Talk:Zong massacre

the insurers

A well written and well sourced article, but strangely, it doesn't seem to mention who the insurers involved in the affair were. Surely some information on this must be available. Am I right in thinking the insurance company is currently based in London and that its name starts with L ? Brutal Deluxe (talk) 01:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

No -- the insurers were a syndicate from Liverpool. Celuici (talk) 19:54, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Contradiction

Under the heading "Massacre," we see the final lines, "Later, it was claimed that the slaves had been jettisoned because it was required "for the safety of the ship" as the ship did not have enough water to keep them alive for the rest of the voyage. This claim was later disproved as the ship had 420 gallons of water left when it arrived in Jamaica on 22 December." Under the heading, "Legal Case," the final line reads in part, "but Lord Mansfield ruled that the ship-owners could not claim insurance on the slaves because the lack of sufficient water demonstrated that the cargo had been badly managed." How could the ruling be based on the lack of sufficient water, when the claims of lack of water had been disproved? Pihanki (talk) 16:04, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Style

Some of the writing in this article is rather un-encyclopedic. For example, "It is at this point that Granville Sharp...enters the story." "Sharp's attempts...never got off the ground." Thoughts?JoelWhy (talk) 13:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

These appear to have since been removed. Wootery (talk) 14:33, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

John Lee Quote

The article gives a quotation from John Lee, saying "The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard." Elsewhere the article says Lee 'notoriously' said "The case is the same as if horses had been thrown overboard." In the John Lee biography page it says "the same as if asses had been thrown overboard". Do we have some good authority for which it was, or could this be made consistent in some way? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.62.177 (talk) 13:46, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Luke Collingwood article should be merged

I have suggested that the Luke Collingwood article should be merged into this one. See here. Celuici (talk) 19:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Note on the 'Zong Massacre' image

Not the Zong Massacre

Just a quick note to record for future reference that this image does not depict the Zong Massacre: for more info, see here (and the journal article cited therein)

Study citation in question is:

Handler, Jerome S. and Steiner, Annis(2006)'Identifying pictorial images of Atlantic slavery: Three case studies',Slavery & Abolition,27:1,51 — 71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440390500499943

Merge

A suggestion has been made to merge Luke Collingwood with this article. The discussion is at Luke Collingwood.Mannanan51 (talk) 20:01, 11 September 2012 (UTC)Mannanan51

Request move of this page to "Zong massacre"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 09:46, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

---

Zong Massacre → Zong massacre – This page should be moved to "Zong massacre". This will make the title consistent with WP:LOWERCASE, which says that lower case should be used in article titles. Very few secondary sources use the phrase "Zong Massacre", and using the lower-case version of "massacre" in the title would reflect the fact that there is no single term which has been enshrined to describe the events on the Zong. Celuici (talk) 19:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Zong massacre/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 23:52, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review--or at least as glad as possible with the grim subject matter. In the next few days I'll do a close readthrough, noting here any issues I can't immediately take care of myself, and then go to the criteria checklist. Thanks in advance for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:52, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Initial readthrough

On a first pass, this looks like very strong stuff: well written, sourced, and organized. I don't anticipate any serious problems in this being promoted to GA.

A few points where the article could use more clarity:

• "The crew could not have known that the island was at that point in the possession of France" -- who would the crew have assumed the island belonged to--indigenous peoples, Spain... ? A bit of historical context would help make the issue clear.
• "At this point, James Kelsall claimed that there" -- ambiguous-- does this mean "this is the point that he claimed this" or "James Kelsall later claimed that at this point"?
• "responds to the story of an enslaved African" -- in what way does the novel respond to this story? Would it be accurate to simply say the novel "tells the story of..."?

Other points:

• If The Slave Ship is notable enough to have its own article, it seems worth including a sentence or two in the text that the event inspired this painting.

Take a look at the above and let me know what you think. Again, thanks for your work!

Checklist

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Prose is clear, spotchecks of Boime, Rupprecht, and Swaminathan show no evidence of copyright issues.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pass--really excellent work.

Vandalism

I may be ignorant of modern art, but is there supposed to be an ejaculating penis on this page?

It's vandalism; now repaired. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:53, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Slave Trade Act 1794?

Hello,

I'm a bit confused. I have searched and searched for the Slave Trade Act of 1794 and can only find the records for the Act in America. I noticed on the List of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, 1780–1800 but when I searched for this in the statues at large from that year CAP LXXX - It states that the 1794 amendment was just an extension and therefore not a full Act. Hope that makes sense? My head is now boggled, haha.

Thanks very much, Staceydolxx (talk) 14:21, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

For the first few years these acts only had a duration of one year, and so they had to renewed with a new act. The source you've linked to says: "An act to continue for a limited time and to amend...". So it was a new act, and the source doesn't say that it was an extention or not a full act. It just ordered that a lot of the provisions from the previous year's act be repeated, but also made some amendments, including one to do with insurance. Celuici (talk) 14:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

William

Would the William mentioned in the article be the same ship as William (1770 ship)? SpinningSpark 00:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

No, it's the vessel used in voyage 84046 in this list. Celuici (talk) 08:29, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't positively rule it out as being the same ship. The only voyage listed in the William's article is for 1793-4, eight years after the last voyage in the database. SpinningSpark 09:32, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

The tonnage and year of construction are different too, which is evidence enough for me. Celuici (talk) 14:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.13.251 (talk) 15:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC) 

Added ID

Added more details to show African Committee belonged to RAC (did not know what the committee was attached to), as well as RAC having its regional headquarters at the Cape Coast Castle, to emphasize its importance, and that its Council could depose Stubbs.Parkwells (talk) 15:39, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

End of voyage

The paragraph in The Middle Passage -> Subsequent History of the Zong says that it landed in Black River and that the surviving slaves were sold. The paragraph in In Modern Culture -> 2007 Abolition Commemorations note that a memorial stone was placed in Black River "where the Zong would have landed". I believe that the truth is that the ship did land in Black River and that the latter sentence is using a potentially misleading grammatical device, but this should be confirmed and made more clear.

Less critically, "Subsequent History of the Zong" is an odd title, as it describes only a single event (the landing) which is really a key part of the voyage being described. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:193:C100:990D:A9A3:B212:D9B2:CE66 (talk) 00:01, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

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Question about insurance payments

The article never says whether or not insurance payments were, in fact, paid to the ship owners. It kind of sounds like the insurers lost the case and had to pay, or maybe the historical record is simply missing that information and we don't know. Whatever the answer is, this article should have a statement about what we know, or don't know, about insurance payments. HowardMorland (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Preemptive strike on misinformation?

I was reading an interview with an Irish historian published by the Souther Poverty Law Center that describes how certain white supremacist groups have appropriates and distorted this historical event to support their agenda. Apparently there are false claims that the slaves on this ship were white Irish people, not Africans. This lie has been propagated on such popular websites as Info Wars. From the interview:

This specific aspect of the meme is disturbing. It appropriates the massacre of around 132 African victims of the genocidal transatlantic slave trade in order to diminish it. If you look at the Infowars version of the meme you’ll see it has even appended an extra zero, making the number of victims amount to 1302, while adding that “these slaves weren’t from Africa, these forgotten souls were from Ireland.” This shameless appropriation is then used by Infowars to mock calls for reparatory justice for slavery.

I think that it is quite telling that so many people who propagate this disinformation did not recognize such a famous crime in the history of the transatlantic slave trade. It suggests that there exists a critical mass of ignorance that needs to be addressed. In too many cases this history is perceived as existing at a distance, in a peripheral if not marginalized space relative to the core nationalist narratives.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/04/19/how-myth-irish-slaves-became-favorite-meme-racists-online

My question is whether it's worth getting out front of this lie and addressing it in the article before the "tell all sides" crowd comes along and tries to revise and distort the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.15.240.111 (talk) 16:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Number of deaths

The first sentence gives a number of 133 which seems impossible to reach by any combination of the numbers later in the article.

• 29 Nov 54
• 1 Dec 42
• "next few days" 36

This adds to 132. We are not told whether the one man who climbed back aboard is from this number or the ten subsequent suicides in objection. There is a quote from in the footnote to the first sentence to the effect that "the outside number of drowned amounted to 142 in the whole": Is this taken to include the suicides (who presumably drowned)? What is meant by an "outside number"?

In any event, the number of 133 has no apparent justification, and I am changing it to "more than 130". Kevin McE (talk) 21:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

You may be wise to make that adjustment. As Note 1 says, quite clearly: "The exact number of deaths is unknown but James Kelsall (Zong's first mate) later said that "the outside number of drowned amounted to 142 in the whole" (quoted in Lewis 2007, p. 364)." James Walvin (2011), in his book The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery, says this: "...the legal hearings later accepted a figure of 122 murdered, in addition to the ten who had jumped to their deaths". Martinevans123 (talk) 21:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

In that case the part of the article that gives the numbers I have quoted above needs to be rewritten with a far less confident tone. Kevin McE (talk) 23:10, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps that footnote is too hidden away. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Which Alert?

There is no 16-gun brig mentioned on HMS Alert, and the one Alert currently linked in this article was apparently in French service at the time when Zorg/Zong was captured. Palnatoke (talk) 05:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Good point. Something is very wrong here, but I don't have access to the references I would need to fix it. Acad Ronin (talk) 15:36, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I have checked the National Maritime Museum's database but it doesn't provide any more clarity. If someone has access to Winfield's volume British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates that may be able to sort this out. Acad Ronin (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Slaves vs enslaved people

"Slaves" was changed to "enslaved people" by Drmies here with no edit summary. Today the rationale for changing back to "slaves" is "Changed 'enslaved people' to 'slaves'. This is a harsher term, but better describes the filthy conditions they had to live amongst. This should be a large change on the platform, but hasn't." Virtue signal wokery or valid updating? Which is correct? Are we to change slave ship to "enslaved peoples' ship"? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:49, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

We currently seem to have a mini slow edit war, with no rationale being given via edit summaries? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:38, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

'Enslaved Africans' is useful in the lead sentence because it imparts more information than 'slaves'. There is not a consistent approach in the main sources for this article (the Walvin book prefers 'Africans' where possible, the Krikler articles use 'slaves'), so that's not much help in informing this issue. 'Slaves' has the advantage of being clear and concise, but it does seem that most contemporary writings prefer 'enslaved people', for the reasons outlined for instance here. My overall view is that 'enslaved person' has now become the default term in academic writing on the Atlantic slave trade subject and it would be good for the article to accord with that, though a sensible use of both terms would be ideal. I would take issue with loaded terms like 'kidnapped' though -- this is to apply a Western legal term to a totally different time and place, and doesn't impact any more information than just saying 'enslaved' would do. Celuici (talk) 19:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

"Sold into slavery"

This passage needs to be fixed:

"The survivors were sold into slavery in January 1782."

Did the Zong crew personally raid the African interior to capture them? Seems unlikely. Rather more likely the Zong crew bought them in Accra, and therefore they had already been sold into slavery before setting foot on the ship, let alone crossing the Atlantic or arriving in Jamaica. In any case, regardless of the issue of selling, they had clearly already been enslaved in Africa, so the possible inference that can be drawn from the sentence -- that their experience of chattel slavery only began in January 1782 -- should be prevented. I suggest just removing "into slavery" from the sentence. Carney333 (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2023 (UTC)