Specters of the AtlanticIn September 1781, the captain of the British slave ship Zong ordered 133 slaves thrown overboard, enabling the ships owners to file an insurance claim for their lost cargo. Accounts of this horrific event quickly became a staple of abolitionist discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. Ian Baucom revisits, in unprecedented detail, the Zong atrocity, the ensuing court cases, reactions to the event and trials, and the business and social dealings of the