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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals died during the voyage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and disease. Some took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, while still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two interconnected narratives. The first details a horrific incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the deliberate murder 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, driven in large part by the relentless efforts of a dazzling array of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the few surviving first-person narratives of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The tale originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its prosperity was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Financing slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the elites to the common people. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a wealthy burgher and even 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 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 common currency in the acquisition of enslaved people.

The Capture of the Zorg

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships authority to capture Dutch property at sea—a virtual license for privateering. The Zorg was subsequently taken by a British captain and held 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 corruption.

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 then severely overcrowd it with captives, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious nautical skill, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg 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 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 fell ill, lost his senses, 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 paint a picture of the unmitigated terror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the captives' 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 miles from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew resolved to jettison 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 losses 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 infirm, the sick, including 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 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 anonymous letter appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, using the Zorg case as a key illustration of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and took it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, exactly what the abolitionists had wanted.

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 following years, they petitioned, 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.

An Enduring Impact

The question of who or what should be credited for abolition remains a matter of debate. The Zorg's influence, 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 testament to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the historical record. At times, imaginative flourishes contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately succeeds in illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and documented fact to assemble a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.