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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those souls perished during the voyage, enduring unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and illness. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, whereas still more were callously thrown into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected narratives. The first details a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 enslaved Africans by its British crew. The second story explores 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 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 prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for not just the wealthy but also 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 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 cargo was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a common currency in the purchase of enslaved people.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized by the British as the Zong) had left the Netherlands. With Britain declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy granted British ships permission to seize Dutch ships at sea—a virtual license for privateering. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, took aboard a fleeing 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 grossly overload it with enslaved people, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious seamanship, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg finally 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 bring to life the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with calamity. Dysentery swept through 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 eyewitness accounts to illustrate of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, details how the captives' skin was often 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 miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to jettison a number of the captives, who had already endured 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. Maritime 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 infirm, 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 profit on his venture. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers declined 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 published essay appeared in a widely read English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, using the Zorg case as a key illustration of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano read 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 reviewed in meticulous detail, precisely what the abolitionists had hoped for.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade convened. Over the subsequent years, they wrote letters, made speeches, lobbied tirelessly, and gathered evidence on the realities 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 question of who or what should be credited for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's legacy, 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 prolonged mass campaign was historic, serving as an testament to the power of moral courage, the pen, and relentless persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

Unlike his previous books—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain gaps in the available documentation. Consequently, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately succeeds in shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.