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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls perished during the Middle Passage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and illness. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, while still more were callously thrown into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two parallel narratives. The first details a horrific incident aboard the eponymous slave ship—the deliberate murder of 132 captive individuals by its British crew. The second story examines how this atrocity came to influence the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who wrote 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 trade. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for not just the wealthy to the common people. One such investor, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from his trade, invested them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and even mayor. Gregson provided the funds for the slave ship The William, which departed 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 common currency 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 left 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 de facto 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 fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a notorious slave dungeon beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to grossly overload it with captives, put a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable seamanship, 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 bring to life the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. "The flux" ravaged the vessel, and then scurvy. The captain succumbed to sickness, 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 sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, describes how the enslaved people's skin was often rubbed raw to the bone from being packed on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was far 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 unspeakable act was not motivated by ensuring survival—the Africans had begged 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 jettisoned out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over several days, the crew murdered “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.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was dissatisfied with the profit 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 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.” 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, 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 petitioned for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed 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 subsequent years, they petitioned, orated, 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 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 inspired by the events of 1781. While slavery has been near-universal in human history, its abolition following a sustained mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and relentless persistence.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his other work—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the available documentation. At times, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to assemble a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.