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Over the course of nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals died during the Middle Passage, enduring unfathomable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and disease. Many chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, whereas still more were callously thrown into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two interconnected narratives. The first details 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 event came to influence the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of committed campaigners. 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”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The account originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its prosperity was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Investing in slavery was a highly profitable venture for everyone from the elites to the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a wealthy burgher and later 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 cargo was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the acquisition of human beings.

A Ship Seized

Around the same time, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later referred to by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy granted British ships authority to capture Dutch property at sea—a virtual sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, picked up a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for graft.

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 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 depraved 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 fraught with disaster. Dysentery ravaged 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 eyewitness accounts to illustrate 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 pinched and torn between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still far from Jamaica and critically short on water. The crew resolved 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 cold economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover deaths from disease, but they did cover cargo jettisoned 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, among them a baby born during the voyage.

The Courtroom Battle

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the financial return on his investment. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers refused 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.”

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 been present the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, using the Zorg case as a prime example of its inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and brought it to the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed in forensic detail, precisely what the abolitionists had hoped for.

The Road to 1807

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 wrote letters, made speeches, lobbied tirelessly, and gathered evidence on the particulars 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 finally passed in 1807.

A Lasting Legacy

The question of who or what deserves credit for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is visibly evident in 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 prolonged mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an testament to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his previous books—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain gaps in the available documentation. At times, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a somewhat hybrid feel. Part thriller and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg ultimately succeeds in illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to create a account that haunts the reader long after the final page.