A Liverpudlian slave ship, the Zong, owned by William Gregson, a mayor of Liverpool and slaving mogul, sailed from Cape Coast Castle, the RAC headquarters (Ghana), with 442 slaves crammed into its hold, double the number for which it was designed. Sixty-two Africans died at sea. When water and supplies ran out with disease rife, the captain, aware that slaves who died onshore could not be claimed on insurance, murdered 142 men and women by throwing them into the sea. Another ten killed themselves. The murders allowed Gregson to declare that the slaves had ‘perished just as a cargo of goods had
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