The Zong

In 1781 a slave ship called Zong left Ghana carrying more than 400 slaves which was more than the ship could carry. The captain of the ship was a man called Luke Collingwood.

Many people on board started to get sick and by the time they had reached around the Atlantic region several of the crew who were on the boat had died from the spreading diseases.

The remaining crew that was left on the boat decided to throw around 130 dying and sick people into the ocean, according to the crew they threw them off because the water was running low due to navigational mistakes and it would take them even longer to get to Jamaica. Some of them even decided to jump in!

The Zong was originally named Zorg which is a dutch word meaning care.

Once they had arrived at their destination, they had taken out insurance on the lives of the enslaved people as cargo and court cases were held because the insures refused to pay them, not because they had killed many people.

Finally, in December 1865 slavery was officially abolished.