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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and illness. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, while still more 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 harrowing incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story examines how this atrocity came to influence the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the dedicated work of a coalition of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote 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 tale begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its economic power 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 entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from his trade, invested them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and even 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 hold was filled with commodities like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the acquisition of human beings.

A Ship Seized

Around the same time, 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 gave British ships permission to seize Dutch property at sea—a virtual sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, took aboard a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for graft.

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 proceeded to severely overcrowd it with enslaved people, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable nautical skill, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg left Accra carrying 442 enslaved Africans, 17 crew members, and one depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara is particularly skilled at using contemporaneous sources to bring to life the general hell of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. Dysentery ravaged 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 masterfully utilizes period testimonies to paint a picture of the unmitigated terror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, details how the captives' skin was frequently worn down to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still far from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew resolved to jettison a number of the captives, who had already endured months of appalling conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had pleaded to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Maritime 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, including women and children, even a baby born during the voyage.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the profit on his venture. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson took them to court 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 anonymous letter appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have been present the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, using the Zorg case as a prime example of its inherent evil. 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 reviewed in forensic 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 first met. Over the subsequent years, they wrote letters, 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.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition remains contentious. 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 prolonged public movement was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, 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 fill in certain lacunae in the historical record. Consequently, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a account that haunts the reader long after the final page.