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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and illness. Many chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, whereas still more were forcibly cast 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 event played a pivotal role in the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a coalition of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the few surviving first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The account begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its economic power was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Financing slavery was a highly profitable venture for not just the elites to the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and later mayor. Gregson provided the funds for the slave ship The William, which departed 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 shells being a standard rate 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 granted British ships authority to capture Dutch ships at sea—a de facto license for piracy. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, picked up 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 fortress with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He then severely overcrowd it with enslaved people, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable seamanship, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg left Accra carrying 442 enslaved Africans, 17 crew members, and one depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara is particularly skilled at using historical documents to bring to life the general hell of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with calamity. Dysentery ravaged the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain fell ill, lost his senses, 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 illustrate of the unmitigated terror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, describes how the captives' skin was often rubbed raw to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh caught between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still far from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew made the decision to jettison a number of the captives, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had begged to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover deaths from natural causes, but they did cover cargo discarded out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over several days, the crew drowned “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the weak, the sick, along with women and children, among them a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was dissatisfied with the financial return on his venture. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson took them to court and was awarded 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 published essay appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a prime example of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and brought it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, exactly what the abolitionists had hoped for.

A Sustained Campaign

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, orated, organized campaigns, and meticulously documented the particulars of the slave trade. “Their efforts,” Kara writes, “would lay a blueprint for the pursuit of social justice.” After years of setbacks, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was enacted in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

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 based on the events of 1781. While slavery has been widespread in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering determination.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the available documentation. At times, imaginative flourishes contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless manages to shedding light on one of history's darkest chapters, using compelling prose and documented fact to create a portrait that stays with the reader well after the final page.