From the Following Descriptions Below, Pick ONE (1) Project
Essay One:
Using the description of Olaudah Equiano’s journey from West Africa, write a journal describing your own thoughts if you were an African slave captured and taken to the New World. Describe the following four things in a paragraph each: your capture by slave catchers, your impression of seeing the Slave ships, your reaction to the conditions on the slave ship (76X16 inches of space), and your feelings of reaching the New World.
(You can find Olaudah's account below on this website)
Essay Two:
You have read the account of Thomas Phillips concerning his voyage across the ‘Middle Passage.’ You have also read about the infamous ‘Zong’ Massacre. Choosing the side of a British Abolitionist, write a four to five paragraph persuasive piece against the slave trade that will be published in a prominent British newspaper and read by thousands of Britons.
(For the documents handed out in class dealing with Phillips and the Zong Massacre, see below)
Thomas Phillips
"Having bought my complement of 700 slaves, 480 men and 220 women, and fin-ish'd all my business at Whidaw [on the Gold Coast of Africa], I took my leave of the old king and his cappasheirs [attendants], and parted, with many affectionate expressions on both sides, being forced to promise him that I would return again the next year, with several things he desired me to bring from I England. . . . I set sail the 27th of July in the I morning, accompany'd with the East-India I Merchant, who had bought 650 slaves, for the Island of St. Thomas. . . from which we took our departure on August 25th and set sail for Barbadoes.
We spent in our passage from St. Thomas II to Barbadoes two months eleven days, from the 25th of August to the 4th of November following: in which time there happened such I: sickness and mortality among my poor men and Negroes. Of the first we buried 14, and of the last 320, which was a great detriment to our voyage, the Royal African Company los¬ing ten pounds by every slave that died, and the owners of the ship ten pounds ten shillings, being the freight agreed on to be paid by the charter-party for every Negro delivered alive ashore to the African Company's agents at Barbadoes. . . . The loss in all amounted to near 6500 pounds sterling.
The distemper which my men as well as the blacks mostly died of was the white flux, which was so violent and inveterate that no medicine would in the least check it, so that when any of our men were seized with it, we esteemed him a dead man, as he generally proved. . . .
The Negroes are so incident to the small¬pox that few ships that carry them escape without it, and sometimes it makes vast hav¬ock and destruction among them. But tho' we had 100 at a time sick of it, and that it went thro' the ship, yet we lost not above a dozen by it. All the assistance we gave the diseased was only as much water as they desir’d to drink, and some palm-oil to anoint their sores, and they would generally recover without any other helps but what kind nature gave them…
But what the small pox spar'd, the flux swept off, to our great regret, after all our pains and care to give them their messes in due order and season, keeping their lodgings as clean and sweet as possible, and enduring so much misery and stench so long among a parcel of creatures nastier than swine, and after all our expectations to be defeated by their mortality…
No gold-finders can endure so much noi¬some slavery as they do who carry Negroes; I for those have some respite and satisfaction, but we endure twice the misery; and yet by their mortality our voyages are ruin'd, and we pine and fret ourselves to death, and take so much pains to so little purpose."
-Thomas Phillips
The Zong Massacre:
One of the biggest cases in the history of the Atlantic Slave trade brought out the issues of carelessness and selfish acts. The story of the slave ship Zong gives a remarkable account of how slaves were being murdered. The ship was under the command of Luke Collingwood and his crew. They left from the coast of Africa on September 6, 1781 on a voyage to Jamaica. On November 27, 1781 they arrived at an Island that they thought was Jamaica. By November 29, 1781 the ship had unfortunately claimed the lives of seven white men and sixty African slaves. (5) The crew had packed on more slaves than they had room and this caused a lot of disease and malnutrition. In Black Slaves in Britain, Shyllon states, "Chained two by two, right leg and left leg, right hand and left hand, each slave had less room than a man in a coffin." (6) It is no wonder why so many slaves were sick and had died, they were treated like animals and given hardly enough room to breathe.
Well that very day, Luke Collingwood made the decision of throwing the remaining sick Africans over the boat. He pulled his crew together and told them that if the sick slaves died a natural death, then the responsibility would be on them as the ship's crew. He then stated that if the slaves were thrown over while still alive for the safety of the ship it would be the under the responsibility of the underwriters. This seems very unjust, but at the time it was a law in Europe because slaves were seen as merchandise and a matter of insurance. The Law reads as followed:
"The insurer takes upon him the risk of the loss, capture, and death of slaves, or any other unavoidable accident to them: but natural death is always understood to be excepted: by natural death is meant, not only when it happens by disease or sickness, but also when the captive destroys himself through despair, which often happens: but when slaves are killed, or thrown into thrown into the sea in order to quell an insurrection on their part, then the insurers must answer." (7)
Collingwood was not the actual owner of the ship. The ship actually belonged to James Gregson, and a number of others who owned a slave ship firm in Liverpool. Collingwood took it upon himself to look out for the best interest of the owners as well as himself. He used the law in his favor, but there was no reason to throw the sick Africans over the boat because the ship was not in any danger. For the next three days Collingwood and his crew threw over 133 slaves, one managing to escape and climb back onto the boat. (8) Shyllon goes on to say, " The last ten victims sprang disdainfully from the grasp of their executioners, and leaped into the sea triumphantly embracing death."(9) Once again, I think that the Africans aboard the Zong as well as any other slave ship should be considered brave for enduring the painful, inhumane conditions they had to experience. Even when it came down to the seamen throwing the captured slaves over the boat, there were still ten people who faced death with a lot of courage.
When they returned to England the owners of the ship claimed the full value of the murdered slaves from the insurers. They claimed they there was a necessity to throw the slaves over the ship because of water depletion. Well it was proven later that it was all a lie and that the captain had an opportunity for more water on December 1. By the time the Zong had arrived in Jamaica on December 22, they had 420 gallons of water to spare.(10)
Eventually the insurance company found out about the owners lying and refused to pay them for their claims. The discrepancy about the claims for the slaves became a court case and was first heard in March 1783 in London. It was Gregson v. Gilbert that helped to bring the issue of the ill treatment of slaves to light. Although the laws were not changed due to this famous court case, it brought many people to support the abolition of the slave trade. To name a few, Oloudah Equiano came out against the murder of African slaves and he went to Granville Sharp for support. It was also that same year that the Quakers presented a petition for the abolition of the slave trade. Four years later with Granville Sharp, still inspired to end the slave trade, along with many others joined together to form the Anti-Slave trade society...
No officers or crew were charged or prosecuted for the deliberate killing of 133 people. Indeed, the Solicitor-General, John Lee, declared that a master could drown slaves without "a surmise of impropriety". He stated:
What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honourable men of murder. They acted out of necessity and in the most appropriate manner for the cause. 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 one of folly, especially when talking of slaves. The case is the same as if horses had been thrown overboard."
