Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre

176 Pages·2018·4.76 MB·English

by  Michelle Faubert

GRANVILLE
SHARP’S
UNCOVERED
LETTER AND THE
ZONGG MASSACRE
Michelle Faubert
Granville Sharp’s Uncovered Letter
and the Zong Massacre
Michelle Faubert
Granville Sharp’s
Uncovered Letter
and the Zong Massacre
Michelle Faubert
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, Canada
ISBN 978-3-319-92785-5 ISBN 978-3-319-92786-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92786-2
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I dedicate this book to the murder victims of the Zong, the 208
survivors—including the man who survived by laying hold
of a rope to save himself—and all Jamaicans, who embody
his spirit of fortitude today.
P a
reface and cknowledgements
I discovered Granville Sharp’s two-part manuscript missive to the
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty at the British Library in May of
2015 while performing research for an article of literary criticism, my
usual focus as a professor of Romantic-era literature at the University
of Manitoba (Canada) and Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University
(UK). I had only a passing knowledge of the history of slavery and abo-
lition then, but it was enough to recognize the significance of the names
“Granville Sharp” and “the Zong.” My colleague at the University of
Manitoba, Dana Medoro, had told me about the Zong massacre some
years before—and, like so many others who hear this history, I was so
shaken that it was seared into my memory and I sought out more infor-
mation about it. Thanks to this experience, I recognized the significance
of the mysterious manuscript I held in my hands at the British Library
that day.
After finding the Sharp manuscript at the British Library, I became
nearly obsessed with it and the history of the Zong. I felt like a sleuth
as I slowly traced the document’s strange provenance—and, like the
Wedding Guest in S. T. Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
I felt “sadder and wiser” the more I learned about the horrors of the
Zong massacre and the injustices of the court case that followed. As a
Romanticist, I knew that slavery was a major aspect of the spirit of revo-
lution and discussion of human rights that imbued the age, but I had not
considered its influence so deeply before. I threw myself into my research
with a verve I had not felt previously. Here was my personal invitation
vii
viii PREFACE AND ACKNoWLEDGEMENTS
from the past—or, rather, the manuscript demanded that I take respon-
sibility for it, learn more about the Zong’s place in the history of slavery
and abolition, and tell the story of Sharp’s mysterious manuscript as well
as I could.
My resulting publications have led to outcomes that I could not
have imagined. My scholarly article on Sharp’s manuscript letter to
the Admiralty at the British Library in Slavery & Abolition reached
over seven hundred views online within a year, while a story about it
in my University’s newspaper, UM Today, made it as far as Jamaica.1
There, Evelyn Smart read it and brought it to the Honourable Donna
Parchment Brown, the Political ombudsman of Jamaica, on account of
the latter’s interest in the Zong episode. Parchment Brown contacted
me about working with her and Vivian Crawford, Executive Director
of the Institute of Jamaica, on a project to commemorate the Zong and
I enthusiastically accepted. My resulting research trip to Jamaica in May
of 2017 was a whirlwind of exciting and emotionally moving events.
I lectured on three occasions in Jamaica, the first as the main presenter at
the Zong memorial in Black River, where the Zong landed in late 1783;
for the second event, I presented a paper on my research into Sharp’s
Zong missive at the University of West Indies in Kingston; the third event
was my presentation at the Institute of Jamaica, also in Kingston, during
which I also launched the exhibition on the BL document that I cre-
ated for the Institute of Jamaica. The exhibition traveled to Black River
in october 2017 for Jamaican Heritage Month. Two national television
interviews and a talk-radio interview rounded out my incredible trip to
Jamaica.
Many people from several countries have encouraged me to write this
book through their interest in and support for the project. I want to
thank all of those who showed an early and enduring interest in this pro-
ject, several of whom helped my research for it materially. James Walvin,
1Michelle Faubert, “Granville Sharp’s Manuscript Letter to the Admiralty on the Zong
Massacre: A New Discovery in the British Library,” Slavery & Abolition 38, no. 1 (2016):
1–18. Some of the research in this book appears in the Slavery & Abolition article. Sean
Moore, “Professor Finds Lost 232-Year old Letter Condemning Slave Massacre,” UM
Today, http://news.umanitoba.ca/professor-finds-lost-232-year-old-letter-condemning-
slave-massacre/, 19 August 2015, unpag.
PREFACE AND ACKNoWLEDGEMENTS ix
author of The Zong: A Massacre, the Law & the End of Slavery (2011)—
the seminal monograph on the Zong case—has been hugely generous
in advising me via e-mail and telephone conversations. others include:
James Basker, Sean Moore, Liesl Smith, Gad Heuman, Tim Lockley,
Lyle Ford, Salvy Trojman, Andrew Lyall, Clark Lawlor, Alan Vardy,
Chris Brown, Jenny Sharpe, Joel Faflak, Caroline Piotrowski, Marcus
Closen, Anita King, Tom Schmid, Bob o’Kell, and Elyssa Warkentin.
Most notably, Suzie Park and Charles Wharram, of Eastern Illinois
University, invited me to present on the Zong massacre and my discovery
of Sharp’s missive to the Admiralty for the 27th Annual Lecture of the
Phi Beta Kappa Society in November of 2017. At Palgrave Press, I want
to thank Megan Laddusaw and Christine Pardue, as well as the anon-
ymous readers of the manuscripts, whose comments and suggestions
improved the book immensely. Allan Ingram read a draft of this mono-
graph; he caught several typos and responded enthusiastically to it, which
gave me the boost of confidence I needed to finish my task. As ever,
Allan, I am deeply grateful to you for your support. Finally, Shoshannah
Bryn Jones Square contributed to this book in multiple ways, not least
of which was by helping me to copyedit it as part of her work for me
as a Postdoctoral Fellow for my Social Science and Humanities Research
Council of Canada Insight Grant (2015–2020). I cannot thank her
enough for her great attention to detail and scholarly professionalism.
Any remaining errors are my own.
I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the British Library, which so
generously allowed me to reproduce their images of the Sharp manu-
script free of charge in this volume for the Appendix (© British Library
Board General Reference Collection T.35.(2), folios 1–15). Many
knowledgeable and helpful staff members at the BL helped my investi-
gation immeasurably, but I offer special thanks to Sandra Tuppen (Lead
Curator of Modern Archives and MSS 1601–1850, British Library).
I also want to thank the archivists and other employees at the various
archives I consulted, including Graham Thompson (Archives Assistant,
National Maritime Museum); George Hay (Military records specialist,
Advice & Records Knowledge Department, The National Archives);
Andrew Parry (Archives Assistant at the Gloucestershire Archives); Kirsty
Farthing (Archives Assistant, York Minster Historic Collections Team);
and others at the Wellcome Library and the Medical Society of London.
I am moreover grateful to so many people in Jamaica who made my
trip there the incredible success that it was: Donna Parchment Brown,
x PREFACE AND ACKNoWLEDGEMENTS
Vivian Crawford, and everyone at the Institute of Jamaica, includ-
ing Sir Roy Augier. At the University of West Indies, I owe thanks to
Michael Bucknor, Matthew Smith, Paulette Kerr, Verene Shepherd, Kim
Robinson-Walcott, and James Robertson. Thanks are also due to all of
those who attended or also presented at the multiple presentations in
Jamaica, including students from the Black River Primary School—and
their teachers, Roschelle Sheriff and Crisana Banton-Smith—the Junior
Centre Drummers, representatives from Scotiabank at Black River, the
Mayor of Black River Derrick Sangster, Canadian High Commissioner
to Jamaica Sylvain Fabi, and so many others. Jamaican members of the
media have helped to spread the word about the Zong episode, as well as
my presentations on it, for which I am hugely thankful; they include Earl
Moxam, Garfield Myers, and the television staff and interviewers from
CVM at Sunrise and Smile Jamaica.
I am grateful to the University of Manitoba, as I developed a substan-
tial portion of this monograph during a half-sabbatical in 2017. I offer
a special note of thanks to the Social Science and Humanities Research
Council of Canada (SSHRC): I made my discovery of the Sharp letter at
the British Library and funded the trip to Jamaica through their gener-
ous award of a SSHRC Insight Grant (2015–2020).
Finally, none of this work could have advanced without the love and
support of my mom, Yvonne Faubert, and my husband, Javier Uribe,
who was a tireless, curious, and excited audience for my endless rambling
on this topic—and who played driver, security guard, and techie for the
trip to Jamaica. Thanks, Javi.
Winnipeg, Canada Michelle Faubert
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
1 The Discovery of Granville Sharp’s Letter to the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty on the Zong in the
British Library: A Hidden Treasure Found 1
2 Overview 6
2 Equiano, Sharp, Mansfield, and the Zong Massacre:
History and Significance 13
1 The Zong Massacre: A Primer 14
2 Olaudah Equiano 22
3 Granville Sharp Versus Judge Mansfield 27
4 The Zong Case: A Debated Legacy 44
3 The Provenance of the British Library Document 59
4 The British Library Document: The Definitive Version
of Sharp’s Letter on the Zong to the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty 75
5 The Historical Significance of the British Library
Document 99
1 The Burial of the British Library Document and the
Truth of the Zong 100
2 (Re)Writing History 106
xi