The Zorg by Siddharth Kara: A Review of Almost Unthinkable Horrors at Sea

Over the spanning nearly four centuries, the Atlantic slave trafficking system resulted in 12.5 million Africans trafficked from their homelands to the Americas. A staggering 1.8 million of those individuals perished during the voyage, subjected to unfathomable conditions of overcrowding, squalor, and disease. Many took their own lives by throwing themselves overboard, while still more were callously thrown into the sea.

Two Interwoven Narratives

In The Zorg, author Siddharth Kara presents two parallel narratives. The first chronicles a harrowing incident aboard the namesake slave ship—the deliberate murder of 132 enslaved Africans by its British crew. The second story examines how this atrocity came to influence the abolition 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 accounts of the Middle Passage, calling it “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 responsible for 40% of Europe's slave trade. Financing slavery was a highly profitable venture for not just the wealthy but also the working classes. One such entrepreneur, William Gregson, saved up his wages from his trade, invested 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 hold was loaded with trade goods like tobacco, firearms, knives, and various “India goods” such as chintz and cowrie shells—the latter being a standard rate in the purchase of human beings.

A Ship Seized

Concurrently, a Dutch slave vessel named the Zorg (later anglicized 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 authority to seize Dutch ships at sea—a de facto license for piracy. The Zorg was soon captured by a British captain and anchored off the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Captain Hanley, during one of his voyages, picked up a fleeing British governor named Robert Stubbs, who had been removed for corruption.

The Nightmare Passage

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, placed a dozen of his own crew on board, and made Luke Collingwood, a ship's surgeon of dubious 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 excels in using historical documents to vividly reconstruct the general hell of being transported on a slave ship.

The Zorg's journey was fraught with calamity. Dysentery 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 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 rubbed raw 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 made the decision to jettison a number of the enslaved Africans, who had already suffered through months of obscene conditions below deck. This unspeakable act was not motivated by ensuring survival—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 would pay for cargo discarded 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 weak, the sick, including women and children, among them 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 considerable 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 published essay 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 inherent evil. Olaudah Equiano read the letter and brought it to the activist Granville Sharp, who petitioned for a new trial. At the following hearing, the events on the Zorg were examined 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, 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 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 is contentious. The Zorg's legacy, 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 affirmation to the power of persistent activism, the pen, and unwavering persistence.

Kara's Narrative Method

In contrast to his previous books—such as the acclaimed Cobalt Red—Kara has had to fill in certain gaps in the available documentation. Consequently, imaginative flourishes sit awkwardly next to rigorously researched accounts, giving the book a slightly chimeric feel. A blend of narrative suspense and part historical analysis, The Zorg nevertheless succeeds in illuminating one of history's darkest chapters, using powerful storytelling and documented fact to assemble a account that haunts the reader well after the final page.