justice of the King's Bench, was the one

(03:23):
who heard this appeal and ordered a new trial. It
was during all of this at the word massacre was
first used to describe what had happened, and living in
the home of William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield, was
a woman named Dido Elizabeth Bell. She was the Earl's
grand niece. Dido's father was a British Navy officer, Sir

(03:45):
John Lindsay, and her mother was an enslaved woman named Maria,
who Lindsay either stole or rescued from a Spanish vessel
in the Caribbean. There's been a lot of speculation about
whether Dido's presence in the Earl's life influenced his decision
in and ordering this new trial, and while it may
have played a part, he really focused his ruling on

(04:06):
the question of how much water was on the ship
and whether the right actions had been taken regarding what
was considered to be cargo. He didn't really look at
the question of whether the enslaved Africans aboard the ship
were considered people with rights who were the victims of
murder rather than cargo. Even though he found in favor

(04:28):
of the insurance company and that a new trial was ordered,
that trial doesn't appear to have ever happened, and this
might have been due to fears that because of the
progress of the movement for abolition and all the discussion
about the people aboard this ship that had happened during
this hearing, there were concerns that that might actually lead
to murderer convictions for the crew. Thanks to Christopher Aciotis

(04:52):
for his research work on Today's podcast, and thanks to
Casey Pigraham and Chandler May's for their audio work on
this show. You can s strive to the Stay in
History class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever else
you get your podcasts, and you can tune in tomorrow
for a final speech. H