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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the Middle Passage, enduring unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Some chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, whereas 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 horrific incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the systematic drowning of 132 enslaved Africans by its British crew. The second story examines how this event came to influence the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the relentless efforts of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare first-person narratives 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 prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for everyone from the elites but also the common people. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his earnings from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and even mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which set sail from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its cargo was filled with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a common currency 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 gave British ships authority 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 removed for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he assumed control 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 questionable 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 excels in using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. Dysentery swept through 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 masterfully utilizes period testimonies to paint a picture of the unmitigated terror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, details how the enslaved people's skin was often worn down to the bone from lying on bare wood, their flesh caught between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew made the decision to throw overboard a number of the captives, who had already endured months of obscene conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by ensuring survival—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 would pay for 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, along with 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 investment. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per lost slave—a considerable 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.”

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 prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and brought it to the activist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in meticulous detail, precisely what the abolitionists had hoped for.

A Sustained Campaign

In the spring of 1787, the initial group of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade first met. Over the following years, they petitioned, made speeches, organized campaigns, and meticulously documented the particulars 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 enacted in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what should be credited for abolition remains contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is powerfully captured by 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 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 available documentation. Consequently, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to assemble a account that haunts the reader well after the final page.