Captured Africans heading to Jamaica thrown overboard

IT IS a story from our slavery past that many Jamaicans have never heard about, yet a plaque was mounted at Black River, St Elizabeth, on Friday, December 28, 2007 by the Institute of Jamaica, in collaboration with the Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee, to honour and remember the Africans who were murdered by way of being thrown overboard from the ship known as the Zong in 1781.

The Zorg was a Dutch ship that took captured Africans to the West Indies. It was itself captured by the British, who renamed it The Zong. It was owned by Liverpool, England merchants: John Gregson, William Gregson, Edward Wilson and James Aspinall.

On March 5, 1781, The Zong depart from the port at Merseyside in Liverpool under the leadership of Captain Luke Collingwood, who sailed along the West African coast, kidnapping unsuspecting people along the way to bring to Jamaica. On September 6, 1871, The Zong left the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) with about 440 captured people.

Conditions on the ship with cramped space were unsanitary, which led to illnesses and deaths. In the first two months, about 60 Africans died, and the death numbers continued to rise. Captain Collingwood was now overwhelmed because he was losing his precious ‘cargo’. The question of what to do with those who were still sick was answered with an idea that inspired one of the biggest legal cases in British slavery history in the West Indies.

If the insured Africans died of natural causes, the owners could not submit insurance claims, and had to bear the loss. But, if he could prove that they had in fact gone overboard alive and drowned they could. So, he decided to throw the sick Africans overboard to minimise his loss.

He chained them ankle to ankle, tied metal balls on them to weigh them down, and then threw them into the sea – 55 on November 29; 42 on November 30; and 26 on December 1. One is said to have climbed back onboard, and 10 allegedly committed suicide. The total number of Africans killed was 133.

On December 28, The Zong arrived at Black River, St Elizabeth, with 208 Africans; 232 did not make it. Captain Collingwood eventually died from a disease he contracted on the ship. The trip took 112 days, much longer than the estimated 60-day journey from Africa to the West Indies.

Back in Liverpool, the shipowners found themselves in court in their attempt to recover money for the loss of their ‘cargo’. They wanted £30 for each African lost in the matter of Gregson vs Gilbert, on the grounds that there was not sufficient water on the ship, a claim which a member of his crew discounted.

When the ship arrived at Black River, it brought 400 gallons of potable water, and so the insurers argued that they saw no justifiable reason for the mass murder and refused to honour the claims. They also maintained that Captain Collingwood’s actions were unprofessional.

Ironically, it was that lack-of-sufficient-water claim that made the claimants lose the case, which went before the court twice in March 1783. Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield ruled that the shipowners could not claim insurance for the Africans because the lack of enough water meant that the ‘cargo’ was mismanaged.

Nobody was charged and prosecuted for the killing of the 133 Africans, as the solicitor general, John Lee, declared that “A master could drown slaves without ‘a surmise of impropriety’”. He said, “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 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. This case is the same as if horses had been thrown overboard.” Lord Mansfield agreed with him.

The Zong Massacre, as that mass killing had come to be called, was one of the incidents that anti-slavery campaigners, such as Thomas Clarkson and James Ramsay, used to justify why slavery was wrong. Captain Collingwood’s scam was reported by Olaudah Equiano, a former enslaved African who read and wrote English fluently, to Granville Sharpe, another anti-slavery agitator.

The monument at Black River was mounted at the spot where the survived Africans were prepared for sale in ‘the Black River slave market’. It is there as a reminder of this sordid story that is one of those that are least, or never, told.