{"id":24301,"date":"2023-12-01T10:41:45","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T10:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=24301"},"modified":"2023-12-01T10:41:45","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T10:41:45","slug":"lloyds-of-london-archives-show-how-important-the-city-was-to-the-transatlantic-slave-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/lloyds-of-london-archives-show-how-important-the-city-was-to-the-transatlantic-slave-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Lloyds of London archives show how important the City was to the transatlantic slave\u00a0trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katie Donington<\/a> is a Senior Lecturer in Black, Caribbean and African History, and here she talks about how the archives owned by Lloyds of London show the City’s connection to slavery.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1783, the City of London was gripped by a court case which symbolised the brutal economics of slavery. Two years previously, the Liverpool slave ship Zong<\/a> had set out from Accra, in present-day Ghana, with 442 men, women and children crammed in its hold.<\/p>\n

By November 29, 1781, according to the crew, navigational errors sent the ship off course. Fearing low water supplies, captain Luke Collingwood made a cold calculation. Over the course of a few days, he threw 132 enslaved people overboard.<\/p>\n

Collingwood was able to jettison what he thought of as his valuable \u201ccargo\u201d because the slave ship investors had an insurance policy. When the ship returned to Britain its syndicate of owners, led by Liverpool slave trader William Gregson, lodged a claim, which was challenged by the insurers. The court case that followed was not a murder trial, but an insurance dispute.<\/p>\n