The Zong [[electronic resource] ] : a massacre, the law and the end of slavery / / James Walvin

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910457826703321
• Autore: Walvin James
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New Haven, : Yale University Press, c2011
• ISBN: 1-283-29255-6; 9786613292551; 0-300-18075-6
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (269 p.)
• Disciplina: 306.3/62094275309033
• Soggetti: Slave trade - England - Liverpool - History - 18th century; Slave trade - Jamaica - History - 18th century; Slaves - Violence against - History - 18th century; Mass murder - History - 18th century; Seafaring life - History - 18th century; Trials - England - London - History - 18th century; Marine insurance - Great Britain - History; Slavery - Law and legislation - Great Britain - History; Antislavery movements - Great Britain - History; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. A painting and a slave ship -- Chapter 2. The city built on slavery -- Chapter 3. Crews and captives -- chapter 4. The making of the Zong -- chapter 5. All at sea -- Chapter 6. An open secret -- Chapter 7. In the eyes of the law -- Chapter 8. A matter of necessity -- Chapter 9. In the wake of the Zong -- Chapter 10. Abolition and after -- Chapter 11. Remembering the Zong -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain ; believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is the first to examine in detail the deplorable killings on the Zong, the lawsuit that ensued, how the murder of 132 slaves affected debates about slavery, and the way we remember the infamous Zong today.Historian James Walvin explores all aspects of the Zong's voyage and the subsequent trial-a case brought to court not for the murder of the slaves but as a suit against the insurers who denied the owners' claim that their "cargo" had been necessarily jettisoned. The scandalous case prompted wide debate and fueled Britain's awakening abolition movement. Without the episode of the Zong, Walvin contends, the process of ending the slave trade would have taken an entirely different moral and political trajectory. He concludes with a fascinating discussion of how the case of the Zong, though unique in the history of slave ships, has come to be understood as typical of life on all such ships.