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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 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 overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Some chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, while others were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the deliberate murder of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story examines how this event came to influence the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the relentless efforts of a coalition of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote one of the rare first-person narratives of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The tale originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its economic power was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the wealthy but also the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a prominent citizen and even 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 commodities like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the purchase of enslaved people.

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 granted British ships permission to seize Dutch property at sea—a virtual license for piracy. The Zorg was subsequently taken by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, picked up a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for graft.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He then grossly overload it with enslaved people, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable 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 excels in using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. "The flux" swept through the vessel, followed by 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 eyewitness accounts 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 worn down to the bone from lying on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn 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 enslaved Africans, who had already endured months of appalling conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had pleaded to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover losses from natural causes, but they did cover cargo discarded out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over a period of days, the crew drowned “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the weak, the sick, along with women and children, even a baby born during the voyage.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the financial return on his investment. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued and was awarded a trial by jury, with his lawyers claiming 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.” Just twelve days after the trial, an anonymous letter appeared in a widely read English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, using 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 subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, precisely 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 following 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 finally passed in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The question of who or what should be credited for abolition is a matter of debate. The Zorg's legacy, 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 widespread in human history, its abolition following a prolonged mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain gaps in the available documentation. At times, speculative passages contrast with 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 most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to create a account that stays with the reader well after the final page.