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Over the spanning nearly four centuries, the Atlantic slave trafficking system saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those souls died during the voyage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and illness. Some took their own lives by leaping overboard, while others were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two parallel narratives. The first details a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 enslaved Africans by its British crew. The second story explores how this event played a pivotal role in the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the relentless efforts 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, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The account originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its prosperity was accountable 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 investor, William Gregson, saved up his wages from his trade, invested them into the slave trade, and rose to become a prominent citizen and even mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which departed from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its cargo 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.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized by the British as the Zong) had left the Netherlands. With Britain declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships permission to capture Dutch ships at sea—a de facto license for privateering. 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 removed for graft.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a vast holding cell beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He then grossly overload it with captives, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious seamanship, 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 is particularly skilled at using historical documents to bring to life the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. Dysentery ravaged the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, lost his senses, and appointed Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara effectively employs period testimonies to illustrate of the unmitigated terror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes how the captives' skin was frequently rubbed raw 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 jettison a number of the captives, who had already endured months of appalling conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had begged to be spared, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths from disease, but they would pay for 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, 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 filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued 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.” Merely twelve days after the trial, an published essay appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, citing 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 subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, exactly 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, orated, organized campaigns, and meticulously documented 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 debate over who or what deserves credit for abolition is 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 based on the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained public movement was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering determination.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his previous books—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the historical record. At times, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg nevertheless succeeds in illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to assemble a account that stays with the reader well after the final page.