Graphic image No.1 depicts how the captive men on the lower were to be shackled and positioned below deck. The enslaved men were chained in irons within the hold of the ship on what were known as ‘the slave decks’. (Now known as Ouidah in the Republic of Benin, West Africa). The 372 enslaved Africans who survived the voyage on the Hannibal spent a total of 126 days onboard the ship after it had departed Whydah. For the enslaved Africans on board a slave ship sailing to the New World – in this case Barbados – they were to experience a passage of unimaginable horror. Let me begin by saying that there was nothing unique about the utterly appalling conditions that existed on the Hannibal slave ship: All merchant slave ships were floating prisons of cruelty and depravity. The stench of the hold…was so intolerably loathsome that it was dangerous to remain there for any time…but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. Historian James Walvin wrote a detailed account in The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery.Warning – Due to the nature of the topic this article is not suitable for children This is the case featured in the film Belle. This time the court decided that the Africans on board the ship were people. The insurance company appealed, and the case was retried. Since it was permissible to kill animals for the safety of the ship, they decided, it was permissible to kill enslaved people for the same reason. The case went to court.Īt first the jury ruled in favor of the ship’s owners. While living in England, he learned of the tragedy and alerted an abolitionist friend.

The claim might have been honored if it had not been Olaudah Equiano (also known as Gustavus Vassa), who had once been enslaved. When the ship returned to England, the owners wished to be compensated the full value for each enslaved African lost. By the time the ship had reached the Caribbean, 132 persons had been murdered. Drawing of Zong Massare © Musée de la Marine / Négrier poursuivuiĪnother 78 were drowned over the next two days.

Facts about the brookes slave ship