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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the Middle Passage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and illness. Many took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, while still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a horrific incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story explores how this atrocity played a pivotal role in the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare first-person narratives of the Middle Passage, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The account begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the elites but also the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from his trade, invested 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 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 so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the acquisition of enslaved people.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized 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 capture Dutch property at sea—a de facto license for privateering. 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 fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a vast holding cell beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to severely overcrowd it with captives, 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 excels in using contemporaneous sources to vividly reconstruct the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. "The flux" ravaged the vessel, and then 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 effectively employs period testimonies to illustrate of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, details how the enslaved people's skin was frequently rubbed raw to the bone from being packed 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 dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the captives, who had already suffered through months of appalling 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 pure economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover deaths from disease, but they did cover cargo jettisoned 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.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was dissatisfied with the profit 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 sued 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.” Merely 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, 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 following hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed in meticulous detail, precisely what the abolitionists had wanted.

A Sustained Campaign

In the spring of 1787, the founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade first met. Over the subsequent years, they wrote letters, made speeches, organized campaigns, and meticulously documented the realities 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 finally passed in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition is a matter of debate. 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 near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering determination.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the available documentation. Consequently, imaginative flourishes contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly 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 meticulous research to assemble a account that haunts the reader long after the final page.