Note that this is idealized: Space in a ship used to transport
slaves was expensive! Slaves were crammed in to the maximum,
especially as the percentage of slaves that would die during
the "Middle Passage" was high. Costs were covered by
loss-claims made upon insurance companies.
1
Bibliography
Cowper, William; "The Negro's Complaint"
1
The slave ship "Zong" massacre was the mass killing of more than 130 African slaves
by the crew of the British slave ship Zong (1781). The Gregson slave-trading syndicate,
based in Liverpool, owned the ship and sailed her in the Atlantic slave trade. As was
common business practice, they had taken out insurance on the lives of the slave cargo.
The ship ran low on drinking water following navigational mistakes (caught in the "doldrums"
expected at "horse-latitudes"). As a large number of slaves would die of thirst, expected
profits earned by the sale of these slaves would be low. The captain and crew created an alibi
that would cover the loss of the insured cargo: "An infectious disease killed the slaves".
As insurance claims would exceed the value of the remaining slaves, the armed crew threw
the (healthy) slaves overboard into the sea.
After the slave ship reached port at Black River, Jamaica, the Zong's owners made a claim
upon their insurers for the loss of the slaves. However, the insurers refused to pay! The
resulting court cases (Gregson v Gilbert (1783) 3 Doug. KB 232) held that in some
circumstances, the deliberate murder of enslaved people was legal and that insurers could
be required to pay for those who had died. The jury found for the slavers, but at a subsequent
appeal hearing the judges, led by Lord Chief Justice, the "Earl of Mansfield",
ruled against the syndicate owners, due to new evidence that suggested the captain and crew
were at fault.
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