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Over the course of nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the Middle Passage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and disease. Many took their own lives by leaping overboard, while others were callously thrown into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

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 ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a coalition of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored 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 begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for everyone from the elites but also the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his wages from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and later 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 filled with commodities like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a common currency in the acquisition of human beings.

A Ship Seized

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 property at sea—a de facto sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, picked up a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He then grossly overload it with captives, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious nautical skill, 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 vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with calamity. Dysentery swept through the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, became delirious, and handed command over to Stubbs. Thus, “a ship full of decay and death was being commanded by a passenger.” Kara masterfully utilizes eyewitness accounts to illustrate of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes how the captives' skin was frequently rubbed raw to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh caught 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 enslaved Africans, who had already endured months of obscene conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had begged to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover losses from disease, but they would pay for cargo discarded 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, along with women and children, among them 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 refused 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.”

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 published essay appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and took it to the activist 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 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 wrote letters, made speeches, lobbied tirelessly, 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 enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The question of who or what deserves credit for abolition remains a matter of debate. The Zorg's influence, 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 near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and relentless persistence.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain lacunae in the historical record. At times, imaginative flourishes contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. Part thriller and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg nevertheless manages to illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to assemble a account that haunts the reader well after the final page.