Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre

by Michelle Faubert

Overview

This book delineates the discovery of a previously unknown manuscript of a letter from Granville Sharp, the first British abolitionist, to the “Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.” In the letter, Sharp demands that the Admiralty bring murder charges against the crew of the Zong for forcing 132 enslaved Africans overboard to their deaths. Uncovered by Michelle Faubert at the British Library in 2015, the letter is reproduced here, accompanied by her examination of its provenance and significance for the history of slavery and abolition. As Faubert argues, the British Library manuscript is the only fair copy of Sharp’s letter, and extraordinary evidence of Sharp’s role in the abolition of slavery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319927862
Publisher:	Palgrave Pivot
Publication date:	08/02/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Michelle Faubert is Associate Professor of Romantic Literature at the University of Manitoba, Canada, and Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University, UK.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- 2. Equiano, Sharp, Mansfield, and the Zong Massacre: History and Significance.- 3. The Provenance of the BL Document.- 4. The BL Document: The Definitive Version of Sharp's Letter on the Zong to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.- 5. The Historical Significance of the BL Document.- 6. Conclusion: Revisiting the History of Abolition.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“It is not often that a researcher makes a truly new discovery of an important but unknown document relating to a well-researched topic. But Michelle Faubert, an expert in Romantic literature, has found in the British Library, a misfiled document written in 1783 by the British abolitionist, Granville Sharp…The find is trulysignificant and justifies being published in this series.” (Trevor Burnard, University of Melbourne, Australia)

Editorial Reviews

For sure, the book is a useful teaching aid for introductory college-level classes or for scholars just coming to the subject matter. Scholars who have done more extensive work on Sharp and the British abolitionist movement might find the book most useful for its many nuances.” (Cassander L. Smith, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 33 (3), 2021)

“Faubert stumbled across the manuscript in the British Library (BL) while leafing through a volume of eighteenth-century pamphlets. Her book conveys the excitement of this serendipitous find and her subsequent investigation … . the book is a valuable exercise in historical detection, with informative chapters on the Zong case, Sharp’s text and its provenance, and its historical significance.” (John Coffey, Slavery & Abolition, November 21, 2020)

From the Publisher