The Zong massacre was a mass killing of more than 130 enslaved African people by the crew of the British slave ship Zong on and in the days following 29 November 1781. The William Gregson slave-trading syndicate, based in Liverpool, owned the ship as part of the Atlantic slave trade. As was common business practice, they had taken out insurance on the lives of the enslaved Africans as cargo. According to the crew, when the ship ran low on drinking water following navigational mistakes, the crew threw enslaved Africans overboard.
The Slave Ship (1840), J. M. W. Turner's representation of the mass killing of enslaved people, inspired by the Zong killings
Plan of the slave ship Brookes, carrying 454 slaves. Before the Slave Trade Act 1788, Brookes had transported 609 slaves and was 267 tons burden, making 2.3 slaves per ton. Zong carried 442 enslaved people and was 110 tons burden – 4.0 slaves per ton.
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield by John Singleton Copley, in his parliamentary robes as an earl
Granville Sharp, from a drawing by George Dance
William Gregson (slave trader)
William Gregson was a British slave trader. He was responsible for at least 152 slave voyages, and his slave ships are recorded as having carried 58,201 Africans, of whom 9,148 died. Gregson was the co-owner of a ship called the Zong, whose crew perpetrated the Zong massacre.
Drawing of a slave ship, showing shackled Africans
An 1832 image of enslaved people being thrown overboard, sometimes associated with the Zong massacre
