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Over the course of nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls perished during the voyage, enduring unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and illness. Many took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, whereas others were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story explores 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 originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its prosperity was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for not just the elites to the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from his trade, invested 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 shells being a standard rate in the acquisition of human beings.

The Capture of the Zorg

Around the same time, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized 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 seize Dutch ships at sea—a virtual 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, took aboard a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to grossly overload it with captives, placed 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 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 collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. "The flux" swept through the vessel, and then 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 period testimonies to illustrate of the unmitigated terror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the captives' skin was frequently rubbed raw 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 resolved to jettison a number of the captives, who had already suffered through months of appalling conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had pleaded to be spared, even without water rations—but by pure economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths from natural causes, but they did cover cargo discarded 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, including women and children, even a baby born during the voyage.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the financial return on his investment. He submitted 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 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.” 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, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and took it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in forensic detail, exactly what the abolitionists had hoped for.

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 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 question of who or what deserves credit for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's legacy, 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 widespread 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 unwavering persistence.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the available documentation. At times, 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 nevertheless manages to illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and meticulous research to assemble a portrait that stays with the reader well after the final page.