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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the Middle Passage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and disease. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, whereas others were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two parallel narratives. The first details a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 enslaved Africans 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 dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The account begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its economic power was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for everyone from the wealthy to the common people. One such investor, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a prominent citizen and even 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 filled with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the acquisition of enslaved people.

The Capture of the Zorg

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 granted British ships authority to seize Dutch ships at sea—a de facto license for privateering. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, took aboard a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He then grossly overload it with enslaved people, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable nautical skill, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg left Accra carrying 442 captives, 17 crew members, and one depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara excels in using contemporaneous sources to vividly reconstruct the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. "The flux" swept through the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, became delirious, and appointed Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara masterfully utilizes eyewitness accounts to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the captives' skin was often worn down to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn between the planks.

The Unspeakable Decision

By late November 1781, the Zorg was miles from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had begged to be spared, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths from natural causes, but they did cover cargo discarded out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over a period of days, the crew murdered “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the weak, the sick, including women and children, among them a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was dissatisfied with the profit on his investment. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers refused to pay. In March 1783, Gregson took them to court and won a trial by jury, with his lawyers claiming 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 anonymous letter appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and brought it to the activist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed in meticulous detail, exactly what the abolitionists had wanted.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade convened. Over the subsequent years, they petitioned, made speeches, organized campaigns, 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 enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what deserves credit for abolition remains contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is visibly captured by J.M.W. Turner's famous painting, The Slave Ship, which was inspired by the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a prolonged public movement was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and relentless determination.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain gaps in the historical record. Consequently, imaginative flourishes contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. Part thriller and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg ultimately manages to illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to assemble a account that haunts the reader long after the final page.