Page 23 - Insurance Times September 2023

the crew consulted and decided to force overboard African English law. He decided there should be a retrial because of
captives to preserve water for survivors. They killed the new evidence which suggested that the captain and crew
Africans in three batches - 54 were killed on 29 November; had been at fault.
42 were murdered on 1 December, and sometime in early
December (and after rain had fallen, making the problem "It appears that no trial ever took place, so the owners
of dwindling water supplies less acute) a further 26 were didn't receive their insurance payment, but perhaps a
thrown overboard. On the final occasion, ten slaves leapt chance was lost by the court to put down a moral marker
into the sea, committing suicide rather than being murdered. in relation to such a case," said Bicknell.
The Zong finally arrived in Black River, southwest Jamaica,
on 22 December 1781, where it sold its remaining 208 While the facts of the Zong case were unusual, he said there
slaves. would have been many claims under policies of cargo
insurance for the loss of slaves during their transportation.
The ship (renamed the Richard) returned to England on 26
October 1782 and the owners, the Gregson syndicate, "It was standard practice for slavers to insure their cargo
claimed the losses of the murdered slaves at £30 per head, of slaves and had the Zong simply sunk in a storm with a
under an insurance contract that covered the death of slaves similar loss of life, no such notoriety would have been
aboard slavers due to "the perils of the sea" and which was attached to the case. Almost certainly, the insurance claim
based upon the average cost of the surviving 208 Africans for the value of the lost slaves would have been paid," he
sold into slavery at Black River in January 1782. says. The only restriction was that deaths had to arise from
"perils of the seas" and would not for example cover deaths
Upon the Zong's arrival in Jamaica, James Gregson, the ship's through disease or insurrection.
owner, filed an insurance claim for their loss. Gregson
argued that the Zong did not have enough water to sustain The crux of the plaintiffs' case was that the crew was under
both crew and the human commodities. The insurance the "necessity" of throwing slaves overboard because they
underwriter, Thomas Gilbert, disputed the claim citing that faced an imminent insurrection from water-deprived captives
the Zong had 420 gallons of water aboard when she was realizing they were facing a slow and painful death. There
inventoried in Jamaica. Despite this the Jamaican court in was no insurrection on the Zong. But the crew were
1782 found in favour of the owners. convinced that if they had not acted on 29 November an
insurrection would have occurred. Killing 54 women and
The insurers appealed the case in 1783 and in the process children by jettisoning them as cargo saved the crew and
provoked a great deal of public interest and the attention the rest of the slaves on ship from imminent destruction.
of Great Britain's abolitionists. The leading abolitionist at the
time, Granville Sharp, used the deaths of the slaves to Both James Kelsall and Robert Stubbs, the only eye-witness
increase public awareness about the slave trade and further testimony that exists concerning the decision making
the anti-slavery cause. It was he who first used the word process on the night of 29 November, were insistent on this
massacre. point. Stubbs supported Collingwood's decision to murder
Africans because "according to his Judgement the Captain
A jury heard the dispute, Gregson v/s Gilbert, at London's did what was right. "There was an absolute necessity for
Guildhall in March 1783, and ruled in favour of the ship throwing over the Negroes." Kelsall claimed and added that
owners. The insurers appealed, as solicitor Andrew Bicknell he objected at first but soon came around.
notes, not on the basis of common humanity, but because
it occurred as a result of errors of navigation and Mansfield and Buller, the presiding judges in 1783, did not
mismanagement of the vessel, namely insufficient water make much of the question of insurrection on board the
onboard. Zong. In retrospect, it is surprising that they did not
interrogate counsel further on this matter.
The case came before the lord chief justice, Lord Mansfield,
who in a previous judgment had ruled that there was never Of cases dealing with slave insurrection that came before
a legal basis for slave ownership within England under the British courts in the late eighteenth century, it was only

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