Page 24 - Insurance Times September 2023

in Gregson v. Gilbert that the insurrection under discussion the safety of port in Jamaica. Africans starved on ships all
was imaginary, not real. But it was made clear in court in the time and a "sickly ship" was not uncommon.
1783 that the Zong suffered no insurrection. Solicitor
General John Lee, acting for the Gregsons, argued that by The major problem with this option was that taking it would
throwing the slaves overboard the crew avoided the greater negate all future claims for insurance. It was well-established
evil, for otherwise "in a few hours there must have been that deaths of slaves at sea from a disease that could have
such an Insurrection all the blacks wou'd have killed all the been contracted at land, or death from "despair" or suicide
Whites." Counsel for the defendants, Mr. Davenport were not covered in insurance claims. It would also virtually
demurred. Lee replied by quoting testimony from Stubbs. ensure a bad market for selling slaves.
Davenport continued, however, insisting that there had
been no insurrection. Lee agreed, noting that he did not say The last ten days of a voyage were generally taken up with
that there was an insurrection, merely that there might preparing captives for sale - taking constraints off wrists and
have been one if preventive action had not been taken. ankles so that sores could heal, careful cleaning, using a
lunar caustic to hide sores, covering up grey hair and rubbing
Was an insurrection likely? The jury at the jury trial on down bodies with palm oil so that captives glistened and
March 5, 1783 thought so. They awarded the Gregson gave off a healthy glow. Such preparations would be
syndicate £3,660 for the loss of 122 Africans insured at £30 impossible in a ship where famished slaves were locked
each. Insurrections were a constant threat in the Atlantic below decks.
slave trade. Studies show that up to ten percent of all
transatlantic slaving voyages were affected by revolt, There was an option outlined by Kelsall in his interrogatory
leading to the death of perhaps 1 percent of all captives before the Exchequer. The ship could wait until the water
entering the trade and adding significantly to the costs of had diminished further and hope either for rain or for a
doing business. The costs of containing coercion were high passing ship to relieve their plight. The climatic conditions
and were perhaps highest in the second half of the pertaining in early December have not usually been
eighteenth century when the frequency of slave revolts considered important by historians in evaluating the case
increased and when the violence on both sides was most of the Zong but they were important in the trial at King's
pronounced. Bench in March 1781. It does not appear that the question
of rain had come up in the original jury trial at the Guildhall
The crew on slave ships were terrified about the possibility on 5 March, a trial over which Mansfield had also presided.
of shipboard revolt and did as much as they could to try and
prevent it, including exercising fierce control over African But when Sergeant Heywood, on behalf of the insurers,
men, the most likely protagonists in any uprising. Men were after the cause was over and the verdict brought in,
kept fettered and chained almost continuously and were declared that Stubbs in his written testimony had said that
separated from women and children and kept in heavily rain had fallen for several days while the Zong was at sea,
patrolled apartments, usually immediately below the main and after the first murders had been committed, Mansfield
deck and as far away from the weapons' room as possible. became agitated. The slaves were thrown overboard, even
A large wooden grating covered the entrance to their after rain had fallen for several days. Mansfield knew very
quarters, designed to prevent men captives from getting well that if slaves had been killed after rain had fallen then
out in anything other than single file. the whole nature of the case changed. It was what led him
to suggest that there be a new trial. Indeed, if rain had fallen,
Nevertheless, if the Zong really was at risk of insurrection then Gregson v. Gilbert was no longer an insurance trial but
the actions that Collingwood and his crew took after 28 could be a murder trial.
November did not protect the ship from shipboard revolt.
Indeed, their actions placed the ship and the crew in great The murder of 132 African captives on the Zong in November
danger. The crew had a variety of options open to them. 1781 and its subsequent publicity as an insurance case,
The most obvious option was to shut down the holds and which showed the inhumanity of the slave trade in graphic
let the Africans take their chances of surviving without detail was a cause célèbre in the history of eighteenth-
water and meat while making haste as fast as they could to century abolitionism. What is often forgotten is that this

22 September 2023 The Insurance Times