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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade saw 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those souls perished during the Middle Passage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, filth, and illness. Some took their own lives by leaping 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 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 played a pivotal role in the ending 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 wrote 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 account originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its economic power was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for not just the elites but also the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his wages from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a wealthy burgher and even mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which departed from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its hold was loaded 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.

A Ship Seized

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 at war with the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy gave British ships authority to capture Dutch property at sea—a de facto sanctioning of piracy. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, took aboard a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

A Voyage into Hell

When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a vast slave dungeon beneath it—he took command of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to severely overcrowd it with enslaved people, 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 left Accra carrying 442 captives, 17 crew members, and one notorious passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs.

Kara excels in using contemporaneous sources to vividly reconstruct the collective nightmare of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with disaster. "The flux" ravaged the vessel, and then 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 effectively employs period testimonies to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, details how the captives' 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 critically short on water. The crew resolved to jettison 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 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 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.

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 drowned captive—a considerable sum in today's money. The insurers refused to pay. In March 1783, Gregson sued 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 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 key illustration 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 examined in meticulous detail, exactly what the abolitionists had wanted.

The Road to 1807

In the spring of 1787, the initial group of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade convened. Over the following years, they wrote letters, made speeches, lobbied tirelessly, and meticulously documented the particulars 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 contentious. The Zorg's legacy, 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 prolonged public movement was historic, serving as an testament to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering determination.

Kara's Narrative Method

Unlike his previous books—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the available documentation. Consequently, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to scrupulously factual accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless manages to shedding light on one of history's darkest chapters, using compelling prose and documented fact to create a portrait that haunts the reader long after the final page.