African Cargo, An

In 1781 the slave ship Zong, overlade with captured Africans, is heading to Jamaica but loses its way in the Caribbean Sea. With diminishing water supplies and many of his slaves sick and dying, the captain decides to throw most of the Africans overboard and to claim on the insurance on the basis of loss of ‘cargo’ – this moment of history is captured in J.M.W Turner’s painting The Slave Ship. Two years later, in an astonishing series of events the insurance company, battling to avoid payment, claim that African slaves were not ‘cargo’ but actual human beings. In an unprecedented court ruling the stage was set for the abolition of the slave trade. Powered by the heart-rending songs of humanity from West Africa, the Caribbean and Southern USA, Nitro stages a dramatic reconstruction of the events surrounding one of the most notorious and significant episodes in the history of the slave trade.