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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the voyage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Some chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, whereas still more were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a horrific incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the deliberate murder of 132 enslaved Africans by its British crew. The second story explores how this atrocity came to influence the abolition 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 rare first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “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 responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the elites but also the common people. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his wages from his trade, invested them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and later 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 trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the acquisition of enslaved people.

A Ship Seized

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 at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy granted British ships authority to seize Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of privateering. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, took aboard a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for graft.

A Voyage into Hell

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

Kara is particularly skilled at using historical documents to bring to life the collective nightmare of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. Dysentery swept through the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, 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 period testimonies to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, describes how the enslaved people's skin was frequently worn down to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn between the planks.

The Unspeakable Decision

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to jettison a number of the captives, who had already endured months of appalling conditions below deck. This monstrous 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 disease, but they would pay for cargo discarded 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, including women and children, among them a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the financial return on his venture. He filed 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 won a trial by jury, with his lawyers arguing 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 read the letter and brought it to the activist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, precisely what the abolitionists had hoped for.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the initial group 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 finally passed in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The debate over 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 based on the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering determination.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain gaps in the available documentation. Consequently, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless manages to illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to create a portrait that haunts the reader well after the final page.