On 29 November 1781, Capt Luke Collingwood faced a decision. He was in command of a ship called the Zong, which departed Accra with 442 Africans to be sold into slavery. However, the crew of the Zong kept getting lost on the way to Jamaica. Now their overcrowded “cargo” was ridden with disease and dehydration. Closing in on their destination, they realised that if these Africans died onshore, this would be a loss for the shipowners. But if they were “lost at sea”, the insurers would cover the cost. Soon, more than 130 people were thrown overboard, starting with the less commercially valuable women and children. At the resulting court case two years later, the main area of dispute was whether this action invalidated the financial payout. None of the city of London’s legal and financial institutions involved considered whether the mass drowning constituted a crime.
This episode from Britain’s inhumane and inglorious history of slavery came to mind this week when I read that in response to a recent, well-supported UN resolution recognising the historic crime of slavery, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said it would deny all UK visas to people from countries seeking slavery reparations from Britain. Countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica and Ghana, from where Zong set sail all those years ago.
