Corbin's Hypothesis: Drowning, Lifesaving, and the Emergence of the Anglo-American Abolition Movement in the 1780s

In 1789, Englishman Henry Corbin credited the British Parliament’s nascent efforts to end the slave trade to the Royal Humane Society, a group dedicated to the recovery of drowning victims.[1]  In his view, abolitionism grew from efforts to save people from watery graves.  The Royal Humane Society never once discussed antislavery, so how did Corbin link the two causes in his mind? 

In this paper, I probe the relationship between lifesaving and abolition, which historians have not studied together.  I argue that Britons and Americans associated the slave trade with drowning, a connection that created a critical mental bridge between the causes.  I first sketch the spread of the humane society movement from its beginnings in Amsterdam to cities around the Atlantic world, and I explain how contemporaries felt empowered by the ability to recover life.  Using British and American periodicals, I then explore the frequency of news about slaving voyages involving drowning deaths of captives or mariners.  Finally, I examine the notorious case of the British slaver, the Zong, in 1781.  Faced with a food shortage, the Zong’s captain killed 133 Africans by throwing them overboard.  I posit that this mass murder by drowning was all the more horrifying in light of the existence and success of the humane society movement, and, moreover, that familiarity with lifesaving charities made ending the slave trade more easily imaginable.  To members of sea-faring societies, drowning and the slave trade were intimately intertwined and tackling one enhanced the ability to tackle the other.

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[1] Henry Corbin to the RHS, November 31, 1789, Reports of the Royal Humane Society . . .  For the Years MDCCLXXXVII, MDCCLLXXXVIII and MDCCLXXIX, 445

See more of: Ocean-Bound: The Role of Voluntary Associations and Moral Responsibility in the Anglophone Atlantic, 1725–1825
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