Just discovered something fairly horrifying; apparently in the early 1800’s, there was a slave ship that traveled to Jamaica and picked up 442 people to be slaves (who were far more than their ship was supposed to carry); the captain lost his way on the way back, and with dwindling food and water supplies, they had to…
Well, this is where insurance comes in: apparently if slaves died of disease, insurance didn’t cover this, however if slaves ‘had’ to be ‘jettisoned’ (thrown overboard) to save the ship, their lives were covered by insurance.
Those murderers threw 132 people overboard, and the court case resulting from this is believed to have played a part in abolishing slavery a short while later.
Damn; honestly it’s disgusting when you hear white people today talk about how black people should be grateful to white people for having ended slavery; it took black victims giving having their lives TAKEN AWAY for slavery to be abolished.
Something similar also happened in the Salish Sea when people (usually Chinese immigrants) wanted to he moved across the US/Canadian border. The smugglers would transport them bound and weighted and if there was any potential risk of attention from the authorities they would just throw everyone over the side.
No the slaves dying wasn’t what prompted reform, nobody gave a shit
Super expensive insurance claim that the insurer doesn’t want to pay out? Oh man you know that’s gonna do it though
i’m not sure that’s a fair reading. i imagine commercial interests, insurers included, that enriched themselves on the slave trade were not keen to have the practice abolished. following the Zong, insurers could just write or amend contracts to avoid future incidents, or the state could have just limited contractual provisions which incentivized such cynical behavior.
rather, this is exactly an episode of everyone giving a shit – something so horrific that it became a focal point and provided the energy for emancipatory forces to rally around, not just to limit the immense cruelty which occurred w/Zong, but to end the practice generally.
Admittedly what I’m finding on the wiki page certainly speaks to a dedicated abolitionist cause, although even the wiki entry made it clear that they found little sympathy (not for lack of trying though); the abolitionist cause, from what I’m understanding on the wiki page, also did certainly come from a very humanitarian position, although again, they didn’t see much popular support, although they did have legal successes (although the politicians helping may very well have been more concerned for the sake of insurers than the enslaved victims; for example they required a certain level of sanitation and other such stuff, and also removed clauses from insurance contracts that would have benefited the clients over the insurers, which sounds to me more like they wanted to protect insurers than because they’re personally concerned for the sake of the slaves, but then I’m not a mind reader and it’s entirely possible I’m wrong and maligning them; I can only guess at their intentions).
Every time I learn anything about chattel slavery I get shocked at the new lows human societies can reach.
Recently learned about how blackbirding destroyed the Rapa Nui people of Easter island that were managing to hold on despite the ravages of disease introduced by European travellers and colonists. I just had to cry, there’s no way to right the sheer monsterous wrongs.
All so some fucking rich wanker could like play sportsball for 3 more hours of the day instead of work. Or like add a new empty wing to some idiotic vanity manor.
That it’s even debatable today that the people who did this weren’t the lowest of the low and traitors to the very concept of humanity… I just don’t know.
Rapa Nui
I read some really painful stuff about these people; that the Rapa Nui written language, rongorongo, was lost in just one generation because of the hideous actions of slavers. Their people were so badly harmed that at one point they only had 12 men and 101 women and their culture was in danger of becoming extinct.
Yeah it’s bleak. The repatriation effort Portugal engaged in after international pressure killed something absurd like 3/4s of the enslaved people being returned on the voyage. Because they couldn’t even be arsed doing it properly.
A unique and isolated, and apparently extremely peaceful people just fucking looted for their flesh and their life. There aren’t words to describe the barbarism.
I thought you were gonna say that they ate the slaves
