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Over the spanning nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals died during the voyage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, squalor, and disease. Many chose to end their suffering by throwing themselves overboard, while others were callously thrown into the sea.

A Tale of Two Stories

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing 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 ending 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 few surviving first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The tale originates 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 highly profitable venture for everyone from the elites but also the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from his trade, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a prominent citizen 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 hold was filled with commodities like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a common currency 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 declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships permission to capture Dutch property at sea—a de facto license for piracy. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, on a slaving expedition, took aboard a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for graft.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a vast holding cell beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He then severely overcrowd it with captives, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed 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 is particularly skilled at using contemporaneous sources to vividly reconstruct the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with disaster. "The flux" swept through the vessel, followed by 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 effectively employs period testimonies to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes how the captives' skin was often rubbed raw to the bone from lying on bare wood, their flesh caught between the planks.

A Calculated Atrocity

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of appalling conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had pleaded to be allowed to live, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Ship insurance policies did not cover losses from disease, but they would pay for cargo jettisoned 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, even a baby born during the voyage.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was dissatisfied with the financial return on his investment. He filed an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued and was awarded 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.” Just twelve days after the trial, an anonymous letter appeared in a prominent English newspaper. The author, who claimed to have attended the court proceedings, made a powerful case against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a prime example of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and brought it to the activist Granville Sharp, who filed a motion for a new trial. At the following 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 founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade convened. 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 remains a matter of debate. 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 widespread in human history, its abolition following a prolonged mass campaign was unprecedented, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering determination.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his other work—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to address certain gaps in the historical record. At times, speculative passages contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to assemble a portrait that stays with the reader long after the final page.