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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the Middle Passage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and disease. Some chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, while still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a horrific incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the deliberate murder of 132 captive individuals 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, thanks largely 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 originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its economic power was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Financing slavery was a lucrative venture for not just the wealthy but also the common people. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from his trade, 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 shells being a standard rate in the acquisition of human beings.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later referred to by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships authority to capture Dutch ships at sea—a de facto sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was soon 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 expelled for graft.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to severely overcrowd it with enslaved people, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious seamanship, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg finally left Accra carrying 442 captives, 17 crew members, and one notorious 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 calamity. "The flux" ravaged the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, 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 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 made the decision to throw overboard a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already endured months of appalling conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had pleaded to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by pure 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 drowned “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 unhappy about the profit on his venture. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a considerable 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 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.” 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, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. 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 reviewed in forensic detail, exactly what the abolitionists had hoped for.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the initial group 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 finally passed in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what deserves credit 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 historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and relentless determination.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his other work—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the available documentation. Consequently, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to create a portrait that stays with the reader well after the final page.