Sources

The record.

Every load-bearing historical claim in the film is traced to a primary source where one exists, and to serious modern scholarship otherwise. This list is partial — the full research register inside the production is longer — and will grow as the project does. If a line you've read on this site is not sourced to your satisfaction, write to hello@gigamega.ca and we will tighten it.

Primary

  • MC1

    Letter in The Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser

    anonymous · 18 March 1783

    The first public disclosure of the Zong massacre. Published in London the day before Olaudah Equiano called on Granville Sharp. Authorship is historically contested; the film's dramatization statement names the choice we have made.

  • SH1

    Diary — 19 March 1783 entry

    Granville Sharp · 1783

    Records that Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) called on Sharp with an account of the Zong. Held in the Granville Sharp papers at Gloucestershire Archives.

  • SH2

    Manuscript letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty

    Granville Sharp · 1783

    Sharp's demand for murder charges against the Zong crew. The 'uncovered letter' central to Michelle Faubert's 2022 monograph.

  • EQ1

    The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself.

    Olaudah Equiano / Gustavus Vassa · 1789

    The first widely-read British autobiography by a formerly-enslaved African. Full text is public domain and freely available at UNC Docsouth.

Legal record

  • GG1

    Gregson v Gilbert — court record (the Zong insurance case)

    King's Bench · 1783

    An insurance claim, not a criminal prosecution. The owners sought to recover the value of the people they had killed, treated as jettisoned cargo. No one was ever criminally tried for the deaths.

Secondary

  • WA1

    The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery

    James Walvin · 2011 (Yale University Press)

    The standard narrative account of the voyage, the ship, the people, and the litigation.

  • CA1

    Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man

    Vincent Carretta · 2005 (University of Georgia Press)

    The standard modern biography of Olaudah Equiano. Carretta also edited the authoritative modern edition of Equiano's letters.

  • FA1

    Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre

    Michelle Faubert · 2022 (Edinburgh University Press)

    Recent scholarly reconsideration of Sharp's role in the early public campaign, built around a manuscript letter identified in the British Library.

Archive