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Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals died during the voyage, enduring unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and illness. Some chose to end their suffering by leaping 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 details 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 event came to influence the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a coalition of abolitionist activists. 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”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The account originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its economic power was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Financing slavery was a highly profitable venture for not just the elites to the common people. One such investor, William Gregson, saved up his wages from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and even mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which departed from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its hold was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a common currency in the acquisition 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 left 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 license for privateering. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, picked up a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

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

Kara is particularly skilled at using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. Dysentery ravaged 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 eyewitness accounts to paint a picture of the sheer horror. 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.

The Unspeakable Decision

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew made the decision to jettison a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of appalling conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had begged to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by pure economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover losses from natural causes, but they did cover 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, among them a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the profit on his venture. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers refused to pay. In March 1783, Gregson took them to court and won 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.” Just 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, citing 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 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 founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade first met. Over the following years, they petitioned, made speeches, 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 struggles, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was enacted in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition is a matter of debate. The Zorg's legacy, however, is powerfully evident in J.M.W. Turner's famous painting, The Slave Ship, which was based on the events of 1781. While slavery has been widespread 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 persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

Unlike his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the historical record. Consequently, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to create a portrait that haunts the reader well after the final page.