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Over the spanning nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those souls perished during the Middle Passage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and illness. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, while others were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a horrific incident aboard the namesake 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 dedicated work of a coalition of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote one of the few surviving first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The account originates 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 lucrative venture for everyone from the wealthy to the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a prominent citizen and even mayor. Gregson financed 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 so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter 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 anglicized 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 virtual sanctioning of privateering. The Zorg was soon taken by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, picked up a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

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 captives, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious nautical skill, 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 bring to life the collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. Dysentery ravaged the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, lost his senses, and appointed Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara effectively employs period testimonies to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, describes how the captives' skin was frequently worn down to the bone from lying on bare wood, their flesh caught between the planks.

The Unspeakable Decision

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to jettison a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had pleaded to be spared, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover losses from natural causes, but they would pay for cargo discarded 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, 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 financial return on his venture. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers refused 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 anonymous letter appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and took it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed 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 first met. Over the subsequent years, they petitioned, 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 enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The question of who or what should be credited for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is visibly evident in 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 moral courage, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

Unlike his other work—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the historical record. Consequently, speculative passages contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately succeeds in illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and documented fact to assemble a account that stays with the reader well after the final page.