John Kimber

Last updated

Engraving by Isaac Cruikshank showing Captain John Kimber on the deck of the Recovery, with the girl he was alleged to have whipped to death African woman slave trade.jpg
Engraving by Isaac Cruikshank showing Captain John Kimber on the deck of the Recovery, with the girl he was alleged to have whipped to death

John Kimber was the captain of a British slave ship who was tried for murder in 1792, after the abolitionist William Wilberforce accused him of torturing to death an enslaved teenaged girl on the deck of his ship. Kimber was acquitted, but the trial gained much attention in the press. The case established that slave ships' crew could be tried for murder of slaves.

Contents

Publicity about the case contributed to growing opposition to the African slave trade, which the British parliament prohibited in its colonies by the Slave Trade Act 1807.

Killing

In 1791, John Kimber was the captain of Recovery, a slave ship of 189 tons (bm) from Bristol, England. [1] The Recovery travelled from Bristol to New Calabar in West Africa, where it collected approximately 300 slaves who were to be sold at Grenada in the Caribbean. The vessel left Africa on 1 September, and arrived at Grenada on 28 October, by which time 27 of the slaves had died. [2]

"Dancing the slaves" was a regular part of the routine of a slave ship on the Middle Passage; the captain and crew forced slaves to exercise in an effort to decrease the mortality rate caused by the extremely cramped and unhygienic conditions below decks. Those who refused to take part in the dancing were flogged with a cat o' nine tails. [3]

On 2 April 1792, William Wilberforce made a speech to parliament at the end of a debate on the abolition of the slave trade. [4] He gave two examples of the atrocities associated with the slave trade, in order to appeal to the sympathy of fellow members of parliament. Firstly, he described an attack on Calabar by British slave ships, which bombarded the city in order to force its traders to lower the price of slaves. [5] The second example was the case of Captain Kimber, whom Wilberforce said had murdered a teenaged slave girl on his ship for refusing to dance for exercise. Kimber was said to have repeatedly lashed the girl and to have had her several times suspended by one leg and then dropped to the deck of the ship. Following this maltreatment, she died.

In his speech, Wilberforce emphasised the innocence of the girl. He downplayed the captain's claims (subsequently reported in the press) that she suffered from an unidentified preexisting medical condition causing lassitude and that she had gonorrhea. [6] Isaac Cruikshank's depiction of Kimber's assault on a "virjen," in his image published at the time, also emphasises her innocence in the face of the captain's aggression and moral corruption. [6]

On 7 April 1792, Kimber placed advertisements in several newspapers proclaiming his innocence. [6] The charges against Kimber were soon reported in the press, as were accounts of his trial beginning in June 1792. Such reports rapidly crossed the Atlantic and were published in ten American newspapers. [6]

Arrest and trial

William Wilberforce in 1790, by John Rising Wilberforce john rising.jpg
William Wilberforce in 1790, by John Rising

Kimber was arrested in Bristol on 8 April, and taken to London the next day. [1] His trial at the Admiralty Sessions of the Old Bailey began on 7 June 1792, and was attended by many prominent public figures, including Horatio Nelson. [7] [8]

The trial did not reveal much about Kimber's alleged crimes beyond what Wilberforce had said to parliament and was reported in the press. [9] The attention soon turned to the key witnesses testifying against Kimber. Thomas Dowling, the ship's surgeon, was revealed to have a vendetta against Kimber; another witness, Stephen Devereux, was a former mutineer. [9] Three witnesses attested to Kimber's good character, but no witness was called to affirm that Kimber had not ordered a slave girl to be tied up and flogged. [9]

Kimber was acquitted. The trial lasted less than five hours. His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence was present the whole time, and appeared from his looks and gestures, to be particularly interested, in favour of Kimber. [10] In 1793 Dowling and Devereux were tried for perjury, with Dowling being found guilty. Dowling was sentenced to one month in prison and 7 years of transportation, albeit he was later pardoned. [7] [11] Several accounts of the trial were published, which were supportive of Kimber to varying degrees. [12] Kimber pursued Wilberforce for damages after the trial, and continually loitered outside his house. [13] Wilberforce later noted that Kimber's acquittal had been one of the few instances in the abolition campaign that had brought him distress. [14]

In 1781, the crew of the slave ship Zong deliberately killed approximately 132 slaves by throwing them overboard, later claiming the entire ship and its cargo were endangered by lack of water. None of the crew was ever tried for murder, and the subsequent court cases established the legality of their act under specific circumstances of ensuring survival of the ship, crew and remaining slaves. The judge ruled against the insurers' paying for the loss of slaves because of new information revealed at the appeal hearing, which suggested the captain and crew were at fault for the shortage of water. [15]

Historian Srividhya Swaminathan claims that neither the killings nor the 1783 court cases received much attention in the press or in parliament. [16] But nearly 300 Quakers were moved to send a petition to parliament against slavery in July 1783 because of this trial. [17] Walvin notes that by the late 1780s, the Zong case had become an important symbol of the abuses of the slave trade, having inspired anti-slavery writings by Thomas Clarkson, Ottobah Cugoano, James Ramsay and John Newton, [18] [19] and stimulating the rapid growth of the abolitionist movement. [20]

It is significant that, only a decade after the Zong massacre, Kimber as captain of a slave ship was tried for murder in his maltreatment of a slave, and that the case received widespread attention in the newspapers. [21] As the Public Advertiser commented after Kimber's trial, the case had at least established that those who killed slaves could be tried for murder. [9]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Marshall 1972, p. 207.
  2. ↑ Richardson 1996, p. 193.
  3. ↑ Maccotta 2007, pp. 132–3.
  4. ↑ Marshall 1972, p. 206.
  5. ↑ Swaminathan 2010, p. 487.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Swaminathan 2010, p. 489.
  7. 1 2 Swaminathan 2010, p. 490.
  8. ↑ Sugden 2011, p. 399.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Swaminathan 2010, p. 493
  10. ↑ "The Trial of Captain John Kimber". London 1792. 1792. p. 36.
  11. ↑ Swaminathan, Srividhya (2010). "Reporting Atrocities: A Comparison of the Zong and the Trial of Captain John Kimber". Slavery & Abolition. 31 (4): 483–499. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2010.521336. ISSN   0144-039X. S2CID   145650558.
  12. ↑ Swaminathan 2010, p. 494.
  13. ↑ Hague 2008, p. 210.
  14. ↑ Marshall 1972, p. 211.
  15. ↑ Krikler 2007, pp. 36–8.
  16. ↑ Swaminathan 2010, pp. 483, 496.
  17. ↑ Rupprecht, "A Very Uncommon Case" (2007), pp. 336–7.
  18. ↑ Lovejoy 2006, p. 337.
  19. ↑ Swaminathan 2010, pp. 483–4.
  20. ↑ Walvin 2011, pp. 176–9.
  21. ↑ Swaminathan 2010, pp. 483, 487.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism</span> Movement to end slavery

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved people around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wilberforce</span> English politician and abolitionist (1759–1833)

William Wilberforce was a British politician, philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an evangelical Christian, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform.

The Clapham Sect, or Clapham Saints, were a group of social reformers associated with Clapham in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s. Despite the label "sect", most members remained in the established Church of England, which was highly interwoven with offices of state. However, its successors were in many cases outside of the established Anglican Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville</span> British advocate and politician (1742–1811)

Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, PC, FRSE, styled as Lord Melville from 1802, was the trusted lieutenant of British prime minister William Pitt and the most powerful politician in Scotland in the late 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Clarkson</span> English abolitionist (1760–1846)

Thomas Clarkson was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which ended British trade in slaves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Granville Sharp</span> British scholar, philanthropist and abolitionist (1735–1813)

Granville Sharp was a British scholar, devout Christian, philanthropist and one of the first campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. Born in Durham, he initially worked as a civil servant in the Board of Ordnance. His involvement in abolitionism began in 1767 when he defended a severely injured slave from Barbados in a legal case against his master. Increasingly devoted to the cause, he continually sought test cases against the legal justifications for slavery, and in 1769 he published the first tract in England that explicitly attacked the concept of slavery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave Trade Act 1807</span> Act of the UK Parliament

The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it encouraged British action to press other nation states to abolish their own slave trades. It took effect on 1 May 1807, after 18 years of trying to pass an abolition bill.

<i>Zong</i> massacre 1781 mass killing of enslaved Africans

The Zong massacre was a mass killing of more than 130 enslaved African people by the crew of the British slave ship Zong on and in the days following 29 November 1781. The William Gregson slave-trading syndicate, based in Liverpool, owned the ship as part of the Atlantic slave trade. As was common business practice, they had taken out insurance on the lives of the enslaved Africans as cargo. According to the crew, when the ship ran low on drinking water following navigational mistakes, the crew threw enslaved Africans overboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery Abolition Act 1833</span> Law which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire

The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. It was passed by Earl Grey's reforming administration and expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act was repealed in 1998 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave ship</span> Cargo ship carrying slaves onboard from Africa to the Americas

Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast in West Africa.

<i>La Amistad</i> Slave ship

La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner owned by a Spaniard colonizing Cuba. It became renowned in July 1839 for a slave revolt by Mende captives who had been captured and sold to European slave traders and illegally transported by a Portuguese ship from West Africa to Cuba, in violation of European treaties against the Atlantic slave trade. Spanish plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives in Havana, Cuba, including four children, and were transporting them on the ship to their plantations near Puerto Príncipe. The revolt began after the schooner's cook jokingly told the slaves that they were to be "killed, salted, and cooked." Sengbe Pieh unshackled himself and the others on the third day and started the revolt. They took control of the ship, killing the captain and the cook. Three Africans were also killed in the melee.

Slavery at common law in the British Empire developed slowly over centuries, and was characterised by inconsistent decisions and varying rationales for the treatment of slavery, the slave trade, and the rights of slaves and slave owners. Unlike in its colonies, within the home islands of Britain, until 1807, except for statutes facilitating and taxing the international slave trade, there was virtually no legislative intervention in relation to slaves as property, and accordingly the common law had something of a "free hand" to develop, untrammelled by the "paralysing hand of the Parliamentary draftsmen". Two attempts to pass a slave code via Parliament itself both failed, one in the 1660s and the other in 1674.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade</span> British abolitionist organization

The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, also known as the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and sometimes referred to as the Abolition Society or Anti-Slavery Society, was a British abolitionist group formed on 22 May 1787. The objective of abolishing the slave trade was achieved in 1807. The abolition of slavery in all British colonies followed in 1833.

Slavery in Britain Slavery in Great Britain

Slavery in Britain existed before the Roman occupation and until the 11th century, when the Norman conquest of England resulted in the gradual merger of the pre-conquest institution of slavery into serfdom, and all slaves were no longer recognised separately in English law or custom. By the middle of the 12th century, the institution of slavery as it had existed prior to the Norman conquest had fully disappeared, but other forms of unfree servitude continued for some centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sons of Africa</span> 18th-century political organisation in Britain

The Sons of Africa were a late-18th-century group in Britain that campaigned to end African chattel slavery. The "corresponding society" has been called the Britain's first black political organisation. Its members were educated Africans in London, including formerly enslaved men such as Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano and other leading members of London's black community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave Trade Act 1788</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Slave Trade Act 1788, also known as the Regulated Slave Trade Act 1788 or Dolben's Act, was an Act of Parliament that limited the number of enslaved people that British slave ships could transport, based on the ships' tons burthen (bm). It was the first British legislation passed to regulate slave shipping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism in the United Kingdom</span> Movement to end slavery

Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Case (slave trader)</span> English slave trader

George Case (1747–1836) was a British slave trader who was responsible for at least 109 slave voyages. Case was the co-owner of the slave ship Zong, whose crew perpetrated the Zong massacre. After the massacre, the ship owners went to court in an attempt to secure an insurance payout of £30 for each enslaved person murdered. A public outcry ensued and strengthened the abolition movement in the United Kingdom. In 1781, he became Mayor of Liverpool. After he died, the wealth generated by his slavery was bequeathed to the Case Fund by his grandson.

Recovery was launched in 1781, possibly under another name. She first appeared in British sources in 1781. She made two voyages as a Bristol-based slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people. The first such voyage gave rise to a landmark court case. During the second such voyage she, together with five other slave ships, bombarded Calabar for more than three hours to force the local native traders to lower the prices they were charging for slaves. She then became a West Indiaman until the French Navy captured her in 1797.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Gregson (slave trader)</span> British slave trader (1721–1800)

William Gregson was a British slave trader. He was responsible for at least 152 slave voyages, and his slave ships are recorded as having carried 58,201 Africans, of whom 9,148 died. Gregson was the co-owner of a ship called the Zong, whose crew perpetrated the Zong massacre.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.