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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this day in

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Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from

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Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you Missed in History Class. It's

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Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

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Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

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Speaker 1: in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

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Speaker 1: and it's November twenty nine. The Zong massacre began on

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Speaker 1: the day in seventy one. The Zong was a slave ship,

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Speaker 1: and conditions on slave ships in general were brutal and horrifying,

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Speaker 1: but aboard the Zong they became even worse. The Zong

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Speaker 1: left the African coast on September sixth of that year.

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Speaker 1: It was heavily overloaded with four hundred and forty two

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Speaker 1: enslaved Africans, and while crossing the Atlantic, many of these

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Speaker 1: people became ill and died because of disease and thirst

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Speaker 1: and malnutrition. And again this was common aboard slave ships,

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Speaker 1: but it became a lot worse in this case because

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Speaker 1: the crew accidentally sailed past their destination of Jamaica and

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Speaker 1: then on the other side of Jamaica, they were becalmed.

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Speaker 1: By the time they became stranded at sea, having lost

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Speaker 1: the wind, three hundred and eighty of those original four

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Speaker 1: hundred forty two enslaved people were still living. While they

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Speaker 1: were stuck there, conditions got worse, and the crew made

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Speaker 1: a decision. They threw some of the enslaved people aboard

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Speaker 1: off the ship to try to conserve resources. They focused

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Speaker 1: on the ones who were sick or dying. Over the

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Speaker 1: span of just a few days, the crew threw a

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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty two people overboard, and about ten people

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Speaker 1: also jumped overboard to avoid this fate. Luke Collingwood was

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Speaker 1: the captain of the ship, but he wasn't the ship's owner.

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Speaker 1: The owner was a man named James Gregson, and once

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Speaker 1: the Zong finally did get out of the city Waition

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Speaker 1: and arrived in Jamaica, Gregson filed an insurance claim for

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Speaker 1: his lost property, that property being the enslaved people who

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Speaker 1: had been jettisoned from the ship. Collingwood also died not

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Speaker 1: long after arriving, and the manifest of exactly who and

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Speaker 1: what had been on board disappeared. So it wasn't at

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Speaker 1: all uncommon for the owner of a slave ship to

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Speaker 1: ensure the enslaved people aboard, and it also wasn't all

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Speaker 1: that uncommon for the insurer to pay claims on so

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Speaker 1: called cargo that was lost during the trip, but in

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Speaker 1: this case the insurance company refused to pay. The insurance

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Speaker 1: inspector said that there was more than four hundred gallons

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Speaker 1: of water aboard the Zong when it got to Jamaica,

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Speaker 1: so it shouldn't have been necessary to reduce the numbers

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Speaker 1: aboard the ship. There was also evidence that the crew

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Speaker 1: had passed up the opportunity to replenish the stores of

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Speaker 1: water on the ship, and that the killings had continued

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Speaker 1: after rains replenished the water supply that was there this

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Speaker 1: matter whence the court and the court found in favor

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Speaker 1: of James Gregson, but the insurance company appealed the decision.

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Speaker 1: This appeal became a matter of national attention in Britain,

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Speaker 1: as abolitionists use it as an example of the horrors

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Speaker 1: of slavery. William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield and the

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Speaker 1: Lord Chiefs Justice of the King's Bench, was the one

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Speaker 1: who heard this appeal and ordered a new trial. It

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Speaker 1: was during all of this at the word massacre was

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Speaker 1: first used to describe what had happened, and living in

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Speaker 1: the home of William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield, was

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Speaker 1: a woman named Dido Elizabeth Bell. She was the Earl's

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Speaker 1: grand niece. Dido's father was a British Navy officer, Sir

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Speaker 1: John Lindsay, and her mother was an enslaved woman named Maria,

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Speaker 1: who Lindsay either stole or rescued from a Spanish vessel

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Speaker 1: in the Caribbean. There's been a lot of speculation about

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Speaker 1: whether Dido's presence in the Earl's life influenced his decision

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Speaker 1: in and ordering this new trial, and while it may

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Speaker 1: have played a part, he really focused his ruling on

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Speaker 1: the question of how much water was on the ship

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Speaker 1: and whether the right actions had been taken regarding what

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Speaker 1: was considered to be cargo. He didn't really look at

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Speaker 1: the question of whether the enslaved Africans aboard the ship

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Speaker 1: were considered people with rights who were the victims of

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Speaker 1: murder rather than cargo. Even though he found in favor

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Speaker 1: of the insurance company and that a new trial was ordered,

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Speaker 1: that trial doesn't appear to have ever happened, and this

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Speaker 1: might have been due to fears that because of the

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Speaker 1: progress of the movement for abolition and all the discussion

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Speaker 1: about the people aboard this ship that had happened during

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Speaker 1: this hearing, there were concerns that that might actually lead

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Speaker 1: to murderer convictions for the crew. Thanks to Christopher Aciotis

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Speaker 1: for his research work on Today's podcast, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: Casey Pigraham and Chandler May's for their audio work on

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Speaker 1: this show. You can s strive to the Stay in

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Speaker 1: History class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever else

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and you can tune in tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for a final speech. H