This is one of those books that sits heavy in your chest. The Zorg takes a real 18th-century tragedy—a Dutch slave ship commandeered by the British that chose, when rations got low, to throw more than fifty enslaved people overboard—and peels back the layers. Not just what happened, but why, and who benefited, and who disappeared in the retelling.

Siddharth Kara doesn’t write like a detached historian. He writes like someone grieving, someone furious. The care he puts into trying to recover the names and stories of people like Sia and Kojo hit me hard. He’s not trying to make it palatable. He’s not writing for a white comfort zone. The violence isn’t just physical—it’s legal, economic, ideological. And he draws those threads so clearly it’s impossible to look away.

I was struck by how much of this book is about how stories are buried. The crew got to tell their version. The courts debated “lost cargo” like the murdered were boxes of goods. And Kara shows exactly how that logic didn’t just survive—it shaped the foundation of modern capitalism. That’s part of what makes this more than just a historical account. It’s a reckoning.

That said, there were moments where the momentum slowed—mostly when the narrative zoomed way out to track broader legal impacts. I missed the close, intimate focus of the early chapters then. But even in those wider angles, Kara’s voice doesn’t lose urgency. He keeps pulling the reader back to the people at the heart of it all—the ones the system tried to erase.

This isn’t a “both sides” book. It’s a call to remember, and to refuse the lies that history tries to smooth over. It’s about justice, but not the courtroom kind. The kind that starts by naming the dead.

THE ZORG by Siddharth Kara

The author, Siddharth Kara, intentionally decided to leave field research to author a historical book about The Zorg.

The Zorg was a slave ship that was owned by the Dutch and bought by the British to uphold the slave trade in the late 1700’s. The slave ship left the UK and traveled the triangle of Africa to the Caribbean as was the preferred route when The Zorg began its passage [UK -West Africa-Caribbean]. This ocean route was well traversed for many decades.

Slaves from Africa boarded the ship to undergo various methods of abusive captivity to prevent escape; to deny the basic activities of daily life and to inflict contemptuous harm upon their humanity down to the cellular level.

The Zorg was underwritten by insurers of the Shipping industry in the UK. The insurance was enacted once a ship had its “cargo” aboard for the duration. The insured could not collect until they returned to the UK as there were percentages kept in reference to number of slaves that arrived in the Caribbean; any returning items and the new itinerary that was brought back for sale and distribution by the UK. The Zorg staff decided to include 400+ slaves for their journey, far exceeding other ships. This number is indicative of the inexperienced and somewhat greedy staff.

The author chose The Zorg because it is not as well known as other slave ships. It became a better-known ship when the crew defied "due process" and murdered slaves “attributable” to a supposedly short water supply and its inability to arrival at the port of destination several times.

The crew believed that their story of low water supply and lost direction would be enough to disavow them of their unscrupulous deeds. Upon return to the UK, the insurers would not provide the funds. There was a trial with little to no rebuke of the ship’s staff and no monetary compensation.

Kara follows The Zorg and her journey from the beginning to prosecution. He is faithful to his vision to gain recognition for the slaves and penalize the ship’s staff. A second trial would provide substantive judicial evidence to bring the anti-slavery organizations and slavery by ship to its end. This trial was not included in the docket.

Kara exposes the vicissitudes of The Zorg. The original trial coincides with the rise of Abolitionism. A letter is written and published anonymously that accounts for the actions of the staff of the Zorg.

This letter in the accompaniment of the rise of the Abolitionist Movement reinforces the idea that “revolution from below’ is a productive way to challenge the existing testimony and hegemony. Kara shows that these two events helped to undermine slavery and lead to its withdrawal and the withdrawal of insured funds provided by the shopping industry to underwrite the slave trade.

Kara connects events that are singular to The Zorg to generate a model of unethical conduct and murder and the societal movement to challenge slavery and the dominance of the shipping industry in the slave trade.

The author follows this journey through painstaking narrative repeatedly. This is a characteristic of Kara’s writing in his works where the subject matter is a crime against humanity. This repetition is one that is unnecessary. It can deter a reader from the text and/or numb a reader to the text.

Creepy history? Im here for it!

I love a good history story that doesn't put me to sleep. This was a great one!

As a lover of history, the information in this book was conveyed in an enjoyable way that didn't seem tedious to get its point across. I learned quite a lot about the triangle trade, but especially about the Zorg. I had never heard of this ship and its importance in doing away with slavery in Britain. It was fascinating to read excerpts from primary and secondary sources recounting the Zorg's fateful trip. I would love to read another book by this author as the writing was engaging and informative.

Really fascinating and well-researched account of a slave ship that, at the very least, started to change the conversation around slavery in England. The author did a good job of describing some of the conditions that the slaves were subject to without being gratuitous. There was sufficient attention given to some of the players that (particularly as someone raised in the US) that pushed for accountability and against the scourge of slavery in its entirety using The Zorg as a starting point. Highly recommended.

The Zorg is a highly readable, clearly well-researched but not overly dry or pedantic tale of that ship and the infamous voyage that led to its place in history. The Zorg is famous primarily for an insurance claim, where its owners sought financial compensation for the jettison of living people—the ship’s enslaved ‘cargo.’ The audacity of the case caught the attention of the British press and public and, Kara convincingly argues, contributed to the later abolition of slavery in the British empire.

Kara examines all sides of the Zorg’s famous voyage, from the various likely origins of its enslaved cargo, the curious economic position the American Revolutionary war had put its owners into, the history and strange appointment of its temporary captain and a passenger-turned-commander, and the various abolitionists who were inspired by the tragedy aboard the Zorg to improve the condition of Africans in the British empire.

I was particularly struck by how Kara took two unnamed enslaved persons, who figure extremely briefly in the first lieutenant’s account of the massacre, and used careful historical research to make conjectures about their probably lives and feelings, humanizing these victims of the slave trade’s violence and giving an imagined voice to those silenced by the archive. He names them Sia and Kojo. This project is clearly informed by the critical fabulation of Saidiya Hartman, and it shows.

I would recommend <i> The Zorg </i> to anyone with even a passing interest in British, American, and/or colonial history as it intersects with the slave trade, anyone at all interested in insurance law, and anyone interested in activist messaging and how to advocate for a moral cause in the press and the public imagination.

Another gripping seafaring history, but this one concerns the English slave trade and focuses on a truly vile incident in which 132 Africans were murdered in cold blood aboard a ship bound for the sugar plantations of Jamaica. The subject matter is upsetting and not for the faint of heart, but I was impressed with the way it was handled, not shying away from the brutality and inhumanity but also not dwelling on them in salacious detail. I ripped through the first half which sets the scene of the logistics of the slave trade and then lays out the circumstances of the Zorg's eventful journey, flagged a little during the courtroom scenes in which the ship's owner tried to claim insurance remunerations for the "lost property" and launched an inquiry which eventually (slowly, painfully, maddeningly) led to the abolition of the slave trade in England some fifty years later. But overall it's a great read and painstakingly researched. You WILL want to invent a time machine just so you can go back and murder Robert Stubbs over and over again in new and inventive ways.

A well thought out book that examines how Europeans began to wake up from their greed to see their heinous crimes. A side effect of the research also explores how easily the records of the events can change and shift drastically by small means. There were so many eye opening parts to the story I was not aware of. I found the book to be both informative and engaging. I plan to fold it into my lesson plan.

As good a telling as anticipated.
So much to absorb in the narration and history. Potent in its directness and in connecting the lost and missing dots of some devastating history. Great balance in direct telling and in working through tragic realities. Kara pulls, and cites, a ton of references and then does not hold back.

Definitely one to add to your shelves.
And spend a leisurely, immersive time taking in. Not a light one-- and should not be taken as so. A must-read for us all.

Really glad to have had the opportunity to have read this ARC from St. Martin's Press and Siddharth Kara. Thank you for the opportunity and, more importantly, the effort to pull this together for us all to take in.

This book really hit me. Part way through, I wished I had not chosen to read it, and then, I was so glad I did read it. This story needed telling. Through history class in school, we studied some of this content, but not to the point that this piece of history reveals, I recommend this book to ----everyone should read it!. I like this author's writing style, and method of connecting events. I do plan on reading more of his books.

“The slave trade was a nest of serpents, which would never have endured so long, but for the darkness in which they lay hid”

This book is an account of the slave ship, Zorg, and the role it had on exposing that darkness and depravity of the slave trade. The book works in two parts (1) the account of the Zorg, from it’s capture by the British, its repurposing to transport slaves from Africa to Jamaica, and the mass murder that occurred on that voyage, to (2) the legal aftermath and role it played in contributing to the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in England after those horrors were brought to the public.
The author presents a well researched account of the Zoey’s voyage and the murder of 132 slaves that occurred on board, while then documenting how this event served to expose the atrocities of the slave trade to the public at large. The book highlights the tireless work of abolitionists, including a former slave, who each deserve to be remembered for their contributions to justice. As you will learn from reading this book, it would take another 36 years of continued and tireless lobbying against slavery, after the Zorg reached the public conscience to the time that Britian finally outlawed slavery. However, the events that occurred on the Zorg were no doubt important to moving along the cause for freedom, because they were such a shocking exposure of the brutality of the slave trade.
I very much appreciate authors like this who can provide easy to read and engaging historical accounts of lesser celebrated figures and events. Those abolitionists highlighted in this book deserve to be remembered, and these are stories that we should not forget. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this book, I highly recommend it to all.

I thought when I began the Zorg I was going to read a book about sailing. I had no idea that it was really about man’s inhumanity towards man. This is a difficult read. Africans capturing Africans who in turn sell these prisoners to Europeans who funneled them into the slave trade is depressing and all too real in this extremely hard to read book. To think that Stubs, the passenger captain, was responsible for jettisoning 132 humans alive into the ocean is hard to fathom. It reminds me of the horror of the Doors song, Horse Latitudes. The author’s investigation into the legal ramifications of this story is brilliant! He did an amazing job bringing this to light. It’s still hard to believe that after the trial was over, the slave trade flourished and produced a huge amount of income for the British empire…!

I didn't expect this to be where Mr. Kara decided to go next after focusing on the cobalt industry in the DRC, but honestly, maybe I should have. Kara uses primary historical texts (letters, court documents, etc) to retell what happened during the storm in which the ship captain decided to start throwing slaves overboard and then try to do an insurance claim for loss of cargo. Seeing the accounts of what happened laid out like this and juxtaposed against the claims they tried to make in court makes you understand why this case ended up being so big to the nascent abolition movements in England and America. Also unsurprisingly lays out the depths of inhumanity involved (you tried to claim the people you murdered as a fucking cargo insurance claim?!). Hell of a read and worth your time.

I am fascinated by stories of shipwrecks and other adventures and events on the high seas from centuries past. The Zorg seemed the perfect book to satisfy this interest. But boy, oh boy, I was unprepared for the tragedy that is the Zorg. Centered around a single ship (the Zorg), the book tells the story of a slave ship overcome with difficult circumstances made difficult only because of the ship’s incompetent crew alone. In a period of (unwarranted) fear, the ship’s captain, hoping to preserve the lives of the white crew, orders the murder of over 100 enslaved Africans, including a newborn, while at sea. While reading this section, covering only the first half of the book, I took many pauses and deep breaths.
Later, in lawsuits centered around the ability of the Zorg’s owners to collect insurance money for the murdered ‘cargo,’ it becomes apparent how unnecessary and cruel the actions of the captain were. The murder was not necessary. More than sufficient supplies existed, when rationed. There was no excuse.
This book is hard to read. It’s sad, heart-breaking, vivid, and brutally honest. But, it is important. Each of those Africans who lost their lives that day are being remembered. Their story is being told. And, because of that captain and his actions, we begin to witness the downfall of slavery as a systemic system in Britian and eventually, worldwide.
To Siddharth Kara, I sincerely thank you for telling this story.
To NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, and Siddharth Kara, thank you for the advanced reader copy of this book.

The Zorg by Siddharth Kara is a compellingly written and deeply unsettling account of one of the pivotal incidents that helped catalyze the movement to end slavery in Britain. Kara centers his narrative on a single voyage of The Zorg, a slave ship plagued by catastrophic failures during the Middle Passage. In a harrowing act of cruelty, the acting captain ordered the murder of over 100 enslaved Africans—including a newborn—to preserve water for the white crew.

What followed was both disturbing and telling: the syndicate that funded the voyage attempted to collect insurance for the loss of enslaved “cargo.” The legal case that ensued may not have brought justice, but it did bring exposure. The public outcry was massive; the vivid details of the trial shocked the British conscience, leading to a surge in abolitionist sentiment. Nearly 5% of the British population signed petitions to end slavery, a staggering number that speaks to the impact of the revelations.

What elevates this book beyond historical recounting is Kara’s powerful effort to humanize the enslaved individuals aboard The Zorg. Though most of their names were lost to history, Kara gives two of them identities—names, imagined origins, and possibilities. These composite narratives offer case studies into the lives torn apart by the slave trade and remind the reader that behind every statistic is a person, a story, a loss.

The writing is graphic, but never gratuitous. Kara spares no detail when describing the horrors of the slave ship—rape, dismemberment, and murder—but each moment serves a purpose: to confront the brutal reality that so many would rather forget. Readers should take care while reading, especially those sensitive to traumatic content.

A final note: I don’t always read the acknowledgments, but I strongly recommend not skipping them here. Kara includes a moving tribute to his late wife that adds a layer of tenderness to a book otherwise filled with sorrow and rage.

This is not an easy book, but it is an important one. For those seeking to understand the historical machinery of the slave trade—and the cracks through which justice sometimes shines—The Zorg is unforgettable.

Dramatic History: Murdering Slaves Because of Poor Trip Planning
Siddharth Kara, The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery (New York: St. Martin’s Press, October 14, 2025). EBook: $26.99; Nonfiction. ISBN: 978-1-250415-95-0.
*****
“…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… 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.”
As I glanced through this book, it seemed to be hinting that Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) was the anonymous abolitionist behind outing this ship’s disaster-story. Clarkson was determined in my 18-19th century British re-attribution study to be a ghostwriter who wrote both pro- and anti-slavery manuscripts to encourage his pro-slavery sponsors to invest more into the pro-slavery propaganda. Clarkson semi succeeded in delaying the abolition of slavery’s stages after he started ghostwriting rather late in life in 1808. He probably started this work in 1808 after transatlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807. And his work is likely to have kept slavery legal within the British Empire until 1833, and delayed full emancipation until 1838, and then he probably helped to avoid legalizing in the US through the time of his death, after which a sincere abolitionist movement finally started in the US. So, if Clarkson was behind publicizing the Zorg narrative, he probably did it to scare the public with a worst-case scenario to make milder abuses (short of mass-killing) seem not-too-bad. The “Prologue” explains that modern readers tend to have an erroneous version of the story, such as mistakenly thinking this ship was British and not Dutch. Clarkson would have introduced such simplifications, exaggerations, and misinformation into the narrative while repeating it in multiple publications under different bylines.
The first chapter opens with preparations to depart on a sea voyage. Sea travelogues are generally delightful to read. A lot of exciting events tend to happen, and descriptions of the open sea, and places encountered tend to be great reading.
The next element I questioned is where the details in this narrative come from. This ebook has hyperlinked notes that led to the “Notes” section that includes a thorough list of sources related to the lives described. There are even precise page numbers for sources: this is frequently missing in some poorly-sourced narratives.
The story includes relevant data on the survival rates for British seamen, “one-fifth”. Each paragraph offers relevant new information and moves forward in a logical manner (there are smooth transitions, and the narrative is linear). Even the amount Collingwood was making as the ship’s doctor ($900-1,200 in today’s money) is specified with an explanation of what this meant.
This is the right way to handle this narrative. It would have been wasteful to focus on the inhumanity of the slave trade. Many books insert too much philosophy into books that are histories or biographies that promise informative stories. It is better to get to the facts of what the realities of the slave-trade were, as opposed to doing so much moralizing about it that the book is mostly hot-air. For example, there is data on the 8.6 mortality rate on one trip to Jamaica. Then, when a new character is introduced, such as Liverpool, a brief biography is given for him as well. Researchers who are using this book as a main source to leap into their own research on this subject will find much of the relevant surrounding information compressed here, without needing to seek out the other sources (which are cited in “Notes”, in case they want to explore more of what these sources stated).
Glancing across the rest of the book, the author maintains a thoroughly researched, dramatic, and well-described pace. This is a good way to dramatize history without turning it into fiction. There are few lines of imagined dialogue (perhaps none). And descriptions are of nature, architecture, records, and the like that could logically be learned from reviewing primary sources. For example, one passage describes how slaves were “oiled head to toe, and given citrus to treat their scurvy.” The narrator describes “mangroves” that “teemed with hummingbirds, boas, and crocodiles. Beyond the settlement, verdant mountains rolled gently toward the powder-blue sky.” This is an example of romantic description without too much romance, and without too much repetitive description.
I did not notice any mistakes in this book. It should be a pleasant read for those who just want to read about adventures at sea, as well as members of the public who are passionate about the subject of how the slave trade was abolished. And advanced researchers will find much in this book that has not been written in past accounts of this on-the-surface popular story. All sorts of libraries would benefit from adding it to their collection.
Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Spring 2025 issue: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-spring-2025

This was extremely interesting history that I had heard the name of before but never the details. This book had a great amount of detail without feeling like a textbook. It was very engaging, and the author doesn't pull any punches on the brutality of the history presented. While the events are horrific and therefore not "enjoyable" to read, it kept me hooked throughout.

I haven't read any of this author's prior works, but this makes me want to check those out!

Fascinating and historical.

Heinous acts of throwing 132 live slaves overboard and collecting insurance after their captain died. Horrific, shocking, and the writing well researched and extremely well done!

I enjoy microhistories, and this one was no exception. Kara does his due diligence setting the stage for his argument that the mass murder of slaves on the Zorg ultimately led to abolition in Britain. Starting with the the recruitment process for sailors at this time, as well as delving into the political tensions between the Dutch and British, all of which contributed to an incompetent crew aboard the Zorg. Similarly, Kara's work follows the hypothetical--yet well-researched--experiences of slaves throughout their journey from the interior of Africa to the coast and then onto slave ships and the Middle Passage. His detail is chilling, to say the least, as he brings to life the realities of these unwilling participants in history.
Overall, this is a compelling read, filled with carefully scaffolded research, primary accounts, and the twists and turns that court case documents often offer, promising some drama for modern readers.

First, I must thank both NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for granting me the ARC of the absorbing book The Zorg.

As a fan of Siddarth Kara’s past works, I went into the book with high expectations. The subject, widely yet shallowly known, is utterly brutal and carries with it a weight that must challenge the bravest researcher and author. Kara navigates the difficult topic in a balanced informative and engaging manner.

Clearly, the book is meticulously researched and Kara sheds light on a cast of historical figures that define both evil and goodness. I was particularly fascinated in the evolution of the trial, from futile monetary recovery to moral restructuring.

Kara weaves in indelible bits of knowledge and wisdom to conclude the historical moments and connect the reader with the gravity of a boat’s mistaken journey.