Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre

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

“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 itshistorical significance.” (John Coffey, Slavery & Abolition, November 21, 2020)

• 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.