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Over the spanning nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and illness. Some took their own lives by leaping overboard, while still more were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two interconnected narratives. The first details a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the deliberate murder of 132 enslaved Africans by its British crew. The second story examines how this atrocity came to influence the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored 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 tale originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its economic power was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for not just the wealthy 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 prominent citizen 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 various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the purchase of enslaved people.

The Capture of the Zorg

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 granted British ships permission to capture Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of privateering. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and anchored 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 reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He then grossly overload it with captives, placed 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 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 collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. Dysentery ravaged the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain fell ill, lost his senses, and appointed 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 graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes 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.

The Unspeakable Decision

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still far from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew made the decision to jettison a number of the captives, who had already endured months of appalling conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by preserving life—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 natural causes, but they would pay for cargo discarded out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over several days, the crew drowned “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 dissatisfied with the financial return 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 took them to court and was awarded 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.” Just twelve days after the trial, an published essay 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 key illustration of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and took it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, precisely what the abolitionists had wanted.

The Road to 1807

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, made speeches, organized campaigns, and gathered evidence on 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 finally passed in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over 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 unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering determination.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain lacunae in the historical record. Consequently, speculative passages contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a account that haunts the reader well after the final page.