BOOK: Michelle FAUBERT, Granville Sharp’s Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre (London: Palgrave Macmillan , 2018). ISBN 978-3-319-92785-5, $69.99

(Source: Palgrave Macmillan)

Next week, Palgrave Macmillan will publish a new book on hitherto unexplored aspects of Granville Sharp’s role in the landmark Zong Case.

ABOUT THE BOOK

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

More information here

BOOK: "Granville Sharp's Cases on Slavery" by Andrew Lyall (March, 2017)

Andrew Lyall, Granville Sharp's Cases on Slavery

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The purpose of Granville Sharpe's Cases on Slavery is twofold: first, to publish previously unpublished legal materials principally in three important cases in the 18th century on the issue of slavery in England, and specifically the status of black people who were slaves in the American colonies or the West Indies and who were taken to England by their masters. The unpublished materials are mostly verbatim transcripts made by shorthand writers commissioned by Granville Sharp, one of the first Englishmen to take up the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself. Other related unpublished material is also made available for the first time, including an opinion of an attorney general and some minor cases from the library of York Minster.

The second purpose, outlined in the Introduction, is to give a social and legal background to the cases and an analysis of the position in England of black servants/slaves brought to England and the legal effects of the cases, taking into account the new information provided by the transcripts. There was a conflict in legal authorities as to whether black servants remained slaves, or became free on arrival in England. 

Lord Mansfield, the chief justice of the court of King's Bench, was a central figure in all the cases and clearly struggled to come to terms with slavery. The material provides a basis for tracing the evolution of his thought on the subject. On the one hand, the huge profits from slave production in the West Indies flooded into England, slave owners had penetrated the leading institutions in England and the pro-slavery lobby was influential. On the other hand, English law had over time established rights and liberties which in the 18th century were seen by many as national characteristics. That tradition was bolstered by the ideas of the Enlightenment. 

By about the 1760s it had become clear that there was no property in the person, and by the 1770s that such servants could not be sent abroad without their consent, but whether they owed an obligation of perpetual service remained unresolved. - See more at: http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/granville-sharps-cases-on-slavery-9781509911219/#sthash.AY2eqVh2.dpuf 

Dr Andrew Lyall is a retired member of staff in Law at University College Dublin

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