D'Aguiar, Fred *1960

Feeding the Ghosts, 1997 - Background

  • Zong Case
  • Slavery
    • Slaves were sometimes murdered by the captains of the slave ships. The worst recorded case on a British vessel occurred in the late 1781 on the ship Zong, commanded by Luke Collingswood. Leaving the African coast for Jamaica with four hundred Africans on September 6, the Zong lost sixty slaves to disease by November 29. Others became sick, and water stores soon became depleted. Thinking that many more would die before he reached port, constituting a big loss to the ship owners, and believing drowned slaves would be covered by insurers, Collingswood decided to throw overboard all those who were sick. First, fifty-four of the sickest slaves were cast into the ocean. Soon forty two more were similarly drowned. Although a heavy rainfall allowed the crew to collect additional drinking water, twenty-six more Africans were pushed off the deck, and another ten, seeing their fate, jumped overboard with their hands bound. When the Zong reached port, the insurers refused to pay and the ship owners sued the captain. The case became a cause for abolitionists, who seized upon the murders as symbolic of the evils of the slave trade. The Zong episode eventually moved the British Parliament to pass regulating the terms under which insurance could be paid for losses of slaves during transport. From Untold American History
    • A Brief Chronology of Slavery, Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism
    • Massacre of the slaves who did not die in vain. Daily Mail; September 15, 2011
    • Life on board slave ships: Collection of Information
    • Life Aboard a Slave Ship. From approximately 1525 to 1866, 12.5 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic to serve as slaves in the New World. Life aboard slave ships was agonizing and dangerous; nearly 2 million slaves would die on their journey across the Atlantic.
    • Pictures of slave trade
    • Why has the legacy of colonialism and/or slavery been so profound by Lorna Neville, University of Birmingham. A comparison of various novels about slavery.
    • Transatlantic Slavery and the Literary Imagination by Lars Eckstein, University of Potsdam.
    • Literary Representations of Transatlantic Slavery: Background Information by Federica Tazzioli. pdf-310pp