The Zong Massacre: Inspiration for JMW Turner's "Slave Ship" Painting

In 1840, British artist J.M.W. Turner produced the painting above for the International Conference on Abolition of Slavery. The conference was organized by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which had campaigned for an end to the slave trade (1807) and slavery in the empire (1833). The painting shows people drowning in the sea near a ship as a storm approaches. Turner entitled it "Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On." 

He was inspired in part by reading about the horrors of the slave ship Zong, in Thomas Clarkson's History and Abolition of the Slave Trade. The story is variously known as the Zong Incident, the Zong Case, or, more recently and accurately, as the Zong Massacre.

The ship was carrying a "cargo" of 442 Africans from Ghana to  Jamaica. It was grossly overloaded, poorly maintained, and inadequately crewed. The Zong overshot Jamaica by more than 300 miles due to a navigational error. It was running low on water. Some 62 Africans had already died from disease. Many others were ill. 

The crew threw at least 132 living Africans into the sea, allegedly to save the rest. A key point in their decision was that the slaves were insured against "loss at sea" but not against death by "natural causes." Humanity did not enter into the equation, only profit. 

The Zong made it to Jamaica, where the surviving slaves were sold.
The ship's owners applied for the insurance money for the "lost" slaves. The insurance company's underwriters denied the claim and the case went to court in London. A jury ruled against the underwriters and ordered them to pay. Two months later, the underwriters appealed the case to one of the high courts, the King's Bench. 

No record of the first trial has survived, but at the second trial, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield summed up the verdict of the first. The jury, he said, had believed the crew's action was justified.  "They had no doubt (though it shocks one very much) that the case of slaves was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard." At the second trial, the counsel for the owners went further and claimed that it was just like throwing a load of wood into the sea. (Image: Lord Mansfield) 

The underwriters argued, with ample evidence, that the entire voyage had been badly mismanaged. They also argued that the crew should be prosecuted for murder. Granville Sharp, an active campaigner against the slave trade, probably suggested the latter strategy. A former slave, Olaudah Equiano, had brought Sharp's attention to the Zong Case. (Images: Sharp and Equiano)

Mansfield ruled in favor of the underwriters' contention that poor management was responsible for the loss of the slaves. The Zong's investors received no compensation for the dead (murdered) Africans. No murder charges were brought against the crew. Nevertheless, the horrors revealed by the Zong Case helped galvanize opponents of the slave trade. Led by men like Sharp, Equiano, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Clarkson, they mounted a mass movement to end it. Parliament finally abolished the trade in 1807. Abolition of slavery itself in the British Empire followed in 1833.

Turner's iconic painting is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Further Reading: James Walvin, The Zong: A Masssacre, the Law, and the End of Slavery. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011.

Henry Laurens and the Unfinished "Peace" Painting by Benjamin West, 1782

On October 19, 1781, British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and the French at Yorktown, Virginia. It was the last major battle of the American War for Independence. 

A few months later, in April 1782, American and British delegations began meeting in Paris to negotiate an end to the war. Congress had appointed four men to the America delegation: John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, John Jay of New York, and Henry Laurens of South Carolina. 

The British delegation was led by Richard Oswald, who had made a vast fortune in the African slave trade (Below: Oswald and Hartley)

Negotiations dragged on into November. As they drew near their close, artist Benjamin West went to Paris to paint the delegations. (Below: Self portrait by West)

The American born West had moved from his native Pennsylvania to England well before the war, to pursue his artistic career. He had earned recognition as a painter of historic subjects, such as "The Death of General Wolfe" (1770). 

More than thirty years later, West painted the "Death of Nelson" (1806). Clearly, West had a thing about death scenes! But his aim in Paris was to commemorate peace between his native and adoptive countries.

After West began the painting of the delegations, he ran into problems. Henry Laurens of South Carolina came to Paris only a day before the preliminary treaty was to be signed. Laurens had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than a year, until December 1781. After his release, he pled ill health and remained in England, spending some time in the health spa at Bath, "taking the waters." 

In November 1782, Laurens received a letter from Adams informing him that his son John had been killed in a minor skirmish with British foragers at Combahee, South Carolina in August. It was a senseless death, because the war was effectively over. Adams pleaded for Laurens to come to Paris immediately, which he now did. Adams was probably concerned that the delegation had no representative from a Southern state. 

Laurens may have thought that as well. On his arrival, he added a clause to the treaty, requiring the British to return thousands of runaway slaves to their American masters. Oswald conceded it, perhaps because he and Laurens were old business partners in the slave trade. 

One problem with this was that the British commander in America, General Sir Henry Clinton, had promised freedom to all runaways who came over to their lines. (In the end, the British refused to hand over the runaways, which soured relations with the US for many years.)

Laurens' late arrival explains why his portrait is only partly complete in the West painting. Laurens is the figure in red standing at the back. To his right are Franklin, Adams, and Jay. The man to Laurens' left is William Temple Franklin, Ben Franklin's grandson and the Americans' secretary.

West would most likely have finished Laurens' portrait despite his tardiness, if he had not faced a much bigger problem. The British delegates refused to sit for the painting. West gave up and left the right side of the painting blank. 

The unfinished painting ended up in Adams' possession. It remained in the Adams family for many years. It currently hangs in the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

In 1816 West would paint one of the Americans again: a famous tribute to his fellow Pennsylvanian, Benjamin Franklin.