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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the voyage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Some chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, whereas 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 explores how this event came to influence the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a coalition of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote one of the rare 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 peak of its economic power was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Financing slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the wealthy but also the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a wealthy burgher 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 loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the acquisition of human beings.

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 granted British ships permission to seize Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was soon taken 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 expelled for graft.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a fortress 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 questionable seamanship, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg finally left Accra carrying 442 enslaved Africans, 17 crew members, and one notorious passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara excels in using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. "The flux" swept through the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain fell ill, 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 paint a picture of the unmitigated terror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the enslaved people's skin was often rubbed raw to the bone from lying 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 dangerously short on water. The crew made the decision 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 preserving life—the Africans had begged to be spared, even without water rations—but by pure economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths 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 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 financial return on his investment. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable 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 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 prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and brought 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 wanted.

A Sustained Campaign

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, orated, organized campaigns, and gathered evidence on the particulars 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.

A Lasting Legacy

The question of who or what should be credited for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's legacy, however, is powerfully 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 mass campaign was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his previous books—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the available documentation. At times, speculative passages contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to create a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.