The story of the Zong slave ship: a mass murder masquerading as an insurance claim
Landmarks in lawStudying lawA 1783 case exposed how the law facilitated the slave trade – and increased momentum for the abolitionist movement
In August 1781, a British slave ship, the Zong, left Ghana with 442 slaves aboard – twice the number it was designed to carry – bound for Jamaica. The ship’s owners claimed that due to navigational errors, it took longer than anticipated to reach Jamaica, and as water was running low, the crew threw more than 130 live slaves overboard.
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