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Over the spanning nearly four centuries, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls perished during the Middle Passage, enduring scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Many took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, while others were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara weaves together two interconnected 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 atrocity played a pivotal role in the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, driven in large part by the relentless efforts of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the few surviving first-person narratives of the Middle Passage, describing it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

Liverpool's Central Role

The tale originates 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 working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, accumulated his wages from rope-making, invested them into the slave trade, and eventually became a prominent citizen 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 hold was filled with commodities 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 human beings.

The Capture of the Zorg

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 gave British ships permission to seize Dutch property at sea—a virtual license for privateering. The Zorg was subsequently taken by a British captain and held 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 corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He then severely overcrowd it with enslaved people, 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 captives, 17 crew members, and one depraved passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara is particularly skilled at using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. Dysentery 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 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 lying on bare wood, their flesh pinched and torn between the planks.

The Unspeakable Decision

By late November 1781, the Zorg was still far from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to throw overboard a number of the captives, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This monstrous act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had pleaded to be spared, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Ship 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 murdered “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the weak, the sick, including women and children, even a baby born during the voyage.

Insurance and Injustice

Back in Liverpool, investor William Gregson was unhappy about the profit on his investment. He submitted an insurance claim for £30 per drowned captive—a substantial sum in today's money. The insurers declined to pay. In March 1783, Gregson took them to court and won 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 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 saw 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, exactly what the abolitionists had wanted.

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, orated, organized campaigns, and meticulously documented 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.

An Enduring Impact

The debate over who or what deserves credit for abolition remains contentious. The Zorg's legacy, however, is visibly 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 prolonged mass campaign was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering determination.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his other work—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the historical record. Consequently, speculative passages contrast with rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using compelling prose and meticulous research to assemble a portrait that haunts the reader long after the final page.