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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Many chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, while still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the deliberate murder 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 dedicated work of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote one of the few surviving first-person narratives of the Middle Passage, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The account originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for not just the wealthy to the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a wealthy burgher and even mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which set sail from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its cargo was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a standard rate in the acquisition of human beings.

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 at war with 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, on a slaving expedition, picked up a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He then severely overcrowd it with enslaved people, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable nautical skill, 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 excels in using historical documents to bring to life the general hell of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with calamity. "The flux" swept through the vessel, and then 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 effectively employs 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 enslaved people's 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 miles from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the captives, who had already endured months of appalling 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 cold economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover deaths from disease, but they would pay for 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 dissatisfied with 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 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 anonymous letter appeared in a widely read English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, using the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and brought 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 hoped for.

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 wrote letters, orated, organized campaigns, and meticulously documented 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 enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is powerfully captured by J.M.W. Turner's famous painting, The Slave Ship, which was inspired by the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained public movement was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the available documentation. At times, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to create a portrait that haunts the reader well after the final page.