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Over the spanning nearly four centuries, 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 died during the voyage, enduring unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and disease. Many took their own lives by leaping overboard, while others were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story examines how this atrocity played a pivotal role in the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the relentless efforts of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored 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 begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak 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 to the common people. One such investor, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from his trade, invested them into the slave trade, and eventually became a prominent citizen and even 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 commodities like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the acquisition of human beings.

The Capture of the Zorg

Around the same time, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later referred to by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy granted British ships authority to seize Dutch ships at sea—a de facto sanctioning of privateering. The Zorg was soon taken by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, took aboard a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to grossly overload it with captives, 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 depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara is particularly skilled at using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued 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 masterfully utilizes period testimonies to illustrate of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the enslaved people's skin was often worn down 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 still miles from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew made the decision to jettison a number of the captives, who had already suffered through months of appalling conditions below deck. This unspeakable 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. Maritime 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, even 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 submitted an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable 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.”

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 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 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 examined in forensic detail, exactly what the abolitionists had wanted.

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 wrote letters, made speeches, organized campaigns, 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.

A Lasting Legacy

The question of who or what should be credited for abolition remains 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 based on the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a prolonged public movement was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, 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 available documentation. At times, imaginative flourishes contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg nevertheless manages to shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to create a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.