White Slavers Drowned 130+ Africans, Then Filed an Insurance Claim

On November 29, 1781, the crew of the slave ship Zong met and agreed to throw enslaved people into the sea. At least 130 people were killed. The ship's owners then filed an insurance claim for them, thirty pounds each. In 1783 a London jury sided with the owners, and the Lord Chief Justice compared the people to horses. Then the insurers appealed, and nobody was ever prosecuted for murder. This episode is told as the invented shareholder call of the syndicate that owned the ship: the history is real, the call is a stage. The jokes are aimed at the syndicate, the insurers and lawyers, the officers' excuses, the court and the 1788 "reform". The people on the ship are told straight. Their names were not recorded in any source we opened. What the record shows: the ship began as a Dutch slaver, was bought with its 244 people already aboard, and sailed from Accra with more than 400 Africans (442 by most accounts), about twice the safe number. The policy valued each person at thirty pounds, but covered some deaths and not others. The crew mistook Jamaica for a French island, then claimed there was no water, though rain fell and about 420 gallons were still aboard at Black River. The logbook went missing. The jury awarded the owners £3,660. On appeal, Lord Mansfield ordered a new trial after the rain came out; there is no record that it happened. Olaudah Equiano told Granville Sharp, who asked for a murder prosecution and wrote to the Admiralty. Parliament later limited how many people a ship could carry (1788) and barred insurers from paying for people thrown overboard (the 1790s). Here at The Real White History, we celebrate white history all year round. Next: slave patrols and the roots of Southern policing Chapters 00:00 Cold open: the shareholder call 00:34 The claim and the arithmetic 00:52 The ship and the bill of sale 01:27 442 people, and no names 01:54 The fine print 02:28 Who was in charge 03:04 The wrong island 03:35 November 29th 03:55 The days after 04:15 The water 04:46 Black River 05:04 The claim 05:37 The same judge 06:09 The first trial: horses 06:50 Equiano and Sharp 07:19 The appeal 08:00 No answer 08:26 The Brookes print 08:52 The reform 09:19 The new rule 09:47 What remains 10:16 Close: the call ends A note on sources: every date, number and quote comes from the sources below. The court quotes are as relayed by the historian James Walvin (2011); we did not open the original law report. The shareholder call, its speakers and their private lines are invented; real people speak only their recorded words. Counts differ between sources (about 130 to 142 killed; 380 to 470 aboard) and are labeled. The ship drawing is generic: its hull lines are not in the record. Voices: Andre's own AI voice clone. Sources Wikipedia, Zong massacre (cites Lewis 2007, Walvin 2011, Weisbord 1969, Krikler 2007): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zong_ma... Royal Museums Greenwich, archive record REC/19, documents about the Zong case, 1783: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/arc... T. Burnard, A New Look at the Zong Case of 1783, XVII-XVIII 76 (2019): https://journals.openedition.org/1718... J. Krikler, The Zong and the Lord Chief Justice, History Workshop Journal 64(1) (2007): https://repository.essex.ac.uk/5680/ The Insurance Museum, the Zong: https://insurance.museum/?p=17318 Brodies LLP, The Zong massacre: https://brodies.com/insights/communit... C. Baksi, The story of the Zong slave ship, The Guardian (2021): https://uk.news.yahoo.com/story-zong-... Slave Trade Act 1788 (Dolben's Act): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_T... Brookes (ship) and the 1788 print: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookes...) Legislation on the slave trade (32 Geo. III c. 52): https://pdavis.nl/Legis_64.htm Music: channel library beds (same as earlier episodes). #ZongMassacre #BlackHistory #TheRealWhiteHistory