[The following is in regards to the European Atlantic Slave Trade.]
In 1781, Luke Collingwood, captain of the Zong, a vessel owned by a Liverpool company, was anxious about the disease carrying off a number of his human cargo. Aware of the laws governing maritime insurance, Collingwood told his officers that ‘if the slaves died a natural death, it would be the loss of the owners of the ship; but if they were thrown alive into the sea, it would be the loss of the underwriters.’ On the pretext that food and water supplies were insufficient for the full complement of slaves, the captain spurred his crew to sling 131 of them overboard to drown.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the affair did eventually come before the courts. However, while the machinery of the British legal system had been set in motion, it was not to deliver punishment for the cold-blooded murder of 131 Africans. It involved the insurers’ refusal to underwrite the losses of the ship’s owners, and was to settle a dispute about property and money.
Source:
Cocker, Mark. “All Christendom will here have Refreshment and Gain.” Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold: Europe's Conquest of Indigenous Peoples. Grove Press, 2001. 18-19. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Walvin, Black Ivory, p. 64.
Further Reading:
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