Today is the 209th anniversary of the arrival of the last known shipload of enslaved Africans in Kingstown, Saint Vincent. On 13th Feb. 1808, the Constance arrived in SVG carrying 250 enslaved Africans. The deadline for legally landing enslaved Africans in the British West Indies was 1st March 1808, two weeks after the Constance arrived.
The Constance was owned by George Case [pictured]. George Case was the Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1781/82. He also served as Liverpool’s Treasurer, and was a member of the Liverpool City Council for 57 years.
Case was a major slave-trader, and he owned or co-owned ships that made at least 164 voyages carrying enslaved Africans from the continent to the Caribbean. At least 10 of those voyages came to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Those 10 voyages deposited 2,482 enslaved Africans in Saint Vincent. That human cargo would likely have been sold for a total of roughly £90,000, or about EC$24.5m in today’s currency.
Mayor Case was also the part-owner of the Zong, a ship that was infamously involved in the “Zong Massacre” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zong_massacre] while carrying enslaved Africans to Jamaica. The publicity surrounding the murder of enslaved Africans in the Zong Massacre played a role in galvanizing the abolitionist movement in the UK.
