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Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre

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Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre 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 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942883 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018, corrected publication 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations. Cover illustration: © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland 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. PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 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 signifcance 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 signifcance of the mysterious manuscript I held in my hands at the British Library that day. After fnding 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 infuence 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 frst 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-fnds-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 Fafak, 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 confdence I needed to fnish 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, Garfeld Myers, and the television staff and interviewers from CVM at Sunrise and Smile Jamaica.
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