The Revolution Will Not Be TerrorizedThe Caribbean Sea holds the memories of countless African and Indigenous lives brutally killed by imperial power. From the terrible Transatlantic Slave Trade to today’s US bombings of civilian vessels, executing dozens of Caribbean people. Though separated by centuries, the underlying motives remain the same: profit-driven colonial domination.
This year, Latin America and the Caribbean honor the memory of the victims of the “Zong Massacre” on its 244th anniversary and its lasting impact on the fight against colonialism.
In 1781, the British slave ship Zong left Accra in Ghana with 442 Africans on board, which was more than twice its capacity. The captives were destined for Jamaica, where they would be sold for an average price of £36 each to work on sugar plantations. However, the British enslavers ran low on supplies after navigating off course miles from the island and decided to mass murder captives to collect insurance money of £30 per person.
On November 29, 54 women and children were thrown into the Caribbean Sea. A further 78 men were tossed overboard in the following days, while 10 enslaved people jumped into the water in an act of revolutionary resistance. Another 62 Africans had already died on board from malnutrition and disease. The story is only known because of court documents, which were filed after the insurance company sued the ship’s crew to avoid paying.
The “Zong Massacre” reminds us of the horrors of colonialism and serves as a warning against today’s Western imperialist efforts to repeat history through different methods, exploiting the labour and resources of indigenous and black nations.
<The Caribbean massacreCenturies ago, the bodies of thousands of Africans were either left to drown or to be eaten by sharks. The same is happening now, with more than 80 people having been killed since September, mostly in Caribbean waters just a few miles from the Venezuelan coast, but also in the Eastern Pacific, by US military forces. Their mangled bodies have been left to sink to the bottom of the sea or wash up on the shores of nearby countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, as happened soon after the US attacked the first vessel, killing 11.
Trinidadian villagers said that the two corpses that washed ashore had burned marks on their faces, making them unrecognizab
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