The Historical Significance of the British Library Document

Abstract

This chapter shows how Sharp’s letter to the Admiralty came to be lost in the British Library by tracing its path through the libraries of two private collectors, the British Museum, and finally the British Library. It also advances several possible explanations for why the manuscript letter was inappropriately bound in a compiled volume of printed pamphlets and ends with a discussion of the other way in which the Zong case has remained hidden in text: historians have often misreported the facts of the case. The chapter then moves to consider the ramifications of the argument that Sharp’s interest in publishing on slavery did not end in 1777, as scholars have assumed. It also explores an alternative history for the Zong case and abolition by considering what would have happened if Sharp had been successful in publishing the British Library letter, and it advances possible reasons for why Sharp never followed through with his plans to publish the letter to the Admiralty.