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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls died during the voyage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and disease. Some chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, while others were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

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

Liverpool's Central Role

The tale originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height 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 common people. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became 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 loaded 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 purchase of human beings.

The Capture of the Zorg

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized by the British as the Zong) had left the Netherlands. With Britain at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships authority to capture Dutch property at sea—a de facto license for piracy. The Zorg was subsequently taken by a British captain and anchored 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 graft.

The Nightmare Passage

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

Kara excels in using contemporaneous sources to bring to life the collective nightmare of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. Dysentery swept through 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 ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, details how the enslaved people's skin was often rubbed raw to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh caught between the planks.

The Unspeakable Decision

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. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths from natural causes, 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 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 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.”

Catalyzing the Movement

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 anonymous letter appeared in a widely read English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, using the Zorg case as a key illustration of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw 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 examined in forensic detail, exactly what the abolitionists had wanted.

A Sustained Campaign

In the spring of 1787, the initial group of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade first met. Over the subsequent years, they petitioned, made speeches, lobbied tirelessly, 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 struggles, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition remains a matter of debate. The Zorg's influence, however, is visibly evident in J.M.W. Turner's famous painting, The Slave Ship, which was based on the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained public movement was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering determination.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the historical record. Consequently, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless succeeds in illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a portrait that stays with the reader well after the final page.