by Siddharth Kara (Author)
From Pulitzer finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Cobalt Red: A notorious slave ship incident that led to the abolition of slavery in the UK and sparked the US abolitionist movement
In late October 1780, a slave ship set sail from the Netherlands, bound for Africa's Windward and Gold Coasts, where it would take on its human cargo. The Zorg (a Dutch word meaning "care") was one of thousands of such ships, but the harrowing events that ensued on its doomed journey were unique.
After reaching Africa, the
Zorg was captured by a privateer and came under British command. With a new captain and crew, the ship was crammed with 442 slaves and departed in 1781 for Jamaica. But a series of unpredictable weather events and mistakes in navigation left the ship drastically off course and running out of water. So a proposition was put forth: Save the crew and the most valuable of the slaves--by throwing dozens of people, starting with women and children, overboard.
What followed was a fascinating legal drama in England's highest court that turned the brutal calculus of slavery into front-page news. The case of the
Zorg catapulted the nascent anti-slavery movement from a minor evangelical cause to one of the most consequential moral campaigns in history--sparking the abolitionist movement in both England and the young United States
Siddharth Kara utilizes primary-source research, gripping storytelling, and painstaking investigation to uncover the
Zorg's journey, the lives and fates of the slaves on board, and the mysterious identity of the abolitionist who finally revealed the truth of what happened on the ship.
Author Biography
SIDDHARTH KARA is an author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery. Kara has written several books and reports on slavery and child labor, including the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Cobalt Red. Kara also won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. He has lectured at Harvard University and held a professorship at the University of Nottingham. He divides his time between Los Angeles and London.
Number of Pages: 304
Dimensions: 1.05 x 9.41 x 6.55 IN
Illustrated: Yes
Publication Date: October 14, 2025
