Print of the crew of the Zong throwing sick Africans overboard (1781)
Movements can often be sparked by the most inane and ordinary of circumstances.
In the case of abolition, one could argue that it all began with an insurance fraud case.
On November 29, 1781, the Zong, a slave ship carrying Africans to Jamaica, had a problem. Two months before, in their zeal for profits, the crew of the Zong stuffed the hold of the ship with more Africans than it could carry. By November, malnutrition and disease had taken the lives of seven crew members and almost 60 enslaved Africans.
Luke Collingwood, captain of the Zong, now made what he considered the best decision to stem the losses for his bosses in Liverpool. If he continued sailing, and delivered a pile of corpses to the Kingston docks, the owners had no redress. If, however, the sick Africans were lost at sea, then the shipowners’ insurance would cover the loss. Under the “jettison” clause, enslaved persons were considered cargo, and their loss would be covered at £30 per head.
So on November 29, Collingwood did the “logical” thing: he ordered 54 sick Africans dumped overboard. Another 42 perished the next day, and 26 the day after that. 10 Africans voluntarily flung themselves overboard, in an act of defiance against the captain’s decision. In all, 122 Africans were thrown overboard.
Yet when the ship owners filed their claim with the insurance company, things went downhill. The insurers disputed the claims of the captain and the owners–largely on the testimony of James Kelsall, First Mate on the Zong. According to the insurance claim, the Africans were thrown overboard “for the safety of the ship,” as there wasn’t enough water for the cargo and crew to survive the rest of the voyage. But Kelsall–who expressed doubts early on to Collingwood about the scheme–testified that there was plenty of water for the remaining leg of the journey. Indeed, when the Zong reached Jamaica on the 22nd of December, there was 422 gallons of drinking water in the hold.
The case went to court, and the court ruled in favor of Collingwood and the owners. During the appeals process, an ex-slave and author, Olaudah Equiano, brought the case–soon to be known as the “Zong Massacre”–to the attention of Granville Sharp, one of Britain’s leading early abolitionists. Sharp immediately became involved in the prosecution of the appeal, even though eminent jurists such as John Lee, Soliciter General for England and Wales, dismissed the affair stating “the case was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard.” This time, the court ruled that the ship owners were not eligible for insurance since the water in the hold proved that the cargo was mismanaged.
Sharp and his colleagues tried to press murder charges against Collingwood and the owners, but to no avail. The Solicitor General, John Lee, stated that:
“What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honourable men of murder. They acted out of necessity and in the most appropriate manner for the cause. The late Captain Collingwood acted in the interest of his ship to protect the safety of his crew. To question the judgement of an experienced well-travelled captain held in the highest regard is one of folly, especially when talking of slaves. The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.”
Lee hoped the matter would rest with his decision. Instead it unleashed a firestorm.
Within a few years of the Zong Massacre, abolitionists Thomas Clarkson and James Ramsay issued pamphlets and essays condemning the conditions of the slave trade. Together with Sharp and Equiano, they would approach a young member of Parliament from Yorkshire, William Wilberforce, to take up the cause of abolition.
Beginning in 1784, Wilberforce would lead a 50-year struggle in Parliament to abolish slavery in the British Empire. The efforts of abolitionists such as these led to the 1807 law abolishing the slave trade. 26 years later, the British Parliament outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire. The British abolition movement inspired similar movements worldwide–including a burgeoning anti-slavery movement across the Atlantic that would lead to civil war and eventual emancipation.
And to think…it was all sparked by insurance fraud.
For more information about the Zong Massacre, here are some helpful sites:
Information about the slave ship Zong (1781)
Lesson Plan about the Zong case
Gloucestershire, UK County Council website about Granville Sharp and the Zong Massacre
British National Archives catalog of documents relating to the Zong affair
Mr. D's Neighborhood 
Mr. D and the “War on Christmas”: A Response to Ed O’Donnell’s 11/25 NY Daily News Column
Once you get past the logistical minutia about cleaning up rooms, timetables for parties and whatnot, a curious sentence pops up, to the effect of
“Under no circumstances are children to be removed from parties due to behavior. Even if you do not celebrate it, these children are entitled to Christmas celebrations.”
Not holidays, but CHRISTMAS celebrations. One can’t be too sure if this is intentional or not. However, the message was loud and clear: keep your skepticism, doubt and alternative beliefs at the door. In this community, it is Christmas—and
ONL Y Christmas, not Chanukah or even Kwanzaa—that matters.
I thought about this as I read a recent Daily News column by Ed O’Donnell, associate professor of history at Holy Cross. In his piece, O’Donnell finds a new appreciation for the much-maligned phrase “Happy Holidays.” Speaking as a church-going Christian himself, O’Donnell claims that Happy Holidays “embodies both a fundamental American value and, strange as it may sound, one of Christmas’ core religious ideals.”
It demonstrates the spirit of American inclusiveness, as it is free to interpretation by any faith, and also focuses on inclusivity’s Christian message—a message clouded by “a grotesque exhibition of materialist excess,” in O’Donnell’s words.
Some disclosure is in order. I’ve met Professor O’Donnell a number of times through lectures, workshops and grant programs. Heck, I even piloted one of my curriculum units for him. O’Donnell is a first-rate historian, a magnificent writer (I recommend his book Ship Ablaze, about the 1904 sinking of the General Slocum) and one of the finest lecturers I’ve ever met.
Even better—and take my word for it—Ed is a stand-up fellow, a really nice guy.
That said, I do take issue with O’Donnell in this particular survey of the “War on Christmas.” Two points to consider:
(1) His exalting of “Happy Holidays” as a triumph of American inclusivity over religious bigotry fails to take into account Christmas’ own status as a persecuted holiday in the early history of our republic; and
(2) Though it is perhaps unintentional, O’Donnell’s appreciation for “Happy Holidays” might be construed as creating a new orthodoxy, pulling down one golden calf in place of another.
The first point is, in my humble opinion, an egregious omission on O’Donnell’s part. Of course, he is correct in mentioning our country’s history of violence over religion, via the anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon movements of the mid-19th century. Yet Christmas did not have an easy road to acceptance: often just as treacherous as the Mormon trek towards the salt flats of Utah.
Since the Reformation, Protestant groups saw Christmas as one of the prime targets for assault in their war against the Roman Catholic Church. The pomp and pageantry of Christmas was reviled as a papist extravagance bearing the “marks of the beast.”
This anti-Christmas attitude was superimposed on the New World. England’s Puritan government had severely curtailed the holiday in 1647 and banned it outright in 1652. Plymouth abolished Christmas, as did Massachusetts Bay in 1659—with a huge 50 shilling fine for non-compliance. In Of Plimoth Plantation, William Bradford recalls the Christmas of 1621, which was a regular work day at the Separatist colony:
Even after the bans were lifted in the late 1600s, Christmas was rarely celebrated outside of immigrant—mostly German—communities in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, as well as the Anglican gentry of Virginia. Massachusetts and the rest of New England kept to the old superstitions and prejudices of the holiday. Christmas, in the Puritan view, was vain, extravagant, Papist, elitist, and royalist.
In fact, a major victory in the American Revolution would not have been possible if Christmas were celebrated more widely in the colonies. The 1776 Christmas victory over the Hessians at Trenton would have turned out differently if both sides—and not just the German mercenaries—were hung over after holiday celebrations.
It wasn’t until 1870—after the Revolution, western expansion, immigration waves, industrialization, and a bloody Civil War—that Christmas finally became a federal holiday, thereby shaking off the vestiges of Puritan intolerance.
To then bury the name “Christmas” under the verbal veneer of “Happy Holidays” can be seen as intolerant as well—intolerant of the arduous road Christmas took to gain acceptance in the United States over fear and superstition.
This leads me to my second point. I’m in full agreement that the conservative blowhards who push “Keep Christ in Christmas” while turning their heads at its crass commercialism deserve a sound comeuppance. Though my views tend towards the conservative side, I’m no holy roller—I’m less of a churchgoer than Professor O’Donnell, who goes weekly. The right has more important things to worry about than labels and names on the best time of year.
That said, the secular left is not getting off easy. O’Donnell notes that “Happy Holidays” embodies a uniquely American virtue: “respect for each and every citizen’s right to their own religious beliefs (or nonbeliefs). “ Does this also include the right to not say “Happy Holidays”? Or are those who adhere to their particular beliefs in exclusion to others subject to their own shunning by a secular establishment?
I’m not picking on O’Donnell per se, since I understand his intentions with the piece: to express an appreciation for an unpopular phrase of the season. Yet this sentiment of inclusiveness can lead many to construe it as the focus for a new standard of exclusiveness. The “Happy Holidays” crowd, in their zeal to include everyone and respect all, may in fact be disrespecting and persecuting those who see in their individual holidays a source of identity and cohesion—EVEN IF their celebrations may seem exclusive to others.
Does this mean that the “War on Christmas” is legitimate? Not really; Christmas is not going away anytime soon. Yet whenever a phrase like “Happy Holidays” is touted as supreme or better than something else, it tends to create an aura of authority—an aura that inherently excludes those who disagree.
George Orwell famously said that “freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” This, in many ways more so than inclusivity and respect, is the true republican virtue of American society. Sometime this season, I will hear someone tell me “Happy Holidays.” I may not like it. I may feel like cracking a two-by-four over the bastard’s head. Yet I have to respect his right to say it—and conversely, that SOB has to respect my right to tell them “Merry Christmas” if I feel like it.
So this holiday season, say “Happy Holidays,” “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Chanukah,” “Joyous Kwanzaa,” or whatever you feel like.
Just don’t try to shame someone for mistaking you for a believer and slipping a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Chanukah.” If you don’t know what that can lead to, re-read George Orwell’s magnum opus to refresh your memory.
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