🔗 Share this article The Zorg by Siddharth Kara: A Review of Almost Unthinkable Horrors at Sea Over the spanning nearly four hundred years, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans forcibly taken from their continent to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those souls died during the voyage, subjected to scarcely imaginable conditions of extreme confinement, filth, and illness. Some took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, whereas still more were forcibly cast into the sea. Two Interwoven Narratives In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two interconnected narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing incident aboard the namesake 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 relentless efforts of a coalition of committed campaigners. Among them was Olaudah Equiano, who authored one of the rare 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 prosperity was accountable for 40% of Europe's slave trafficking. Investing in slavery was a lucrative venture for everyone from the elites to the common people. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, accumulated his earnings from rope-making, ploughed them into the slave trade, and rose to become a prominent citizen and even mayor. Gregson provided the funds for 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 commodities like tobacco, firearms, knives, and so-called “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the shells being a standard rate in the purchase of enslaved people. A Ship Seized Concurrently, 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 granted British ships permission to seize 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 fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been expelled for corruption. A Voyage into Hell When Hanley reached Cape Coast Castle—a stronghold with a notorious slave dungeon 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 appointed Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of questionable nautical skill, its captain. In August 1781, the Zorg left Accra carrying 442 enslaved Africans, 17 crew members, and one notorious passenger: the former governor, Robert Stubbs. Kara excels in 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, and then 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 sheer horror. The graphic testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, a ship's surgeon turned abolitionist, describes how the enslaved people's skin was often 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 still far from Jamaica and dangerously short on water. The crew made the decision to jettison a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of appalling conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by ensuring survival—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 natural causes, but they did cover cargo jettisoned out of “necessity” for the ship's safety. Over a period of days, the crew drowned “those Africans who would be worth less at auction”—the infirm, the sick, including 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 venture. 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 sued and won a trial by jury, with his lawyers claiming 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.” Merely 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, argued compellingly against slavery, citing the Zorg case as a key illustration of its brutality. Olaudah Equiano saw the letter and took it to the activist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the subsequent hearing, the events on the Zorg were reviewed in meticulous detail, exactly 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 first met. Over the following years, they petitioned, made speeches, organized campaigns, 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 enacted in 1807. A Lasting Legacy The question of 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 inspired by the events of 1781. While slavery has been widespread in human history, its abolition following a prolonged mass campaign was historic, serving as an affirmation to the power of moral courage, the pen, and unwavering persistence. The Author's Approach In contrast to his other work—such as the Pulitzer finalist Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain lacunae in the available documentation. Consequently, speculative passages sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a somewhat chimeric feel. Part thriller and part historical analysis, The Zorg ultimately manages to shedding light on one of history's most horrific episodes, using compelling prose and meticulous research to create a account that haunts the reader well after the final page.