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Over the course of nearly four centuries, 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 souls died during the Middle Passage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and disease. Some took their own lives by leaping overboard, whereas others were forcibly cast into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a horrific 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 abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the dedicated work of a coalition of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the few surviving first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, describing it as “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 responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Financing slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the wealthy to the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, saved up his wages from rope-making, invested 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 cargo was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency in the purchase 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 declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships permission to seize Dutch ships at sea—a virtual sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was soon taken by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, picked up a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for graft.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious holding cell beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He then grossly overload it with captives, 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 contemporaneous sources to bring to life the collective nightmare of being trafficked on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. "The flux" swept through the vessel, followed by scurvy. The captain fell ill, became delirious, and appointed 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 graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, 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.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was far from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard 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 begged to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover losses from natural causes, but they did cover 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 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 dissatisfied with 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 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 published essay appeared in a widely read English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, using the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and took it to the activist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined 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 wrote letters, 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 enacted in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The debate over who or what deserves credit 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 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 persistent activism, the pen, and relentless persistence.

The Author's Approach

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain lacunae in the historical record. At times, speculative passages contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg ultimately manages to illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and meticulous research to create a account that stays with the reader well after the final page.