Tristram Hunt : Slavery ... Britain is poised to come to terms with its role in the brutal trade in human lives
Captain Luke Collingwood's voyage was not going well. Poor navigation and strong headwinds meant his ship, the Zong, was taking months, not weeks, to sail from Africa to Jamaica. More worryingly, his cargo was beginning to rot. For shackled beneath the deck, pressed back to face, festering in each others' excrement, blood and sweat, some 440 slaves lay slowly dying.
Seeing his profits slip away as the deaths mounted, Collingwood resorted to an insurance scam. With each African covered at £30 apiece (over £2,000 at today's prices), he decided to jettison parts of the cargo to 'save' the rest. The Zong's maritime insurance would cover the cost of each lost slave. Citing a lack of drinking water, the captain had 133 slaves thrown overboard. Some went to their death with arms still shackled; others jumped into the ocean themselves.
But the Zong's insurer didn't buy Collingwood's story and in 1783 his damages claim ended up in a London court, not as a murder trial but as a civil insurance case. The presiding judge quickly found in Collingwood's favour.
We might not have known about this case today if it hadn't been for ex-slave Olaudah Equiano. Living as a free man in London, he alerted the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who in turn brought the crimes of Collingwood to public attention. Very slowly the true horror of slavery was beginning to infect the British imagination. The Zong case was one of a series of atrocities that spearheaded progress towards the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
This week Tony Blair is to deliver a 'historical expression of regret' for the British state's involvement in slavery; Baroness Amos, the Leader of the Lords, is among those who have been pressing for an apology. Rightly, it will not be an apology on behalf of our ancestors. Rather it is an appreciation of the role Britain played in the forcible transportation of 11 million Africans and how that Atlantic trade shaped our past. It represents an understanding of how important slavery was in moulding modern Britain and how significant it is to the heritage of many black Britons today.
But why should we alone be apologising for slavery? For one of the most persistent objections to this sort of statement rests on the pre-existence of slavery in African society; Equiano's own father kept slaves. Although it was different in nature, there was a strong culture of slave trading prior to the European arrival in Africa. Much of it was driven by the Middle Eastern market, with Arab merchants bringing Africans into Persia and the Mediterranean. Zanzibar, on the east coast of Africa, was a famous slave-trading hub.
Moreover, the Portuguese and French were in Africa earlier and equally adept at the bribery, cunning and violence which underpinned the trade. Yet during the 18th century the slave trade intensified both in quantity and barbarity (whether this was partly a product of racism, or racism a product of slavery, remains a moot point). And Britain - with its vast merchant navy, seafaring entrepreneurialism and growing empire - was at the heart of it....
Read entire article at Guardian
Seeing his profits slip away as the deaths mounted, Collingwood resorted to an insurance scam. With each African covered at £30 apiece (over £2,000 at today's prices), he decided to jettison parts of the cargo to 'save' the rest. The Zong's maritime insurance would cover the cost of each lost slave. Citing a lack of drinking water, the captain had 133 slaves thrown overboard. Some went to their death with arms still shackled; others jumped into the ocean themselves.
But the Zong's insurer didn't buy Collingwood's story and in 1783 his damages claim ended up in a London court, not as a murder trial but as a civil insurance case. The presiding judge quickly found in Collingwood's favour.
We might not have known about this case today if it hadn't been for ex-slave Olaudah Equiano. Living as a free man in London, he alerted the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who in turn brought the crimes of Collingwood to public attention. Very slowly the true horror of slavery was beginning to infect the British imagination. The Zong case was one of a series of atrocities that spearheaded progress towards the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
This week Tony Blair is to deliver a 'historical expression of regret' for the British state's involvement in slavery; Baroness Amos, the Leader of the Lords, is among those who have been pressing for an apology. Rightly, it will not be an apology on behalf of our ancestors. Rather it is an appreciation of the role Britain played in the forcible transportation of 11 million Africans and how that Atlantic trade shaped our past. It represents an understanding of how important slavery was in moulding modern Britain and how significant it is to the heritage of many black Britons today.
But why should we alone be apologising for slavery? For one of the most persistent objections to this sort of statement rests on the pre-existence of slavery in African society; Equiano's own father kept slaves. Although it was different in nature, there was a strong culture of slave trading prior to the European arrival in Africa. Much of it was driven by the Middle Eastern market, with Arab merchants bringing Africans into Persia and the Mediterranean. Zanzibar, on the east coast of Africa, was a famous slave-trading hub.
Moreover, the Portuguese and French were in Africa earlier and equally adept at the bribery, cunning and violence which underpinned the trade. Yet during the 18th century the slave trade intensified both in quantity and barbarity (whether this was partly a product of racism, or racism a product of slavery, remains a moot point). And Britain - with its vast merchant navy, seafaring entrepreneurialism and growing empire - was at the heart of it....