The Zong Massacre

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the notorious events off Jamaica in 1781 and their background. The British slave ship Zong, having sailed across the Atlantic towards Jamaica, threw 132 enslaved Africans from its human cargo into the sea to drown. Even for a slave ship, the Zong was overcrowded; those murdered were worth more to the ship dead than alive. The crew said there was not enough drinking water to go round and they had no choice, which meant they could claim for the deaths on insurance. The main reason we know of this atrocity now is that the owners took their claim to court in London, and the insurers were at first told to pay up as if the dead slaves were any other lost goods, not people. Abolitionists in Britain were scandalised: if courts treated mass murder in the slave trade as just another business transaction and not a moral wrong, the souls of the nation would be damned. But nobody was ever prosecuted. The image above is of sailors throwing slaves overboard, from Torrey's 'American Slave Trade', 1822 With Vincent Brown Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University Bronwen Everill Class of 1973 Lecturer in History and Fellow at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge And Jake Subryan Richards Assistant Professor of History at the London School of Economics Studio production: Hannah Sander Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:04.8	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:07.4	There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our
0:10.8	programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:14.8	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:16.7	Hello, in 1781, the British slave ship, Zon, threw 132 enslaved Africans from its human
0:24.0	cargo into the sea to drown, so that their value could be claimed back on insurance.
0:29.9	The main reason we know of this atrocity now is that the owners took their claim to
0:34.1	court in London, and the insurers were at first told to pay up treating the slaves as goods,
0:40.8	not people.
0:41.8	Abolitionists in Britain were scandalised if courts treated mass murder in the slave trade
0:47.1	as just another business transaction and not a moral wrong, the souls of the nation will
0:51.8	be damned, but nobody was ever prosecuted.
0:55.7	We made to discuss the Zong massacre, Bronwyn Everill, class of 1973 in Electro in History
1:01.4	and Philadelphia, Gondel and Keyes College University of Cambridge.
1:05.6	James Brian Richards, assistant professor of history at the London School of Economics,
1:09.8	and Vincent Brown, Charles Warren professor of American History and professor of African
1:14.2	and African American Studies at Harvard University.
1:17.5	Vincent Brown, how well developed was a transatlantic slave trade at this point around 1781?
1:22.2	Well, the transatlantic slave trade was extremely well developed for the British Empire by the
1:28.1	late 18th century.
1:30.1	The British, or I should say the English, first got involved with transatlantic slavery
	...

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