Slaves were sometimes murdered by the captains of the slave ships. The worst recorded case on a British vessel occurred in late 1781 on the ship Zong, commanded by Luke Collingswood. Leaving the African coast for Jamaica with four hundred Africans on September 6, the Zong lost sixty slaves to disease by November 29. Others became sick, and water stores soon became depleted. Believing that many more would die before the ship reached port, causing a significant financial loss to the owners, and believing that drowned slaves would be covered by insurers, Collingswood decided to throw the sickest enslaved people overboard. First, fifty-four of the sickest slaves were cast into the ocean. Soon forty-two more were similarly drowned. Although a heavy rainfall allowed the crew to collect additional drinking water, twenty-six more enslaved Africans were pushed off the deck, and another ten, realizing what awaited them, jumped overboard with their hands bound. When the Zong reached port, the insurers refused to pay and the ship owners sued the captain. The case became a cause for abolitionists, who seized upon the murders as symbolic of the evils of the slave trade. The Zong episode eventually moved the British Parliament to pass regulations governing the terms under which insurance could be paid for losses of slaves during transport. From Untold American History