Reviewed by:

• Granville Sharp and the Zong Massacre: Sharp’s Uncovered Letter to the British Admiralty ed. by Michelle Faubert
• Cassander L. Smith (bio)

Michelle Faubert’s Granville Sharp’s Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre details her discovery of a fair copy manuscript of a letter that the British abolitionist Granville Sharp wrote and addressed to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1783. The letter was part of Sharp’s campaign to seek justice against the crew of the British slave ship Zong for the murder of 132 enslaved black Africans. In November 1781, while heading toward Jamaica, the crew bound and shackled together 122 enslaved people and threw them overboard. Another ten were so moved by terror, according to Sharp’s letter, that they jumped over the side of the ship, bringing the total dead to 132. Upon arriving at a port in Jamaica, the crew filed an insurance claim for the lost human “cargo.” They justified the murders with the specious claim that the ship was low on water, and they all would have perished if they had not decreased the number of passengers. Contradicting that account, witnesses insisted that sickness pervaded the ship and compromised the quality of the enslaved black Africans. Consequently, the crew killed the sickliest of the lot—by drowning them—to avoid taking a financial loss on deaths that otherwise [End Page 453] were uninsurable. In his letter, Sharp insists that the Admiralty prosecute the crew for murder. Until now, this official account by Sharp of the Zong Massacre and his efforts to intervene was lost in the archives of the British Library. Faubert’s book provides a detailed discussion of her efforts to recover that manuscript. Her meticulous work pays off for students and scholars of Granville Sharp and the British abolitionism movement. Bringing into clearer focus Sharp’s abolitionist efforts in the 1780s, Faubert has composed a book that is both engaging and informative.

A compact read, the book contains a strong critical apparatus that contextualizes Sharp and the Zong Massacre. In an introduction and six chapters, Faubert reviews the scholarship on Sharp, challenging what she argues is a misconception that the philanthropist’s focus on abolition waned in the early 1780s before being reignited at the end of the decade with the Sierra Leone settlement project. To the contrary, Faubert insists, Sharp intended to publish this letter in 1783 to fuel the call for abolition. She also provides some valuable nuance about the details surrounding the Zong Massacre itself and the role of key figures, beyond Sharp, like the black African abolitionist Olaudah Equiano. Importantly, she ends the book with a complete transcription and images of the fair copy manuscript of Sharp’s letter. 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. For example, Faubert clarifies the relationship between Sharp and Equiano and illuminates the limitations of Prince Hoare’s influential biography of Sharp, which remains a central text in studies about Sharp’s life.

Also worth noting is the book’s hybrid form. It is as much a memoir as it is a critical study of Sharp and the Zong Massacre. Faubert describes in detail her process of performing archival work—the uncertainty, the frustration, the elation, and eureka moments—all while reminding us of the collaborative nature of scholarship. On several occasions, she quotes from archivists at the British Library and elsewhere to validate her conclusions. By interweaving her personal story into the larger critical argument, Faubert offers an invaluable perspective on research as both process (in the archives) and product (the monograph).

Faubert makes a number of valuable contributions. One minor drawback, though, is that the book does not offer much textual analysis of Sharp’s manuscript. The book focuses more on the text as object, with little attention...

审核人：

• 格兰威尔·夏普（Granville Sharp）和宗大屠杀（Zong Massacre）：夏普（Sharp）的《致英国海军部的信件》。由米歇尔·福伯特（Michelle Faubert）
• 卡桑德·史密斯（生物）

米歇尔·福伯特（Michelle Faubert）的《格兰维尔·夏普（Granville Sharp）的揭密信和宗屠杀》详细介绍了她发现英国废奴主义者格兰维尔·夏普（Granville Sharp）在1783年写给金钟上议院专员的一封信的抄本的手抄本。这封信是夏普（Sharp）寻求正义的运动的一部分反对英国奴隶船宗的船员谋杀了132名被奴役的非洲黑人。1781年11月，乘员前往牙买加时，将122名奴役人员束缚并sha在一起，并将他们扔向舷外。根据夏普的信，又有十人被恐怖所感动，以至于他们越过了船舷，使死亡总数达到132人。到达牙买加的一个港口后，船员为丢失的人的“货物”提出保险索赔。 。” 他们以谋杀案为证，称这艘船水位低，如果不减少乘客人数，所有人都将丧命。与该说法相反，目击者坚持认为疾病弥漫在船上，损害了被奴役的非洲黑人的素质。因此，船员通过溺水杀死了病重者，以免造成死亡而造成经济损失[末页453]无法保险。夏普在信中坚持要求金钟起诉船员谋杀罪。到目前为止，宗法大屠杀的夏普及其干预的正式记载一直遗忘在大英图书馆的档案中。福伯特的书详细讨论了她为挽回该手稿所做的努力。她一丝不苟的工作为格兰·夏普和英国废奴运动的学生和学者带来了回报。Faubert使夏普在1780年代的废奴主义工作更加明确，这本书既引人入胜又内容丰富。

紧凑的阅读，这本书包含了一个强大的批判性工具，将夏普和宗大屠杀背景化。在六章的引言中，福伯特回顾了夏普的奖学金，她质疑她的观点是一个误解，认为这位慈善家对废除死刑的关注在1780年代初就消失了，然后在十年末因塞拉利昂的安置计划而重新点燃。相反，福伯特坚持认为，夏普打算在1783年发布这封信，以推动废除死刑的呼吁。她还提供了有关Zong周围细节的一些有价值的细微差别大屠杀本身和关键人物的角色，不像夏普，就像非洲黑人废奴主义者奥洛达·伊基诺（Olaudah Equiano）。重要的是，她以完整的抄本和Sharp信的公平抄本手稿的图片作为本书的结尾。可以肯定的是，这本书对于入门级的课程或刚接触该主题的学者都是有用的教学工具。对夏普和英国废奴运动进行了更广泛研究的学者可能会发现，这本书对于许多细微差别都是最有用的。例如，福伯特（Faubert）阐明了夏普（Sharp）和伊马诺（Equiano）之间的关系，并阐明了霍阿勒亲王（Prince Hoare）有影响力的夏普（Sharp）传记的局限性，而传记仍然是关于夏普（Sharp）生平的研究的中心著作。

同样值得注意的是这本书的混合形式。它既是回忆录，又是对夏普和宗格屠杀的批判性研究。福伯特详细描述了她执行档案工作的过程-不确定性，挫败感，兴高采烈和尤里卡时刻-所有这些都在提醒我们奖学金的协作性质。她曾几次引用大英图书馆和其他地方的档案保管员的证词，以证实她的结论。通过将她的个人故事与更大的批评性观点交织在一起，福伯特提供了关于过程（在档案中）和产品（在专论中）的无价观点。

福伯特做出了许多宝贵的贡献。但是，一个较小的缺点是，该书没有对Sharp的手稿进行太多的文字分析。这本书将重点更多地放在作为对象的文本上，很少关注...