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Over the course of nearly four hundred years, the transatlantic slave trade resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their homelands to the Americas. A devastating 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the voyage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and illness. Some chose to end their suffering by leaping overboard, while others were forcibly cast 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 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 abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, thanks largely by the dedicated work of a dazzling array of abolitionist activists. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare first-person accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

The Roots in Liverpool

The tale originates in Liverpool, a port city that at the peak of its prosperity was responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Financing slavery was a lucrative venture for everyone from the wealthy but also the working classes. One such investor, William Gregson, saved up his wages from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and eventually became a wealthy burgher and later mayor. Gregson financed the slave ship The William, which set sail from Liverpool for West Africa in October 1780 under Captain Richard Hanley. Its cargo was filled with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a common currency in the purchase of human beings.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later referred to by the British as the Zong) had departed the Netherlands. With Britain declaring war on the Dutch in late 1780, the Royal Navy granted British ships authority to seize Dutch property at sea—a virtual license for piracy. The Zorg was subsequently captured by a British captain and held off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, took aboard a disgraced British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

When Hanley arrived at Cape Coast Castle—a fortress with a vast holding cell beneath it—he assumed control of the captured Zorg. He proceeded to grossly overload it with captives, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable seamanship, 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 general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was plagued with calamity. "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 masterfully utilizes eyewitness accounts to paint a picture of the sheer horror. The powerful testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who became an activist, describes how the captives' skin was often rubbed raw 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 miles from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew resolved to jettison a number of the captives, who had already endured months of obscene conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by preserving life—the Africans had pleaded to be spared, even without water rations—but by cold economic greed. Maritime insurance policies did not cover deaths from natural causes, 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, 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 profit on his investment. 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.” Just twelve days after the trial, an anonymous letter appeared in a prominent 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 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 following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined in forensic detail, exactly 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, made speeches, 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 struggles, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was finally passed in 1807.

An Enduring Impact

The question of who or what should be credited for abolition is contentious. The Zorg's influence, however, is powerfully captured by 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 sustained mass campaign was historic, serving as an testament to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and relentless determination.

The Author's Approach

Unlike his other work—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 rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly hybrid feel. Part thriller and part serious nonfiction, The Zorg nevertheless succeeds in illuminating one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and documented fact to assemble a portrait that haunts the reader long after the final page.