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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 homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the Middle Passage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and illness. Many took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, whereas still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two parallel narratives. The first details a horrific incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 enslaved Africans 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, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. 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 begins 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 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 even mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which set sail from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its cargo was filled 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 enslaved people.

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 declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships authority to capture Dutch ships at sea—a de facto license for piracy. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, picked up a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for graft.

A Voyage into Hell

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 severely overcrowd it with captives, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable 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 general hell of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. Dysentery swept through the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, became delirious, and handed command over to Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara masterfully utilizes eyewitness accounts to illustrate of the unmitigated terror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, details how the enslaved people's 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 far from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the captives, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had begged to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by pure economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths from disease, but they did cover cargo jettisoned out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over a period of days, the crew drowned “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the weak, the sick, including 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 submitted an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers declined 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.”

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 prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration 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 subsequent 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 initial group of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade convened. Over the following 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 setbacks, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was finally passed in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The question of who or what deserves credit for abolition is a matter of debate. 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 widespread in human history, its abolition following a sustained 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 other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain lacunae in the available documentation. At times, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless succeeds in shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a account that haunts the reader well after the final page.