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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those souls died during the Middle Passage, enduring unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and illness. Some took their own lives by leaping overboard, whereas still more were forcibly cast into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing 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, thanks largely by the relentless efforts of a coalition of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote one of the few surviving first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The account begins in Liverpool, a port city that at the height of its economic power was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in 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 his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a prominent citizen and later 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 trade goods 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.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later referred to by the British as the Zong) had left the Netherlands. With Britain at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy granted British ships authority to capture Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of privateering. The Zorg was soon taken 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 removed for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to severely overcrowd 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 finally left Accra carrying 442 captives, 17 crew members, and one depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara is particularly skilled at using historical documents to bring to life the general hell 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 fell ill, 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 paint a picture of the unmitigated terror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes how the enslaved people's skin was frequently worn down 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 miles from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew made the decision 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 pleaded to be spared, 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 several days, the crew drowned “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the infirm, the sick, including women and children, even a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the financial return on his venture. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers refused to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued and won a trial by jury, with his lawyers claiming 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.” Merely twelve days after the trial, an anonymous letter appeared in a widely read 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 brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and took it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, precisely 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 subsequent years, they petitioned, orated, 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 struggles, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was enacted in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The question of who or what deserves credit for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is visibly captured by 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 testament to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and relentless persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the historical record. At times, imaginative flourishes contrast with scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to assemble a account that haunts the reader long after the final page.