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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their continent to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and disease. Many took their own lives by leaping overboard, whereas still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected narratives. The first details a harrowing incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story examines how this atrocity came to influence the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the relentless efforts of a coalition of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The tale begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for not just the wealthy but also the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and later mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which set sail from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its hold was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a common currency in the purchase of human beings.

A Ship Seized

Around the same time, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later referred to by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships permission to seize Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, took aboard a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to grossly overload it with enslaved people, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious seamanship, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg left Accra carrying 442 captives, 17 crew members, and one notorious passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara is particularly skilled at using contemporaneous sources to bring to life the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. Dysentery ravaged the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain fell ill, became delirious, and handed command over to Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara masterfully utilizes period testimonies to paint a picture of the unmitigated terror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes how the enslaved people's skin was often worn down to the bone from lying on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was far from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew made the decision to jettison a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had begged to be spared, even without water rations—but by pure economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover losses from disease, but they would pay for cargo jettisoned out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over several days, the crew murdered “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the infirm, the sick, along with women and children, among them a baby born during the voyage.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the profit on his venture. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson took them to court and won a trial by jury, with his lawyers arguing that throwing the enslaved people overboard had been “necessary.”

The Spark for Abolition

According to Kara, “there is a direct line of causality between the public exposure of the Zorg murders and the first movement to abolish slavery in England.” Just twelve days after the trial, an published essay appeared in a widely read English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and took it to the activist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in forensic detail, precisely what the abolitionists had wanted.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the initial group of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade first met. Over the following years, they petitioned, made speeches, lobbied tirelessly, and gathered evidence on the particulars of the slave trade. “Their efforts,” Kara writes, “would lay a blueprint for the pursuit of social justice.” After years of struggles, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was finally passed in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition remains contentious. The Zorg's legacy, however, is powerfully captured by J.M.W. Turner's famous painting, The Slave Ship, which was inspired by the events of 1781. While slavery has been widespread in human history, its abolition following a prolonged mass campaign was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the available documentation. At times, speculative passages contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg nevertheless succeeds in illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to assemble a account that stays with the reader well after the final page.