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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls perished during the voyage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and illness. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, whereas others were forcibly cast into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

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 atrocity came to influence the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the relentless efforts of a coalition of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare first-person narratives of the Middle Passage, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The account begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak 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 working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up 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 cargo was filled with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the purchase of enslaved people.

The Capture of the Zorg

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 capture Dutch ships at sea—a virtual license for piracy. 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 disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley reached 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 appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious 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 transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. Dysentery swept through the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain fell ill, became delirious, and appointed Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara effectively employs period testimonies to paint a picture of the sheer horror. 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 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 enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through 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 losses from disease, but they did cover cargo discarded out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over a period of days, the crew murdered “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the infirm, the sick, along with women and children, among them a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the profit on his investment. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued 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.” Merely 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, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and brought it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in forensic 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 first met. Over the following years, they petitioned, orated, lobbied tirelessly, 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 struggles, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was enacted in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The question of who or what deserves credit 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 widespread in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

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. Consequently, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. Part thriller and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg ultimately succeeds in illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a account that stays with the reader well after the final page.