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The Atlantic Slave Trade1770-1807

Sourcebook 4-The Growth of Abolition

Lesson 1 – The Case of the Zong

Source 1 –

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On 29 November 1781, Captain Luke Collingwood of the British ship, Zong, ordered one-third of his cargo to be thrown overboard. That cargo was human – 133 African slaves bound for Jamaica. His motive – to collect the insurance. The case was brought to court – not for murder, but against the insurers who refused to pay up. This is the cruel story of the Zong Massacre.

The slave ship, Zong

On 6 September 1781, the Zong, a slave ship, left the island of São Tomé, off the west coast of Africa, bound for Jamaica. The ship was cruelly overcrowded, carrying 442 Africans, destined to become slaves, accompanied by 17 crew. The human cargo was manacled and packed so tightly, to have no room to move. But for the captain, Luke Collingwood, the more Africans he could squeeze in, the greater the margin of profit for both the ship’s owners and himself.

For Collingwood, previously a ship’s surgeon, this was his first and last assignment as captain. Planning to retire, he hoped for a generous bounty to help him in his retirement. The greater the number of fit slaves he delivered to Jamaica, the greater his share.

Captain Collingwood’s decision

But by mid-November, the inexperienced Collingwood found himself in the mid-Atlantic, unable to navigate out of the calm winds of the Doldrums. The slaves, suffering from malnutrition, dysentery, scurvy and disease, began to die. By 28 November, 60 had died, along with seven crew members. Many more were falling sick. Collingwood began to panic – the delivery of dead slaves would earn the shipowners nothing. If, however, the Africans were somehow lost at sea, then the shipowners’ insurance would cover the loss at £30 per head.

So Collingwood, himself suffering from fever, had an idea. Having discussed it with his crew, he made an unimaginably cruel, but to his mind, logical decision. Rather than allow the sick slaves to die on board and be rendered worthless, he would throw them overboard – and claim on the insurance. First Mate, James Kelsall, protested but was overruled.  At some point during the trip, Kelsall had been suspended from duty but we do not know whether or not it was for this act of protesting (on arrival in Jamaica, the ship’s log had conveniently

disappeared).

Thus, on 29 November, 54 sick slaves, mainly women and children, were dragged from below deck, unshackled (after all, why waste good manacles?) and heaved from the ship into the ocean. The following day, more were murdered. In the end, Collingwood had thrown 133 slaves to their deaths. Many struggled and the crew had to tie iron balls to their ankles. Another ten slaves threw themselves overboard and in what Collingwood described as an act of defiance.

The ship finally arrived at its destination on 22 December 1781 – a trip that normally took 60 days had taken Collingwood 108. There were still 208 slaves on board, sold for an average of £36 each.

Horrid brutality

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On arriving back in Liverpool, the ship’s owner, James Gregson, duly made his claim – £4,000 for the loss of jettisoned ‘cargo’. The case went to court – not for the murder of 133 helpless Africans, but over who was liable for the costs. Collingwood made the devious claim that his actions had been necessitated by his concerns over the lack of water. He claimed to have had insufficient water to maintain the lives of his crew and the healthier slaves. First Mate Kelsall, who described the episode as a ‘horrid brutality’, spoke out against this, and sure enough it turned out that on arrival in Jamaica there were still some 430 gallons of water to spare on board the ship. Therefore, the insurers argued, it was for Gregson to stump the bill, not them. The decision, however, went Gregson’s way.

‘The same as if wood had been thrown overboard’

The insurers appealed and the case came before the court for a second time. By now, in May 1783, Collingwood had died (he died only three days after the ship had arrived in Jamaica) and the case had become a scandal of epic proportions in Britain. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who had bought his freedom and settled in London, brought the case to the attention of leading English abolitionist, Granville Sharp. Sharp wanted to bring forward a case of murder but the judge, Lord Mansfield, brushed aside his attempt, saying:

‘What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honourable men of murder. They acted out of necessity. The late Captain Collingwood acted in the interest of his ship to protect the safety of his crew. To question the judgement of an experienced well-travelled captain held in the highest regard is silly, especially when talking of slaves. The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.’

Sharp may have failed in his attempts to seek justice but over the coming years he used it to lobby Parliament and the church, and it certainly increased the call for abolition. The Abolition Society, founded in 1787, used the Zong Massacre as the prime example of the slave trade’s brutality. Finally, in 1807, Great Britain abolished the slave trade.

The practice of throwing slaves overboard did not end with the abolition of the slave trade. British seamen who persisted with the now illegal trade were, if caught, liable to a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard ship. The Royal Navy set up a squadron whose task was to patrol the coast of West Africa capturing ships carrying slaves. Captains on the slave ships, realising they were about to be caught, would throw slaves overboard to reduce the fines they had to pay.

Lesson 2 – Who were the Abolitionists?

Source 2 – William Wilberforce

Wilberforce was the son of a wealthy merchant. He studied at Cambridge University where he began a lasting friendship with the future prime minister, William Pitt the Younger. In 1780, Wilberforce became a member of parliament. He became an evangelical (born-again) Christian and became interested in social reform, particularly the improvement of factory conditions in Britain. The abolitionist

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Thomas Clarkson and John Newton had an enormous influence on Wilberforce. Wilberforce was persuaded to lobby (to persuade parliament) for the abolition of the slave trade and for 18 years he regularly introduced anti-slavery motions in parliament.

“If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-men is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever.”

Source 3 – Thomas Clarkson

Thomas Clarkson came from a relatively well-off family. He was sent to Cambridge and won an essay competition entitled “Is it right to make men slaves against their will?” He thought about what he had written and decided:

‘The thought came into my mind that if the subject contents of the essay were true, it was time for some person to see this evil come to its end. It was as if I had a direct revelation from God ordering me to devote my life to abolishing the slave trade’.

Clarkson visited British ports. He saw there were African trading vessels loaded with cotton, tobacco, oils, spices and woods, gold and ivory, ready for the markets in Britain. It occurred to Clarkson that there was plenty of opportunity for a trade with Africa, other than the trade in human beings.

Source 4 – Granville Sharp

Granville Sharp ran an office for the council in London. He was deeply religious. His interest in slavery began in 1765 after he befriended Jonathan Strong, a slave who had been badly beaten by his master. Sharp held ‘extreme’ political views such as the reform of Parliament, fair wages for workers and the rights of sailors not to be forced to join the navy.

Source 5 – John Newton

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John Newton was a captain on a slave ship. On one voyage to the Caribbean he became extremely ill and prayed for God to save him. He survived and this changed his life. In 1757, he gave up his job and applied to become a priest.

Source 6 – Olaudah Equiano

Equiano was born in Nigeria. He was kidnapped with his sister at around the age of 11, sold by local slave traders and shipped across the Atlantic to Barbados and then Virginia. In Virginia he was sold to a Royal Navy officer, Lieutenant Michael Pascal. Equiano travelled the oceans with Pascal for eight years, during which time he was baptised and learned to read and write. Pascal then sold Equiano to a ship captain in London, who took him to Montserrat, where he was sold to the merchant Robert King. While working as a deckhand, valet and barber for King, Equiano earned money by trading on the side. In only three years, he made enough money to buy his own freedom.

Source 7 – The Quakers

The first group to publicly oppose the slave trade was the Society of Friends. They were a religious group also known as the Quakers. In 1761 they decided that anyone involved in the slave trade could not be one of their members. They thought that if you believed in caring for each other then you could not be part of such a cruel business. Quakers are also strongly opposed to war and they opposed Atlantic slavery because it encouraged wars in Africa.

Lesson 3 – The Methods of the Abolitionists

Source 8 – Testimony

Abolitionists undermined the claims of the pro-slavery group by publishing books and pamphlets written by people who had witnessed the realities of the trade first-hand. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, published his autobiography in 1789. It documented his kidnap from Africa, his voyage across the Atlantic and his life in slavery. It would have been difficult for readers not to identify with the author. Equiano was courageous, cultured and Christian - all the qualities that British people admired. The book, which became a

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bestseller, challenged some of the widely held assumptions of that time about Africans and the slave trade.

Source 9 – Branding the Campaign

In 1787, Josiah Wedgwood designed a seal for the anti-slavery campaign. The image depicts an African man kneeling in supplication under the slogan 'Am I not a man and a brother?’ The African slave is presented as passive rather than rebellious, and is therefore non-threatening. The image was adopted as the abolition movement's logo and used to brand books, chinaware, snuffboxes, cufflinks, bracelets, medallions and banners. The logo became both a political and a fashion statement and helped to popularise opposition to slavery. 

Source 10 – Lobbying Parliament

Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson were both good at getting politicians to take up the slavery issue. They worked in the same way that political lobbyists do today. Equiano regularly lobbied members of parliament on slavery issues and led a group to the House of Commons to support a bill to improve conditions on slave ships. While there, he met the prime minister and other MPs.

Clarkson helped to persuade the MP William Wilberforce to become the parliamentary spokesperson for the campaign. He also organised witnesses and evidence for the House of Commons committee hearings on the slave trade.

Source 11 – Mobilising the public

In 1791, thousands of pamphlets were printed which encouraged people to boycott sugar produced by slaves. Estimates suggest some 300,000 people abandoned sugar, with sales dropping by a third to a half. Some shops advertised goods which had been produced by 'freemen' and sales of sugar from India, where slavery was not used, increased tenfold over two years.

Hundreds of thousands of people also signed petitions calling for the abolition of the slave trade. Many supported the campaign against their own interests. For example, in Manchester (which sold some £200,000 worth of goods each year to slave ships) roughly 20% of the city's population signed petitions in support of abolition. The size and strength of feeling

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demonstrated by these popular protests made even pro-slavery politicians consider the consequences of ignoring public opinion.

Source 12 – Popular Campaigning

The abolitionists were good at spreading the printed word, but only around half of the British population was literate. It was therefore essential that the movement used other ways to get

its message across.

One such way was an image showing a cross-section of the slave ship 'Brookes' packed with 482 enslaved people. In 1789, the abolitionists printed 7,000 posters of the ship and distributed them across the country. The arts were also a good way of reaching different audiences. Anti-slavery poems from William Cowper, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth proved popular. Cartoonists and artists also provided

visual images of slavery that reached audiences in ways the written word could not. These tools were important because they engaged people on an emotional level. They evoked sympathy and horror and did not rely on individuals taking part in debates or analysing statistical information.

Source 13 – Documenting evidence

In the 1780s, slavery was regarded as normal employment. The pro-slavery lobby tried to dehumanise Africans by claiming that they had no native society, lived like savages, were grateful for the opportunity to escape Africa, enjoyed the crossing and benefited from a good life on the plantations. The abolitionists sought to provide evidence to show that none of these things were true. Thomas Clarkson set about doing this by interviewing sailors, ships' doctors and traders in London, Bristol and Liverpool to document the treatment of enslaved people. He also bought shackles, thumbscrews and a device for force-feeding slaves who went on hunger strike, to provide physical evidence of abuse and confirmed the testimonies he collected.

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Clarkson also documented the brutal treatment of the slave ships' crews by demonstrating that, on average, 20% of each crew died from disease or ill treatment before the ship returned. His evidence demolished the myth that the slave trade provided useful training for Britain's sailors and showed that the trade was bad for sailors as well as Africans. He presented his information in such a way that it gained the attention of different key audiences - those concerned about the treatment of Africans and those concerned about the treatment of British sailors.

Extension – Abolitionists in Scotland

William Dickson of Moffat drove the Abolitionist campaign in Scotland. He had been in Barbados as the secretary to the Governor for 13 years and saw slaves being overworked, brutally punished and executed without a proper trial. When he came back to London he offered his services to the Abolitionist Society. He was sent to Scotland, which he turned into a powerhouse for the movement.

"Of the Africans, above one fourth perished on the voyage to the West Indies, and four and a half percent more died on average in the fortnight intervening between the days of entry and sale. To close this awful triumph of the King of terrors, about two in five of all whom the planters bought were lost in seasoning within the first three years and before they could be said to have yielded any productive labour."

Extract from a letter from William Dickson to Thomas Clarkson, 1787

He sought out influential people in the town councils, churches and universities. One person he won over was the Reverend Robert Walker of Canongate, Edinburgh - you might recognise this famous painting.

His tour was very successful. In four years, Scotland sent 185 petitions, a third of all those that reached Parliament. Every kind of group - churches, universities and town burghs - the length and breadth of Scotland sent one. Most who signed were ordinary people without the vote, shocked by what they had been shown and told about the slave trade.

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But Dickson had his enemies in Scotland. They wanted things the way they were. One of the most dangerous was the Reverend James Lapsley of Campsie, who was a government spy. His evidence put one minister in prison and had another churchman transported to Australia. He thought the Abolitionists were troublemakers.