‘A very uncommon case’: Representations of the zong and the british campaign to abolish the slave trade

This paper examines the representation of the case of the Zong within the British campaign to abolish the slave trade. It traces the ways in which the case produced an iconic narrative for the movement by paying particular attention to Granville Sharp's original accounting of the event, and then to the ways in which the latter was transformed in key abolition propaganda documents. It is argued that the legal implications of the trial fell away as the Zong was appropriated, and mythologised, in its adaptation to the abolitionists' agenda.