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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where every

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Speaker 2: year I buy Sophia weapon. It's also about bad people,

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Speaker 2: except for this episode. Well, this week we're doing a

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Speaker 2: reverse episode about some heroes, the people who ended the

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Speaker 2: British slave trade and eventually the whole Atlantic slave trade.

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Speaker 2: And you know, they're good people. We haven't talked about

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Speaker 2: them yet. We've only talked about bad people so far.

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Speaker 2: Episode one was really a lot of bad stuff in

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Speaker 2: one and I do apologize for that. On the Christmas week, our.

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Speaker 1: Guest today is is big ship Guy James Stow.

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Speaker 2: Big big boat Man James big Stout, Captain James.

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Speaker 1: Stow, James Stout, Sir Captain James Stowe.

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Speaker 3: Not one of those things again, never been near a king.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I do like to go into I get

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Speaker 3: very m well, but I don't let that stop me.

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Speaker 2: No, I'm not.

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Speaker 3: We did we see sickness.

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Speaker 2: If I've learned one thing about the history of sailing,

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Speaker 2: no one has ever let being sick stop them from

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Speaker 2: getting out a boat.

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Speaker 3: You can't. You got to power through it.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of powering through it, you know we just got

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Speaker 2: the horrible case of the Zorg and the mass murder

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Speaker 2: that happened on board it, and then a lawsuit by

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Speaker 2: the Gregson syndicate saying we should get money for those

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Speaker 2: people we murdered, which a British court ruled, yeah you should.

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Speaker 2: So that's where things ended in Part one. In Part two,

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Speaker 2: some people are going to get mad about this. Now,

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Speaker 2: there was no coverage of Gregson v. Gilbert at the

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Speaker 2: time of the court case. It was legally a minor

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Speaker 2: civil trial over an insurance dispute, and there was really

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Speaker 2: no reason to believe that anyone aside from the parties involved,

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Speaker 2: were paying attention to what happened in court or cared

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Speaker 2: about what had happened aboard the Zorg. But one anonymous

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Speaker 2: person watched the proceedings that day, March sixth of seventeen

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Speaker 2: eighty three, and they were horrified by what they saw.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: There's some theorizing in the book The Zorg about who

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Speaker 2: this person might have met, but we don't really know.

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Speaker 2: It was just someone was there that day who had

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Speaker 2: a conscience and who viewed Africans as human beings. Right,

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Speaker 2: And a lot of stuff that happened, of a lot

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Speaker 2: of very important stuff is going to result from the

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Speaker 2: fact that one person with a conscience was there that

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Speaker 2: day right now. A little less than two weeks after

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Speaker 2: the judge in this case issued his ruling, this person

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Speaker 2: published an anonymous letter in two major newspapers, The Morning

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Speaker 2: Chronicle and The London Advertiser. The letter noted that the

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Speaker 2: Zorg still had four hundred and twenty gallons of water

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Speaker 2: left when it put into port in Jamaica, and thus,

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Speaker 2: as the underwriters argued, there was quote no necessity for

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Speaker 2: a conduct so shocking to humanity. This is our only

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Speaker 2: first person account of the court proceedings, and the author

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Speaker 2: of this anonymous letter claims that quote the narrative seemed

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Speaker 2: to make every person present shudder. He lamented that, in

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Speaker 2: spite of this, the jury voted in favor of the

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Speaker 2: Gregson Syndicate. The letter then takes some more philosophical turn,

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Speaker 2: with the author wishing some man of feeling and genius

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Speaker 2: would give poetical language to the last thoughts of one

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Speaker 2: of the ten enslaved men who chose to kill themselves

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Speaker 2: after seeing their little brothers and sisters hurled into the ocean, quote,

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Speaker 2: whose indignation made him voluntarily share death with his countrymen

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Speaker 2: rather than life with such unheard of English barbarians. The

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Speaker 2: letter then concludes with this paragraph, it is certainly worthy

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Speaker 2: of observation that our legislature can every session find time

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Speaker 2: to inquire into and regulate the manner of killing a partridge,

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Speaker 2: that no abuse should be committed, and that he should

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Speaker 2: be fairly shot. And yet it has never been thought

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Speaker 2: proper to inquire into the matter of annually kidnapping above

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Speaker 2: fifty thousand poor wretches who never injured us, by a

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Speaker 2: set of the most cruel monsters that this country can

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Speaker 2: send out pretty unsparing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty good right too. Yeah, yes, I make

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Speaker 3: it a good point.

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Speaker 1: We ever, do we ever found out who wrote this?

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Speaker 1: Or does it stay anonymous?

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Speaker 2: Again, it's we don't really know the author. Sidharth Kara

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Speaker 2: has a theory as to who it is. But it's

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Speaker 2: not like it's it's we don't know. We simply don't know.

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Speaker 2: We never really will.

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Speaker 1: To a point, I think it's cool that two newspapers

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Speaker 1: printed it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's good that they printed. Again, there's sentiment,

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Speaker 2: there's abolitionist sentiment. There's people of like conscience and care

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Speaker 2: who are informed and know how bad it is. They're

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Speaker 2: just not really unified yet. Right. There's there's you know,

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Speaker 2: a small organization of like Quakers, but for the most part,

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Speaker 2: most of the people who are like upset about slavery

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Speaker 2: aren't together yet, right, And this it's it's over this

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Speaker 2: case that they're going to get stitched together. Right. So

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Speaker 2: letter finds an audience, but first mostly with England's small

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Speaker 2: Quaker anti slavery movement, but it doesn't cause an immediate

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Speaker 2: broader uproar on its own. However, it succeeds in reaching

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Speaker 2: the one person who, it turns out most needed to

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Speaker 2: hear it, a freedman named Olata Equiano. And this guy

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Speaker 2: is one of the coolest dudes I have ever heard of.

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Speaker 2: This is a fucking Equiano is a fascinating man. Have

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Speaker 2: you heard about this person, James.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd love to assign Equiana to my undergraduate courses. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. His book is fantastic book. Yeah, and you can

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Speaker 2: find it online. It's free. Right, we'll be quoting from

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Speaker 2: it some here. A fascinating person. So Equiano had been

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Speaker 2: born around seventeen forty five in Ebo, part of modern

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Speaker 2: day Nigeria, which was then part of the Kingdom of Benin,

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Speaker 2: and although He claimed his village was only nominally controlled

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Speaker 2: by the king, right that like, yeah, we have a king,

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Speaker 2: but he's not really a factor in daily life, which

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Speaker 2: is probably accurate. As a young boy, he'd never heard

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Speaker 2: of white men, or Europeans, or even the ocean. His

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Speaker 2: father was a village elder and held a high position

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Speaker 2: in local government. As a child, allowed us seems to

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Speaker 2: have had a keen eye for injustice. Because of his

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Speaker 2: father's position. He spent a good deal of time watching

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Speaker 2: court proceedings and later wrote that adultery for women was

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Speaker 2: often punished by slavery or death. Quote. The men, however,

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Speaker 2: do not preserve the same constancy to their wives which

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Speaker 2: they expect from them. It's one thing you see Battaloda

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Speaker 2: is that is he is a thinker. This is not

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Speaker 2: a man who just accepts like, oh, yeah, adultery, you

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Speaker 2: gotta kill a woman if she does that. He's a

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Speaker 2: man who's like, but the guys are all cheating and

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Speaker 2: nobody cares about that. It seems unfair. Yeah, he's an

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Speaker 2: empathetic and intelligent man. He was aware of slavery from

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Speaker 2: a very young age. You had to be in the

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Speaker 2: part of Africa he lived because there are slave slavers

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Speaker 2: running rampant. He later wrote about stout Mahogany colored men

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Speaker 2: from the Southwest who traveled through town to trade firearms, gunpowder,

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Speaker 2: and other goods. Quote, they always carry slaves through our land,

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Speaker 2: but the strictest account is exacted of their manner of

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Speaker 2: procuring them before they are suffered to pass. Sometimes indeed

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Speaker 2: we sold slaves to them, but they were only prisoners

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Speaker 2: of war or such among us that as had been

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Speaker 2: convicted of kidnapping, or adultery or some other crimes which

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Speaker 2: we esteemed heinous. Now, these are his recollections of how

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Speaker 2: he thought that, how he justified things as a small child. Right,

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Speaker 2: This is not how he feels about the matter as

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Speaker 2: an adult. And in fact he cut it makes he

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Speaker 2: as to clear in his autobiography that his belief that like, well,

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Speaker 2: these guys, you know, they're not allowed to just take

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Speaker 2: slaves willy nilly, right, you know, we make sure that

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Speaker 2: they that they're not just that's not accurate. Right, That's

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Speaker 2: the thing he learns, unfortunately not long later in his childhood. Right,

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Speaker 2: and he does note at the time that like, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, my dad told me that, yeah, it's Okay,

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Speaker 2: we always make sure that you know, they're not just

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Speaker 2: grabbing people off the street at random, you know, when

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Speaker 2: they come through. But he knows, like they always carry

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Speaker 2: these big empty sacks with them. I wonder what those are,

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Speaker 2: four jeez for Christmas stuff. Yeah, he's a child, so

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Speaker 2: he doesn't really see that as a warning sign until

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Speaker 2: it was too late. Now there is like that there

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Speaker 2: is some basic knowledge that they are in danger, because

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Speaker 2: he writes that during the day, when the grown people

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Speaker 2: leave town to work the fields, the kids would assemble

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Speaker 2: to play, and at least one kid at any given

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Speaker 2: time would have to stand watch, would like climb up

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Speaker 2: a tree to watch for kidnappers who quote sometimes took

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Speaker 2: those opportunities of our parents' absence to attack and carry

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Speaker 2: off as many as they could seize. So, first off,

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Speaker 2: you get a really good glimpse in Equiato's book as

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Speaker 2: to like what the slave trade has done to daily

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Speaker 2: life and like these small villages in this part of

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Speaker 2: Africa where it's like, yeah, the kids just know that

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Speaker 2: you always have to be aware that, like kidnappers might

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Speaker 2: come and steal all of you. Yeah, yeah, that's a

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Speaker 2: real danger. Yeah again, I'll make it up this time, no,

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Speaker 2: he writes, quote, one day, as I was watching at

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Speaker 2: the top of a tree in our yard, I saw

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Speaker 2: one of those people come into the yard of our

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Speaker 2: next neighbor, but one to kidnap, there being so many

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Speaker 2: stout young people in it. Immediately on this I gave

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Speaker 2: the alarm of the rogue, and he was surrounded by

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Speaker 2: the stoutest of them, who entangled him with cords that

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Speaker 2: he could not escape till some of the grown people

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Speaker 2: came and secured him. So this is, you know, a

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Speaker 2: positive end. And this is his first direct encounter with slavers,

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Speaker 2: but it's not going to be his last. Not long

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Speaker 2: after this, he and his sister are minding the house

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Speaker 2: while their parents are away. Two men and a woman

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Speaker 2: jump over the walls, steal them both their mouths, and

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Speaker 2: sprint off with them into the woods. For the next

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Speaker 2: few days, they're taken through the woods, bound and gagged.

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Speaker 2: During the day, he wrote that the only comfort we

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Speaker 2: had was in being in each other's arms all that

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Speaker 2: night and bathing each other with our tears, And this

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Speaker 2: single comfort was not to last. Long quote. The next

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Speaker 2: day proved of a greater sorrow than I had yet experienced.

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Speaker 2: For My sister and I were then separated while we

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Speaker 2: lay clasped in each other's arms. It was in vain

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Speaker 2: that we besought them not to part us. She was

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Speaker 2: torn from me and immediately carried away. Well, I was

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Speaker 2: left in a state of distraction not to be described.

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Speaker 2: I cried and grieved continually, and for several days I

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Speaker 2: did not eat anything but what they forced into my

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Speaker 2: mouth so horrific. It's pretty bad. Yeah, he's taken first

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Speaker 2: to a village several days away while he is purchased

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Speaker 2: by a local chieftain. And that's the thing he's this

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Speaker 2: is not like a often you're taken straight to the

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Speaker 2: coast where you're sold. You're now a slave and you

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Speaker 2: will be sold around like a lot of these people.

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Speaker 2: Do just stay in Africa, right and maybe get free

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Speaker 2: or maybe don't. But he is a slave two local

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Speaker 2: Africans for a while.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: His first owner is a local chieftain who treats him

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Speaker 2: really well and he thinks has adopted him into the family. Right,

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Speaker 2: he works as a blacksmith assistant. He spends the next

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Speaker 2: month gaining their trust, and his plan is I want

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Speaker 2: to escape, right, It's like I'm going to get their

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Speaker 2: trust so I can make an escape attempt. This doesn't

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Speaker 2: pan out, though, and he's ultimately bought and sold several times.

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Speaker 2: He learns three languages as he journeys across Africa, and

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Speaker 2: he ends up in a coastal village where he is

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Speaker 2: sold onto a slave ship. Now, up to this point,

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Speaker 2: he always emphasizes and it's kind of a weird part

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Speaker 2: of the book, but he's really emphatic. I was always

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Speaker 2: treated well. People were not mean. I mean what they're

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Speaker 2: doing selling separated from his sister, selling, But they're not cruel.

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Speaker 2: They're not yelling at him, they're not treating him as

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Speaker 2: a subhuman. Right, They're just doing this awful thing to him.

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Speaker 2: And as an eleven year old, it's really weird for

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Speaker 2: him because they're being so nice while they do this

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Speaker 2: awful thing. Like it's kind of a headbuck, right. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: he generally enjoys good food and is kept relatively healthy

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Speaker 2: this whole time. Right, And this ends as soon as

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Speaker 2: he's sold onto a slaving vessel. Right. Quote. I was

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Speaker 2: soon put down under the decks, and there I received

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Speaker 2: such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never

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Speaker 2: experienced in my life. So that with the loathsomeness of

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Speaker 2: the stench and crying together, I became so sick and

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Speaker 2: low that I was not able to eat, nor had

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Speaker 2: I the least desired to taste anything. I now wished

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Speaker 2: for the last friend death to relieve me. But soon

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Speaker 2: to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables,

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Speaker 2: and on my refusing to eat, one of them held

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Speaker 2: me fast by the hands and laid me across I

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Speaker 2: think the windlass and tied my feet, while the other

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Speaker 2: flogged me severely. I had never experienced anything of this

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Speaker 2: kind before, and although not being used to water, I

241
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Speaker 2: naturally feared that element the first time I saw it.

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Speaker 2: Yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings. I

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Speaker 2: would have jumped over the side, but I could not.

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Speaker 2: And besides, the crew used to watch us very closely,

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Speaker 2: who were not chained down on the decks, lest we

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Speaker 2: should leap into the water. And I have seen some

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Speaker 2: of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting

248
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Speaker 2: to do so, and hourly whipped for night eating. Now

249
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Speaker 2: he is again eleven as this is happening to him.

250
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Speaker 2: This is about seventeen fifty six, when he's transported first

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Speaker 2: to the West Indies, where he witnesses the auctioning of

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Speaker 2: slaves to plantation owners. But he's not sold himself because

253
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Speaker 2: he's really sick, like he's just not worth anything in

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Speaker 2: the eyes of these people, because he seems like he's dying.

255
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Speaker 2: So the Dutch take him back on board the slave

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Speaker 2: ship and take him to America, and he gets better

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Speaker 2: enough during that time that he's sold to a Virginia

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Speaker 2: plantation owner. He gets kind of, within this horrible situation,

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Speaker 2: one of the better jobs you can get, where he's

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Speaker 2: working as a house slave, so he's able to kind

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Speaker 2: of he's not laboring in the field. He's able to

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Speaker 2: recover his strength more effectively, right, because he's it's less

263
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Speaker 2: physically nightmarish work, and he gets better enough, and he's

264
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Speaker 2: just proves to be very intelligent too, so he's got

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Speaker 2: a lot of value to him. And he's sold again

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Speaker 2: to the captain of a British merchant vessel named Henry Pascal.

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Speaker 2: It's Pascal who gives him his European name, Gustavas Vasa,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes you'll see him and he would go by

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Speaker 2: Vasa periodically throughout his life as well as Equiano, right

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Speaker 2: but yeah, Pascal gives him this name and takes him

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Speaker 2: to England, and for a while things seem to be

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Speaker 2: going really well. He's taught about Christianity. He makes like

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Speaker 2: a friend with a local boy who's about his age,

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Speaker 2: like a white boy, and they're actually very good friends.

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Speaker 2: The kid dies like two years later, but they like

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Speaker 2: he's adamant that, like, no, this kid was like really,

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Speaker 2: we were very close. He helps him learn English, and

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Speaker 2: because he's so smart, Equiano attracts wealthy British patrons, these

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Speaker 2: like two I think older ladies pay for him to

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Speaker 2: go to school, and so he's obviously kind of thinking

281
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Speaker 2: I've lucked out. I might just kind of get out

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Speaker 2: of the whole slavery thing and be like English, right,

283
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Speaker 2: like maybe that's my future. Because Cascal seems to be

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Speaker 2: treating him well, He's got these local ladies who are

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Speaker 2: like paying for you know, he seems to have fallen

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Speaker 2: into a good situation. And then out of nowhere, Pascal

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Speaker 2: takes him back to see right, and so they spend

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Speaker 2: some time on voyages together and he's still kind of

289
00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:08,560
Speaker 2: being treated more like a servant. They're engaged in like

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Speaker 2: pirates attacks several times like, he helps defend the ship

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Speaker 2: in several desperate battles. They travel the oceans of the world,

292
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Speaker 2: and Alouda says that at this time he feels a

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Speaker 2: growing loyalty and affection for Pascal, who he believes has

294
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Speaker 2: been so kind to him, because he plans to free

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Speaker 2: him one day, right, So he he's really like as

296
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Speaker 2: loyal to this dude as he can because he thinks that, like,

297
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Speaker 2: I found a good one, right Unfortunately he has not,

298
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Speaker 2: that is not the case. In an article for documenting

299
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Speaker 2: the American South on Aquiano, Jin Williamson summarizes he is

300
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Speaker 2: shocked at an abrupt betrayal during a layover in England,

301
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Speaker 2: when Pascal has him roughly seized and forced into a barge.

302
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Speaker 2: Pascal sells Equiano to Captain James Duran, the captain of

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Speaker 2: a ship bound for the West Indies. Days by his

304
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 2: sudden change in fortunes, Equiano argues with Captain Duran that

305
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Speaker 2: Pascal could not sell him to me, nor to anyone else.

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Speaker 2: I have served him many years, and he has taken

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Speaker 2: all my wages in prize money. I have been baptized,

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Speaker 2: and by the laws of the land, no man has

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Speaker 2: a right to sell me. After Duran tells Equiano he

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Speaker 2: talks too much English and threatens to subdue him. Equiano

311
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Speaker 2: begins service under a new master, for he is too

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Speaker 2: well convinced of his power over me to doubt what

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Speaker 2: he's said. Right, So he's like, but like, I did

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Speaker 2: all the stuff I'm supposed to do. I feel like

315
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Speaker 2: I'm English now. And he's like, if you keep talking English,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna beat the shit out of you, right, Like

317
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Speaker 2: that's what happens. Yeah, So he's taken back to the

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Speaker 2: West Indies. He endures the nightmare trip down the Middle

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Speaker 2: Passage a second time, which is just an unthinkable hell

320
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Speaker 2: to have to do twice. He writes of seeing white

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Speaker 2: members of the crew gratify their brutal passion with females

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Speaker 2: not ten years old on the journey, right. In other words,

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Speaker 2: they're just raping any big female that is on the boat, right.

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Speaker 2: They don't care about age, you know, Like that's the

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Speaker 2: kind of men who are doing this, right. Yeah. Once

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Speaker 2: he arrives in the Caribbean, he is horrified that he

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Speaker 2: will be sold to a plantation into a life of

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Speaker 2: quote bondage, misery, stripes, and chains. But here again he

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Speaker 2: meets with this crazy good luck with it's this weird

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Speaker 2: situation where he's in like the like this horror the

331
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Speaker 2: worst least lucky situation he could be in, but within

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00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:21,280
Speaker 2: that situation, he has crazy luck. Like I don't know

333
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Speaker 2: how else.

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Speaker 3: To describe it, because it's like one in ten million, right,

335
00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:26,920
Speaker 3: Like this happens to millions and millions of people. One

336
00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 3: of them had this unique set of circumstances, and we're

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00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:33,160
Speaker 3: uniquely intelligent to be able to, yes, to take advantage

338
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Speaker 3: of it in the way that he was, right, take

339
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:36,120
Speaker 3: advantages a wrong word.

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Speaker 2: But like well yeah, but like like even people who

341
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Speaker 2: would have been as smart but maybe aren't good with languages,

342
00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:43,200
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't have had the success he has. Right, that's

343
00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:45,360
Speaker 2: a separate kind event. Like he's just a bunch of

344
00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:48,960
Speaker 2: shit happens, and he's a good writer. He is a

345
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 2: really good writer. Yeah, yeah, maybe not I don't know

346
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:53,480
Speaker 2: about at this point, but yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: No, But there's not much shit from that period that

348
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Speaker 3: I can assign in whole to undergraduates in twenty twenty

349
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Speaker 3: five and have them being like that's fucked, Like it

350
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Speaker 3: makes people feel things still centuries later.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really powerful. Yeah, I do really recommend reading

352
00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:08,480
Speaker 2: it because, among other things, it's just there's a lot

353
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Speaker 2: I mean, the early portions of the book are just

354
00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:12,560
Speaker 2: a lot about life in that part of Africa at

355
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Speaker 2: the time that you're not gonna run into a lot

356
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Speaker 2: of first hand accounts of.

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Speaker 3: No, it's interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So again within this horrible situation, he gets crazy

359
00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:30,280
Speaker 2: lucky again because the next person to buy him is

360
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Speaker 2: a Quaker, and again most a lot of Quakers are

361
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:37,879
Speaker 2: anti slavery. This guy, Robert King, clearly isn't totally against slavery,

362
00:17:38,280 --> 00:17:40,639
Speaker 2: but he's also still a Quaker, right, And he's like

363
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:42,440
Speaker 2: a merchant or something. I don't know exactly what he's

364
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:45,720
Speaker 2: there to do, but he sees he once recognized as Wow,

365
00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:47,720
Speaker 2: this kid is smart as hell, and he's he already

366
00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:50,080
Speaker 2: speaks a ton of languages. There's a lot I can

367
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Speaker 2: have him do. So the King starts having Equiana work

368
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Speaker 2: a bunch of different jobs, and he starts like basically

369
00:17:57,040 --> 00:18:00,320
Speaker 2: assigning him out to like subcontract and with other guys.

370
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Speaker 2: And some of these guys are like fairly decent and

371
00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:05,359
Speaker 2: are like, hey, what if we hired you to do

372
00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:08,720
Speaker 2: extra side work and pay you personally for it, and

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Speaker 2: King is like, yeah, you know, I have no problem

374
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Speaker 2: with you making money on the side, right, why not?

375
00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 2: And so these guys like both teach him how to

376
00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:20,080
Speaker 2: train him up and help him like learn these different trades,

377
00:18:20,359 --> 00:18:22,199
Speaker 2: and he's able to make side money. And so he

378
00:18:22,240 --> 00:18:24,959
Speaker 2: takes this side money and he starts buying and selling

379
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:28,280
Speaker 2: goods with the money that he makes, right and basically

380
00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:31,480
Speaker 2: turning his salary into even more money. And he does

381
00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:34,359
Speaker 2: well enough at this that in seventeen sixty six, when

382
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Speaker 2: he's arout twenty one, he's able to buy his freedom,

383
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:38,919
Speaker 2: and he does. Robert King allows him to do this,

384
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Speaker 2: which he didn't have to do. So again he's he

385
00:18:41,359 --> 00:18:44,080
Speaker 2: got into like the luckiest part of a bad situation

386
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:47,840
Speaker 2: he could be and yeah, he's able to he becomes

387
00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:50,199
Speaker 2: a free man. He's free after this point. So he

388
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:52,919
Speaker 2: spends the next several years taking work on merchant ships

389
00:18:52,920 --> 00:18:54,480
Speaker 2: because that's what he knows how to do, and he

390
00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:57,119
Speaker 2: travels around the world. In seventeen seventy three, he becomes

391
00:18:57,119 --> 00:19:00,639
Speaker 2: one of the first Africans to visit the Arcticano wrote

392
00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,840
Speaker 2: and corresponded widely and generally he's like an adventurer. This

393
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:07,480
Speaker 2: guy lives an amazing life, like he's one of the

394
00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:11,840
Speaker 2: most incredible people who ever lived. Now the whole time, though,

395
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 2: is his life is going well, right, he remains troubled

396
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,080
Speaker 2: with the inhuman institution of slavery that had robbed him

397
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:21,320
Speaker 2: of his childhood and his family. You know, he knows

398
00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:24,159
Speaker 2: this is still going on. He's still angry about it,

399
00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:27,480
Speaker 2: and so he starts meeting during the times when he's

400
00:19:27,520 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 2: back in London, he starts meeting with and befriending some

401
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:33,000
Speaker 2: of the small number of Englishmen who opposed the institution

402
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:36,640
Speaker 2: of slavery. And after reading that op ed, he comes

403
00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:39,720
Speaker 2: across this article about what's happened on the Zorg. He's

404
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:42,560
Speaker 2: sick with horror and fury at what has happened. I mean,

405
00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:45,720
Speaker 2: it's just an awful thing, and he has personal experience

406
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 2: with being on those boats, so it's much He knows

407
00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:50,960
Speaker 2: much better how awful it is than an average person

408
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:53,920
Speaker 2: reading it, and he wants to do something. However, he's

409
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:56,200
Speaker 2: also a practical guy. He knows that even a freed

410
00:19:56,280 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 2: black man has zero political power and influence in England

411
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:01,239
Speaker 2: at the time, so if he's going to have an

412
00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:03,399
Speaker 2: impact on the situation, he's going to have to be

413
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,560
Speaker 2: cunning about it. One of Equiano's friends is a writer

414
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:10,840
Speaker 2: and a lawyer who's also like an early abolitionist named Granville.

415
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:13,320
Speaker 2: Sharp and Sharp is going to be the second of

416
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,160
Speaker 2: our heroes for this episode. One of the coolest dudes

417
00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:19,080
Speaker 2: to ever live, really like just an actual great man.

418
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,520
Speaker 2: Born in Durham in seventeen thirty five, Granville was the

419
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:25,840
Speaker 2: middle Ish child of fourteen. Five of his eight older

420
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:28,920
Speaker 2: brothers survived early childhood, which means his parents were better

421
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:32,040
Speaker 2: than average. His family was working class, and as a

422
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,159
Speaker 2: youth he was apprenticed to the owner of a fabric store. However,

423
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 2: he turned out to be one of those kids who's

424
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,080
Speaker 2: just like irrepressibly smart, right like he is not going

425
00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:44,200
Speaker 2: to work at the fabric store, you know in Granville

426
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:47,040
Speaker 2: this expresses itself this he's a debate kid. He's the

427
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:49,360
Speaker 2: good kind of debate kid, but he has this pathological

428
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 2: need to debate with his peers to the extent he

429
00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 2: is so committed to this that he makes a Jewish

430
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:58,400
Speaker 2: friend and they start having like good natured arguments about religion.

431
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:01,560
Speaker 2: And because he wants to argue better with his Jewish friend,

432
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:04,440
Speaker 2: he learns Hebrew and becomes a fluent speaker of me

433
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,320
Speaker 2: in order to argue about like the Tora with his

434
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:08,119
Speaker 2: Jewish friend.

435
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's perfect, totally. Yeah.

436
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:12,439
Speaker 2: When he makes a friend who's a member of a

437
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 2: weird Greek Christian sect, he learns Greek for the same reason.

438
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:18,240
Speaker 2: Like again, like Equioto, He's one of these guys. He

439
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:23,399
Speaker 2: just picks up languages. He's just crazy smart. Yeah. In

440
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 2: seventeen fifty seven, he gets a job as a clerk

441
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,159
Speaker 2: in the Ordnance Office, which is, so far as I

442
00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:30,960
Speaker 2: can tell, is like a mid level bureaucratic position. This

443
00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 2: leaves him with ample free time, which he spends idly

444
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 2: studying the law and presumably learning more languages in order

445
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:39,560
Speaker 2: to argue with his friends. One of his older brothers

446
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:41,440
Speaker 2: is a doctor who hold and you get the feeling

447
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:43,560
Speaker 2: this is like a family of good people because his

448
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:46,639
Speaker 2: older brother, the doctor, runs a free clinic out of

449
00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:50,239
Speaker 2: his house for the poor of London, right yeah, and

450
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:53,160
Speaker 2: Granville periodically will just like show up to hang out

451
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:55,560
Speaker 2: with him and his patients and like talk. There's not

452
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:57,640
Speaker 2: TV at the time, what else are you gonna do? Right?

453
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 3: That podcast? No podcasts?

454
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah? So Granville shows up one day in seventeen

455
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:07,600
Speaker 2: sixty five, the year before Equiano bias his freedom, and

456
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,240
Speaker 2: he happens to meet a black and slaved person named

457
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 2: Jonathan Strong. Strong had been taken from Barbados to London

458
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 2: by his owner, slave trader, David Lyle. He was fifteen

459
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:23,119
Speaker 2: or sixteen when Lyle has him baptized. Now, religion is

460
00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:25,680
Speaker 2: confusing at the best of times, and Strong, like many

461
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 2: enslaved people, misunderstood the purpose of baptism and was under

462
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:32,280
Speaker 2: the impression that now that this was done, he was

463
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 2: a free person because he had been baptized. Right, you

464
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:38,639
Speaker 2: can't hold Christian as a slave, right, that'd be fucked up.

465
00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 2: Pretty weird, pretty weird. And so he tells Lyle, well, like,

466
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:48,439
Speaker 2: I'm free now, right, And Lyle, being a slave owner

467
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,200
Speaker 2: and trader, doesn't have a great control over his anger,

468
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 2: and just immediately pistol whips this adolescent boy nearly to death.

469
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:57,199
Speaker 2: He beats him so badly with the butt of a

470
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 2: handgun that Strong goes temporarily blind and can barely walk

471
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 2: up right. So, and you get the feeling he just

472
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 2: loses his temper and beats this kid nearly to death

473
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 2: because He's immediately like, oh shit, I killed him, and

474
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 2: he just tosses him out onto the street like a

475
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 2: piece of trash. He's like, well, he's not worth anything anymore. Bye.

476
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 2: So somehow this dying boy manages to crawl or find help,

477
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 2: and he gets to Granville's brother's free clinic where his

478
00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 2: immediate injuries are treated, but it's clear he needs more treatment,

479
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 2: and it just happens to be on a day that

480
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,000
Speaker 2: like Granville Sharp is there with his brother, and so

481
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 2: he and his brother take Jonathan to a nearby hospital

482
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:36,680
Speaker 2: and pull their money to pay for him to stay

483
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 2: there for four months and recover. And when he's released,

484
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,119
Speaker 2: because they're just treating him like a freedman at this point,

485
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 2: they find him paying work with a Quaker pharmacist they knew,

486
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 2: so they get this guy to the hospital. He heals,

487
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 2: he recovers pretty well, and they find him a job

488
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 2: and he starts living a life right like he's an independent,

489
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 2: free person making money For a year in change. Things

490
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 2: are pretty good for Strow. But then in seventeen sixty seven,

491
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,959
Speaker 2: his former owner Lyle sees Jonathan on the street and

492
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 2: is like, he's alive and healthy, and he gets really

493
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 2: fucking angry. How dare that boy have the temerity to

494
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,679
Speaker 2: survive my beatings and not hand himself back over to me.

495
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 2: He stole himself, Basically, he stole himself. Yeah, so Lyle

496
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 2: doesn't want to deal with Strong anymore, but he works.

497
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:27,120
Speaker 2: He says like, Hey, I own this guy and he's

498
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 2: really healthy. You just got to go get him if

499
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 2: you give me thirty pounds. So he like sells this

500
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 2: guy and then he hires slave catchers to abduct Strong

501
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 2: out of his new life. Yeah, so you really stand up,

502
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 2: gut great dude. Months of conflict, Well, Granville Sharp, who

503
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 2: has been stranging the law, is like, you can't do this.

504
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 2: He's a free man now. You can't make him leave.

505
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 2: You can't take him to another foreign country, right, Like,

506
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 2: you can't do that. So there's a conflict follows. There's

507
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 2: like this goes on for a while before like the

508
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 2: court case actually resolves, and at one point during the proceedings,

509
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 2: Lyle challenges Sharp to a duel, and Sharp's like, let's

510
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 2: settle this in court. Basically. At another point, lawyers that

511
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 2: Granville consulted warned him that English law saw slaves's property

512
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 2: even once they were taken onto English soil, and Sharp

513
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 2: has a law a moment of horror where he's like,

514
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 2: there's no way the laws of my beloved England are

515
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 2: this bad. So he spends the next like two years

516
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 2: making himself an expert in the law and fighting this case,

517
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: fighting Lyle and the man Lyle had sold Strong to

518
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 2: James care and he eventually wins Strong's legal defense, wins.

519
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 2: This is a significant case in like British like legal history,

520
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 2: and it's the kind of thing where they win Strong's freedom,

521
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 2: but they don't get a ruling that alters English law

522
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 2: and respect to the rights of enslaved people. Right, So

523
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 2: it's good because Strong doesn't have to be sold into

524
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 2: slavery again, but it also doesn't like, it doesn't go

525
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 2: any further right, and Sharp is disappointed by this, and

526
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 2: because by this point, after a two years of fighting

527
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 2: this case and immersing himself in the law, Granville Sharp

528
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 2: has become, in Sidharth Kara's words, the first British person

529
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 2: to devote his life to the extirpation of slavery, and

530
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 2: his influence actually goes beyond that. Though it's wild how

531
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:20,360
Speaker 2: influential this motherfucking dude is One of Sharp's overseas friends

532
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 2: is an American of some notoriety named Benjamin Franklin, and

533
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 2: in is oft time, Sharp had a habit when he

534
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 2: wasn't fighting slavery, he would write essays that were often

535
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 2: published as pamphlets or tracts, and he sends one of

536
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,360
Speaker 2: these pamphlets to his buddy Benjamin Franklin, which lays out

537
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 2: Sharp's argument that Americans shouldn't be taxed if they don't

538
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 2: have parliamentary representation.

539
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,679
Speaker 3: This dude's like at the center of the global history.

540
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 2: It's fucking a mazing, Like, yeah, just writing a lot

541
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:55,159
Speaker 2: of letters and absolutely changing the forest of gum history.

542
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 2: He's like a really smart Forest Gump.

543
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, Forrest Gump done a whole lot of

544
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 3: very more impressive stuff.

545
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, It's just I I didn't know much anything

546
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 2: at all really about Grandville Sharp until I started this,

547
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 2: and like, yeah, we should probably talk more about this guy.

548
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 3: Yes, dude, probably should be on money or something.

549
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, twenty pound note.

550
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we got some people who already shouldn't be

551
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 3: on money. Probably switch them out. Yeah, it'll be fine.

552
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 3: It's like those people, I'm sure, I mean, Robert you

553
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 3: and I have experienced this together. When when you are

554
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 3: working in conflict zones, sometimes you will often the people

555
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,439
Speaker 3: who you work with are like the most remarkable people,

556
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 3: Like you speak several languages, and they and like, yeah, you.

557
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 2: Taught ourselves yourself Chinese because you were bored after learning English.

558
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, like your grasp of our culture and

559
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 3: politics and the way we talk it is perfect. Yeah,

560
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 3: and you're the same in five other languages. And you

561
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,959
Speaker 3: can all you about domestic issues in the US with

562
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 3: me with a great degree of intelligence to many American people.

563
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, and who have like devoted their life in between

564
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 2: like the stuff they're doing with you to like rescuing

565
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,959
Speaker 2: other people and like helping to provide like emergency medical

566
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 2: care or get food to different like yeah, yeah.

567
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you'll find out that Yeah, on Sundays they

568
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 3: rescue puppies from fucking burnie buildings, and like it just

569
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 3: fits perfectly with who that person is.

570
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 2: I'm so tired after my work week. I just sit

571
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: on the couch in the weekend.

572
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, how do I become more like.

573
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grandville Sharp is one of those like, well, fuck,

574
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: I'm not getting enough done guys, right and equianoist. To

575
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 2: be honest, they're both like Jesus Christ, Like I wouldn't

576
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 2: believe you if you were in a story. So uh.

577
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 2: Sharpe's primary focus in the years after the Strong case

578
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 2: was in expanding his studies as a lawyer so he

579
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 2: could make an unimpeachable legal case for banning slavery. In

580
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 2: seventeen sixty nine, he publishes a tract titled A Representation

581
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 2: of the injustice and dangerous tendency of tolerating slavery or

582
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 2: of admitting the least claim of private property in the

583
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 2: persons of Men in England. He wasn't good at titling.

584
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 2: He was good at a lot of stuff, but not titles.

585
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 2: This became one of the first popular arguments against the

586
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 2: system of slavery in England, not just arguing that it

587
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 2: was a moral but that it was foreign to the

588
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 2: spirit of an and intention of British law and cultural values.

589
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 3: Right.

590
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:25,239
Speaker 2: That's a key part of his argument is that like

591
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 2: this isn't really English, right, Like we shouldn't based on

592
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 2: the things we say about our shared values. This is

593
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 2: not a natural thing for us to be doing. Right,

594
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 2: Why are we so committed to this? Is it just

595
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 2: venal profit it is.

596
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I wonder if there's a modern analogy for that, roebit.

597
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 2: What's interesting here, though, is that Sharp is not just

598
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 2: wish casting a legal argument, right. His extensive study of

599
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 2: the law had found precedent as far back as fifteen

600
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 2: sixty nine for the assertion that slavery was not legal

601
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 2: on British soil. Now, I'm not going to go into

602
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,959
Speaker 2: detail about centuries old British court rulings and rulings of

603
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 2: like kings and shit, but there are cases from the

604
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 2: sixteen hundreds to the seventeen hundreds that back up this argument.

605
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 2: And one thing that was definitely true is that no

606
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 2: law was ever passed in England to make it legal

607
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 2: to own Africans. That's never there's never like a law

608
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 2: that just says you can do this. Yeah, people just

609
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 2: start doing it and they're like, well, this is property.

610
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's happening though.

611
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. The best pro slavery advocates could do was point

612
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 2: out a seventeen twenty nine legal opinion in which an

613
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 2: Attorney general had argued that the legal status of a

614
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 2: slave didn't change just because they set foot in England, right,

615
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 2: which is something but it's not the same as like

616
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 2: there being a lot saying you could do this.

617
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right, you can't point it as a slavery act,

618
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 3: yeah exactly. Even like when we go back in American history,

619
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 3: like when we're looking for like when shuttle slavery begins,

620
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 3: you can see cases where there are like indentured servants,

621
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 3: right and as a form of punishment that terms of

622
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 3: service are extended. But then it appears that the black

623
00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 3: people's terms of service are not extended, presumed because they

624
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 3: are assumed to be in servitude for their entire life

625
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 3: by nature of who they are. Right, But we can't

626
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 3: point to a this is when they decided it was

627
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 3: going to be like that, and those were the rules.

628
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 2: Right right yep. So Granville comes into the seventeen seventies

629
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 2: well armed to argue that slavery is not really legal. Next,

630
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 2: per Mike Kay's piece for antislavery dot Org in seventeen

631
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 2: seventy two, Sharp defended James Somerset, a slave who had

632
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 2: escaped and been recaptured. This proved to be a crucial

633
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: test case, as Sharpe argued that slavery itself was unlawful

634
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 2: in Britain. Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice and presiding judge,

635
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 2: was reluctant to reach a conclusion on whether the right

636
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 2: to property outweighed the right to freedom, and tried to

637
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 2: persuade the parties to settle out of court. When this failed,

638
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 2: he attempted to word his decision so that he freed

639
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: Somerset without setting a precedent. Despite Mansfield's efforts, most observers,

640
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 2: including other judges, thought that the effect of the judgment

641
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 2: was to free slaves that were brought to Britain, and

642
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 2: that this provided a legal avenue for many slaves to

643
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 2: obtain their freedom. So this is the kind of the

644
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 2: case where Mansfield is doing everything he can for this

645
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: not to have any wider effect. But all people here

646
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: is that like, well this guy got freed, right, Yeah, yeah,

647
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 2: I feel like this makes me free, right. So large

648
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 2: numbers of enslaved people in England start fleeing their masters

649
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,479
Speaker 2: in an errant belief that slavery had ended on the island.

650
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 2: Many abolitionists who misunderstood the ruling celebrated it as a

651
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: sign of the fundamental justice and equality of English law.

652
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 2: Judge Mansfield had to issue a note that the case

653
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 2: was only really relevant to a specific niche situation, which

654
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 2: caused Ben Franklin to joke that English abolitionists were celebrating

655
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 2: the majesty of their legal system for its virtue and

656
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 2: quote setting free a single negro right where he's like, okay, guys,

657
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 2: like it's good, but like maybe calm down a little bit,

658
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, this is this is one guy. There's

659
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 2: still a lot of guys. It's did a net negative

660
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: now this this judge, the Earl of Mansfield, is a

661
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 2: really interesting guy because not only is he the judge

662
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 2: in the Somerset case, he's going to be the judge

663
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 2: in the Zorg case. This isn't weird because he's one

664
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: of the most significant figures in the whole history of

665
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 2: English law. He's the judge for a lot of big

666
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 2: cases at the time, right. But he's a particularly interesting

667
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 2: guy to rule on cases like this because he has

668
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 2: no child of his own, but he's raising his illegitimate niece,

669
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 2: Dido Bell as his daughter, and she is a black

670
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 2: woman of mixed race. Right, So he is simultaneously repeatedly

671
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 2: being like, enslaved people are property and my ruling should

672
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 2: not be seen to free anyone, and is also clearly

673
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 2: capable of understanding that they're human beings because he is

674
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 2: a black woman, right, And there's all there are a

675
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 2: couple of moments where because he's never talks in a

676
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 2: way that's very sympathetic to this, but there's a couple

677
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 2: of rulings where it's like, well, maybe this is where

678
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 2: his sympathy moved him a little bit. Not to give

679
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 2: him much credit, because I don't think he's a very

680
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 2: nice guy, but it's a really he's a really interesting

681
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 2: judge too, trying this case right now, and again he

682
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 2: is not considered a friendly judge. Sharp considers him a

683
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 2: deeply hostile judge in fact, and in the Zorg case,

684
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 2: Mansfield has no trouble ruling that enslaved Africans are property anyway.

685
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 2: By the time we hit seventeen eighty three, Sharp is

686
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 2: well established as the guy to talk to if you're

687
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 2: trying to defend or create writes for enslaved people in England. Right,

688
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 2: And so it's not hard to see why our friend

689
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 2: a lot of Equiano would like Granville Sharp right, seems

690
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 2: like a pretty natural friendship. And so once Equiano reads

691
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 2: that article about the Zorg case, he does the seventeen

692
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 2: hundreds equivalent of pasting a link to a news article

693
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 2: in the group chat, and he like sends a copy

694
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 2: to his friend Granville Sharp. Granville writes in his diary,

695
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 2: Gustavas Vasa called on me with an account of one

696
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty negroes being thrown alive into the sea

697
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 2: from on board an English slave ship. And this is

698
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 2: the start of a process that is going to like

699
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:00,479
Speaker 2: terminate in the creation of the first mass move against

700
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 2: slavery in British history, right, Like this is the inciting instant,

701
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 2: is Equiano sending this letter to Granville Sharp, So Sharp

702
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 2: hits the ground running. He starts meeting with the lawyers

703
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 2: who represented the insurers in that case and is like, Hey,

704
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 2: I think we can file an action against the Gregson

705
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 2: Syndicate and request a new trial. And I think we

706
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 2: can win that new trial because we didn't really have

707
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 2: a full trial last time. If we really make a

708
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: thing of this, we can make them go through discovery

709
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 2: and we can look at the log books and the

710
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 2: other documentation kept by the crew of the Zorg, right,

711
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 2: and we can see did they really need to kill

712
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:35,280
Speaker 2: those people?

713
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 3: You know?

714
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 2: Yeah? He also starts barraging influential figures in the country

715
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,239
Speaker 2: with letters demanding the Admiralty Court charge the crewmen of

716
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 2: the Zorg with murder. He's going to do this the

717
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 2: rest of his life. It never works, but he does

718
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 2: keep trying, right. Most of his efforts don't bear fruit,

719
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 2: but he succeeds in getting a hearing over a motion

720
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 2: to set a new trial, and this hearing is scheduled

721
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 2: for May twenty first, seventeen eighty three, less than two

722
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 2: months after the first trial. Greg's and v. Gilbert, which

723
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 2: is the hearing is not going to be a tiny,

724
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 2: largely ignored case. It's going to be a major court thing,

725
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 2: with exacting notes taken on court proceedings and a huge

726
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 2: amount of media attention covering every twist and turn. Sharp

727
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 2: is not technically the lawyer here, but he's basically acting

728
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 2: as an advisor to the defense council, which consisted of

729
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,720
Speaker 2: three lawyers. The most important of these was a fellow

730
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 2: named Samuel Haywood. And Haywood's a really interesting person. He

731
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 2: was born in Liverpool in the seventeen fifties. He went

732
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 2: to Cambridge and he comes from like a very rich family, right,

733
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 2: I mean he goes to Cambridge, right, and he's rich

734
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 2: because his dad, Benjamin is a slave merchant in Liverpool

735
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 2: and his younger brother, also Benjamin, Benjamin Arthur, is a

736
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 2: slave merchant in Liverpool. And over like the years they'd

737
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 2: been doing this, something like one hundred and thirty different

738
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 2: slave voyages had been financed and operated by the Heywood family. Right,

739
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 2: they had transported at least a According to Sidharth Kara,

740
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 2: they had transported something like forty two thousand enslaved people,

741
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 2: like over the course of their time in this industry.

742
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 2: And in fact, the Heywoods had invested in at least

743
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 2: one slave ship with William Grigson with like the Grigson Syndicate.

744
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 3: Right, Oh wow, Yeah.

745
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 2: So this is a kid whose money and who's child

746
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,240
Speaker 2: like schooling and stuff is paid for by slave money,

747
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 2: and he's an abolitionist by now. He fundamentally objects to

748
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 2: the slave trade, right, and so he just he like

749
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 2: when he's representing the underwriters in this case, he is

750
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 2: probably pissing off his family. So it's just very interesting, Right,

751
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 2: Chris is a kid from slave money who's like, nah,

752
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,439
Speaker 2: this is bad nah r. Just if anyone ever says

753
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 2: people who grew up in that culture, couldn't know what

754
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 2: was wrong.

755
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, yeah, dude, this guy here's a dude, I'm.

756
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:51,720
Speaker 2: Not I don't know that if he was like a committed,

757
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 2: full on abolitionist, because a lot of these guys were

758
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 2: just anti the slave trade and thought that that was

759
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 2: the like the Middle Passage stuff with the trianglear was

760
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 2: the worst part of it. But that's still a better

761
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 2: than not being against that, right, it's a step yeah.

762
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's an unusual position still in the brave

763
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 3: one to us at that time, right, right, if you're

764
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 3: visiting a whole family a slave trader is yeah.

765
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. So from the jump, there are some uncomfortable tensions

766
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: behind the scenes. In this case, the insurers and their

767
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 2: counsel benefited from Granville Sharp's lobbying and legal mind, but

768
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 2: they're not on the same side precisely. The insurers are

769
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 2: slavery profiteers. They don't want the trade to end. They

770
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 2: don't want abolition yeah yeah, making money off of it, right,

771
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 2: they just don't want to pay money. In this case,

772
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: Sharp is on board with them because he also doesn't

773
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 2: want Gregson to get a bunch of money for killing

774
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 2: these people or for his people killing these people, but

775
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 2: he also sees this case fundamentally as a way to

776
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 2: set further precedents on the road to ending the slave trade. Right,

777
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 2: he is thinking about this from the jump that that

778
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 2: I am doing this because it's a step to something better.

779
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: Now.

780
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 2: Judge Mansfield tries to deny that possibility from the outset

781
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,800
Speaker 2: of the trial, insisting that this case is purely regarding

782
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,360
Speaker 2: the insurance policy on the Zong or the zoo. Mansfield

783
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 2: insists the case of the slaves was the same as

784
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 2: if horses had been thrown overboard, and for the most part,

785
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 2: the actual arguments in the case do not rely on

786
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 2: enslaved Africans having more rights than a horse. Right. That

787
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 2: is kind of what's going on here. The central legal

788
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 2: question is not was it bad that they killed these people?

789
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 2: It's did these people have to die because disasters that

790
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 2: the Zorg's crew were not in control of had caused

791
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 2: a situation where it was impossible to keep them alive?

792
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: Right?

793
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 2: Is this a situation where there was no other option,

794
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 2: where people were going to die one way or the other,

795
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 2: and they were trying to save a portion of the

796
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 2: of the crew and the cargo or was this a

797
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 2: case where the people operating the ship had fucked up

798
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 2: constantly and unnecessarily murdered a bunch of people and were

799
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 2: now trying to get insurance money to cover up the

800
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 2: fact that they fucked up? Right? Which of these is

801
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 2: what happened here?

802
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 3: Right?

803
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 2: And to be clear, if you approach the case of

804
00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:00,320
Speaker 2: the Zork from just that standpoint, ignoring the crime against himanity,

805
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 2: the gregs and Syndicate and its employees are in the

806
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 2: wrong right because they did fuck up repeatedly and horribly. Yeah,

807
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 2: you know, you do not have to be like morally

808
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 2: against Slaver to be like, well, but like, no, guys

809
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 2: didn't know what the fuck you were doing. You just

810
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 2: threw them over. But you had four hundred gallons of

811
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 2: water on the boat.

812
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 3: Yeh uh.

813
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 2: You know who else has a lot of water? Hm?

814
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 3: I can make a guess.

815
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 2: Yeah the spot. This podcast is sponsored entirely by the

816
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 2: Pistachio Farmers of Central California. Jesus, you know, yeah, pistachios.

817
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 2: We've got enough water probably Yeah?

818
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 3: Fuck the Colorado River.

819
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually, it's doing okay right now, happy for it

820
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 2: at an all time high, which means climate change is soft.

821
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 3: Oh good, I'm glad it'd be worried about that.

822
00:40:49,080 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 2: Yep, we did it, and we're back so diligent cross examination.

823
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 2: You know, early in the court proceedings, here comes across

824
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 2: a bunch of examples of the crew of the Zorg

825
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 2: fucking up hideously, right, it finds out because they're talking

826
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,839
Speaker 2: to Stubbs and they're talking to that to his first mate,

827
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 2: and Stubbs admits, like a bunch of shit he shouldn't

828
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:22,760
Speaker 2: on the stand including it, like wait, wait, you guys

829
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 2: sailed past other islands that had water but didn't because

830
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 2: you were like worried that they might have been taken

831
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 2: by like an enemy who would take your boat, but

832
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 2: you didn't know. And he just went past the islands

833
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 2: that were full of water. And then he admits that, like, well,

834
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,760
Speaker 2: we thought we had enough water when we passed those islands,

835
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 2: but then we looked inside and realized that the water

836
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 2: barrels weren't as full as we thought. It was like,

837
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 2: you didn't check on your water. You didn't check to

838
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 2: see if you had enough water. It seems like a

839
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 2: pretty important thing to check. Yeah. Likewise, the lawyers point

840
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 2: out that the Gregson sindicate had a responsibility to hire

841
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 2: a competent captain. Not only was Collins would not that,

842
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 2: but when he got sick, he passed on command to

843
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 2: a demonstrably incompetent man. When a skilled sailor and navigator

844
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,280
Speaker 2: was locked in his room forbidden from doing his job,

845
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,760
Speaker 2: it was not the sea's fault or the underwriter's responsibility

846
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 2: if the syndicate hired a captain who couldn't And this

847
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:22,720
Speaker 2: is a line from the court case, tell Hispaniola from Jamaica, Wow,

848
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 2: burn on the dead.

849
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,280
Speaker 3: Guy good in the eighteenth century.

850
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,479
Speaker 2: Now, much of the case came down to the fact

851
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 2: that further interrogation of the ship's stores and the actual

852
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 2: documentation of their journey showed that when they landed in

853
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 2: Jamaica they had days of water left, and if they'd

854
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 2: been close to running out, there were again multiple islands

855
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: they could have gone to to get their water within

856
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 2: a day or so. In addition to that, on the stand,

857
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 2: Stubbs revealed that it had rained several times near the

858
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 2: end of the journey and he'd failed to have the

859
00:42:54,640 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 2: crew collect rain water. Stubbs really continues to us, should

860
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 2: we get water now, let's just kill some more guys sorry,

861
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 2: kill some more women and children. Yeah.

862
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:10,040
Speaker 3: Fuck.

863
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,359
Speaker 2: So this case, which had been rushed through the first time,

864
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 2: on second viewing seemed much more disturbing, even to skeptics

865
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 2: like Mansfield. The dark question that hovered over the whole

866
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:24,359
Speaker 2: proceeding was this, if not out of necessity, why would

867
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 2: Stubbs and the crew have thrown one hundred and thirty

868
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 2: people overboard? And the answer that people kept thinking was

869
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 2: probably the obvious one, is this, after a too long

870
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 2: journey on a slave ship crammed with twice its maximum occupancy,

871
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 2: without enough food or enough water, and disease and dimmick,

872
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 2: many of the enslaved people on board were too sick

873
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 2: and visibly ailing to fetch much of a price at auction.

874
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 2: So if you just kill them, the insured value is

875
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:56,439
Speaker 2: higher than what they would sell for. Jeez, we don't

876
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 2: know that that's what was going on, but this is

877
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 2: what people start talking about, and it's not an unreasonable proposition. Yeah, no,

878
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 2: pretty ghastly yeah yeah, ghostly right, And this changes the

879
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: thinking of a lot of people like Mansfield, who are

880
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 2: not abolitionists, but who are like, oh shit, but if, like,

881
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 2: if we established this precedent, people might just start murdering

882
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:22,720
Speaker 2: ships full of enslaved people to just get the insurance money.

883
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:25,959
Speaker 2: And that seems like a nightmare, Like that's even bad

884
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 2: to me, and I kind of suck ass, you know.

885
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 2: So this fact is shaking even to guys like Judge Manfield,

886
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 2: and he ruled quote to be sure, what mister Haywood

887
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 2: has observed is a very material circumstance. So many negroes

888
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 2: thrown overboard after the rain came, without any account of

889
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 2: how they came to do it. It is so uncommon

890
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 2: a case. I think, upon the ground of re examination,

891
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 2: it ought to go to a new trial. And he

892
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: grants a motion for retrial. Now this is never to be.

893
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 2: There's not a second trial because William Grigson, head of

894
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 2: the slaving syndicate, decides that a second trial is not

895
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,719
Speaker 2: go well, right, and it's just gonna waste money. So

896
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 2: let's just cut our losses and return to operating the

897
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 2: slave trade at a massive, massive level. His insurers celebrate

898
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 2: their victory. But you could be forgiven for seeing that

899
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 2: at this point the case is like an overall mixed

900
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,399
Speaker 2: bag or even a wash for the cause of abolitionism, right,

901
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: because you know the people who one are still involved

902
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 2: in the slaving industry. No one has attained any additional rights.

903
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 2: No one's ruled that enslaved people are human beings. They're

904
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 2: still the same as cargo. Right, how is this? You

905
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 2: could see someone, especially like a political radical at the time,

906
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 2: being like, this is the worst kind of incrementalism. You've

907
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 2: achieved nothing. Right. You can see how someone might think

908
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 2: that that is not the case. And in fact, part

909
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 2: of why I think the story's important is it illustrates

910
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 2: how critical small and seemingly pyrrhic victories can be in

911
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 2: pursuit of sweeping social change. First off, well, there's no

912
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 2: second trial. The fact that a retrial was grand means

913
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 2: that slave merchants had been given a warning. You can't

914
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 2: just kill people and claim their insurance money on them. Right.

915
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 2: And then, as Sidharth Kara writes and the Zorg, even

916
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 2: if just for a moment, the Africans who lay at

917
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean thousands away were seen as people,

918
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 2: not property, and Kerr is arguing that this causes kind

919
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 2: of a perceptual shift in a lot of people who

920
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 2: can't help as they're hearing how horrible what this is,

921
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 2: sympathize with these people who are still legally just property,

922
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,720
Speaker 2: and that that's an important shift. But the larger victory

923
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: in the case was that it had started the process

924
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 2: of gathering together and galvanizing great legal minds, writers and

925
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 2: agitators towards pursuing an end to the slave trade in

926
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 2: an organized fashion, right, And that's what we're going to

927
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:48,240
Speaker 2: talk about in part three. But I should conclude today

928
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 2: by saying a little about our main villains for these episodes,

929
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:55,280
Speaker 2: William Grigson and Robert Stubbs. During the first case, Stubbs

930
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 2: had high hopes of getting a job with the syndicate

931
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 2: and perhaps even support to regain his lost gold by

932
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 2: helping Grickson make good on the slaves that they'd killed.

933
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,399
Speaker 2: When this failed, he gets cut loose. Now Stubbs never

934
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 2: makes it back to Africa. He scrapes together a meager

935
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 2: living for the next few years, and he dies aged

936
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,439
Speaker 2: sixty and seventeen eighty seven. In his will, he gives

937
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 2: gave his son George all my wearing apparel, which wasn't

938
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 2: much used to the boy who never made it back

939
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 2: from Africa and died there earlier that same year, age nineteen.

940
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 2: All Stubsy one more, one more real piece of yah.

941
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 3: His kid, his clothes, his old man clothes.

942
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 2: He literally does. He doesn't give his kids any money.

943
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 2: I don't think he has much, but he's like already

944
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 2: paid to raise him. Why would I give him money?

945
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,240
Speaker 3: Paid the ship that one kid off to Africa?

946
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 2: Jesus, what a piece of shit?

947
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a what a could Yeah find his grave

948
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 3: and piss on it if you're in the region.

949
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you can find it, pee on it. William

950
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 2: Gregson unfortunately lives into eighteen hundred when he dies aged

951
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 2: seventy nine, after having financed more than one hundred and

952
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 2: fifty slave voyages that tore nearly sixty thousand Africans from

953
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:07,839
Speaker 2: their homes. Roughly sixteen percent of these people died en route.

954
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 2: Gregson died wealthy and respected, having never been called to

955
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 2: account for his crimes against humanity, which is a bummer.

956
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:15,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sucks.

957
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: I'm sure his descendants aren't still rich today.

958
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that's something you can be so sure of,

959
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:25,279
Speaker 3: rob It. I think that's a good chance they might be.

960
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,479
Speaker 2: No. The of the moral arc of the universe bends

961
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:30,720
Speaker 2: towards justice, James, Ah.

962
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 3: But it moves slowly as a problem. It moves real

963
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 3: fucking slow, a little bit too slowly sometimes because if

964
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:39,399
Speaker 3: someone give it a bit of a gidea up, you know.

965
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: And it's less of an arc and more of like

966
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 2: one of those one of those needles they have on

967
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,839
Speaker 2: like a seismograph. So it's just like jumping back and forth. Yeah,

968
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 2: pretty often.

969
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 3: Sure doesn't seem to be bending in the direction recently.

970
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, man, Yeah, that's the story.

971
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: Oh, stubbsy man, stubbsy.

972
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:04,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, at least he died reasonably young, like he could

973
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:05,880
Speaker 3: have made it to one hundred that the other dude, No,

974
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 3: can't imagine what.

975
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen seventeen eighty seven.

976
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he lives longer than poor little George.

977
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:14,399
Speaker 2: That's right, he lives longer than his son.

978
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a fucking did Yeah, he presumaly doesn't even

979
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 3: know who's died because he gives that few shits. Yeah.

980
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:27,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, here have some old shirts, kid.

981
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 3: My old clothes. Wow, that I wore as I fucked

982
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 3: up again and again over a series of fuck ups

983
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 3: that lasted my dire life.

984
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: Oh I'm glad that guy is dead.

985
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

986
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 3: We all are I think, Yeah.

987
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: James, do you want to plug your book real quick?

988
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, you won't encounter any any stubsy type characters. But

989
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 3: there's some heroes in here. I think, some people who

990
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 3: have done some really remarkable things. Yeah, I wrote this

991
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 3: about anarchists at war. It's called Against the State. You

992
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 3: can pre order it from ak Press. You can hear

993
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 3: about some people trying to build a better world less

994
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 3: incrementally than this in many cases, kind of with a

995
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:09,359
Speaker 3: bit more I guess kinetic means. But nonetheless, I think

996
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 3: like there's some stories and things that we can learn

997
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 3: in our much less violent lives from these people and

998
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 3: the way they organize and the way that they have

999
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 3: gone about things, And people will read it and enjoy it.

1000
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:22,280
Speaker 2: You can buy it from ak Press.

1001
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:25,799
Speaker 1: Pre order link will be in the episode change should.

1002
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah you should. Yeah, don't buy it from Jeff Bezos.

1003
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 3: He's not as bad as some of the people on here,

1004
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:32,399
Speaker 3: but not a great dude.

1005
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 2: Not a great dude. And yeah, you know, until next time, folks, well,

1006
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 2: which we will be like tomorrow. But just in general,

1007
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 2: I guess as you look at out how fucked up

1008
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 2: things are, remember that things change pretty quickly, and the

1009
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 2: evils that seem entrenched and impossible to fight generally aren't,

1010
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: and that even victories that seem pyic or meaningless can

1011
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 2: lead to much greater things, just by virtue of the

1012
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 2: fact that through the act of fighting, people are brought

1013
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 2: together who become capable of fighting more effectively even greater injustices.

1014
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 2: So keep fighting and again, piss on that guy's great

1015
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 2: if you find.

1016
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 1: It, Yeah, Yeah, Behind the Bastards is a production of

1017
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:21,959
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit

1018
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: our website Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on

1019
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1020
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes

1021
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: every Wednesday and Friday.

1022
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 2: Subscribe to our

1023
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,280
Speaker 1: Channel YouTube dot com slash at Behind the Bastards