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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 continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls perished during the voyage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and illness. Many 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 presents two interconnected narratives. The first details a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story explores how this atrocity came to influence the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote 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 begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its economic power was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the wealthy but also the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a prominent citizen and later 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 so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the purchase of enslaved people.

The Capture of the Zorg

Around the same time, 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 authority to seize Dutch property at sea—a virtual license for piracy. The Zorg was subsequently 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 expelled for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to grossly overload it with captives, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious nautical skill, 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 general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. Dysentery ravaged the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain fell ill, became delirious, and appointed Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara effectively employs eyewitness accounts to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details 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.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still far from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the enslaved Africans, 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 allowed to live, even without water rations—but by pure economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover losses from natural causes, but they did cover cargo jettisoned out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over several 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 unhappy about the profit on his investment. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued 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.” Merely 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, made a powerful case against slavery, using the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw 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 examined in forensic 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 following years, they wrote letters, orated, 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 setbacks, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The question of who or what deserves credit for abolition is a matter of debate. The Zorg's influence, 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 widespread in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an testament to the power of moral courage, the pen, and relentless persistence.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the available documentation. At times, speculative passages 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 nevertheless succeeds in illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using compelling prose and documented fact to create a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.