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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, enduring unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and illness. Some chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, while still more were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a horrific incident aboard the namesake 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, thanks largely by the dedicated work of a coalition of committed campaigners. 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”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The account begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Financing slavery was a lucrative venture for everyone from the elites to the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a prominent citizen 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 hold was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the acquisition of enslaved people.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships authority to capture Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was subsequently 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.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to severely overcrowd it with captives, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and made 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 depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara excels in 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. "The flux" swept through the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, 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 illustrate of the unmitigated terror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the captives' skin was frequently 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 still 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 obscene 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 did cover cargo jettisoned 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, even a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the profit on his investment. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers refused 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.”

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 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 inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and brought it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed in meticulous detail, precisely what the abolitionists had wanted.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the initial group of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade convened. Over the subsequent years, they petitioned, orated, organized campaigns, 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 setbacks, 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 remains 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 public movement was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering determination.

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. Consequently, imaginative flourishes contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless manages to illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to create a account that stays with the reader long after the final page.