When
I came across the title
The Zorg several
months ago, the ship’s name did not ring a
bell with me. It was the
rest of the book’s title that captured my
attention: A
Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the
Abolition of Slavery.
Before
reading Siddharth Kara’s well-researched
work, I thought I knew all
I needed to know about slavery - at least
the U.S. mode of
enslavement. My people were kidnapped from
their homeland, forced
across the Atlantic Ocean in our own Maafa,
treated as chattel, and
required to work for free under the most
heinous conditions. Except
for a few sporadic periods of progress, the
trajectory put us on a
horrific course, infected and shaped by
enslavement. What else did I
need to know!
Kara
is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of
Cobalt Red, a New
York Times
bestseller. I was unfamiliar with his work,
but the repeated theme of
his respected research was enough of a
credential to draw me in.
This
was not an easy read for me. One reason for
the challenge is that I
am a descendant of enslaved people; my DNA
carries the
intergenerational trauma of slavery and its
aftermath. The other
reason is my approach to reading as a visual
processor. I first read
the words on the page before projecting them
as images. Kara’s
vivid and brutal storytelling hurled me into
the dark, putrid hull of
the Zorg as an unwilling passenger. I needed
to break the reading
into two sessions and engage only when I was
in a sound psychological
state with minimal distractions. Deep
breathing between sections also
helped as a protective method for my psyche.
The
Zorg details
the 1781 massacre aboard a slave ship when
an inept and greedy crew
threw 132 captive Africans overboard to
collect an insurance payout.
The claim ultimately led to anti-slavery
legislation in England, such
as The Dolben Act of 1788 and the total
abolition of slavery in 1833.
England was an undeniably powerful
stakeholder in the transatlantic
slave trade by the late eighteenth century,
representing 40% of the
entire European market. The city of
Liverpool became an important
British hub for slave trafficking, moving
more than 80% of the
African slaves for the British.
Kara
helps us to fully understand the
circumstances of The Zorg by putting
us in the European industry of slavery. He
provides the reader with
captivating aerial perspectives and close-up
encounters which frame
the complex relationships that both fueled
and obstructed the
infamous slave trade.
After
reading The
Zorg, I’m
embarrassed about my ignorance of the slave
trade. I also acknowledge
that some aspects of the trade I couldn’t
have possibly known
without the research of historians like
Kara. We’ll probably never
know all the gory details about one of the
most despicable periods in
U.S. history. However, based on lived
experiences and historical
accounts, we can objectively debunk the
racist statements of white
politicians who cast slavery in a favorable
light, such as Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis and Alabama Senator
Tommy Tuberville.
Here
are seven facts I did not know, at least not
consciously, that I
learned from The Zorg:
-The
transatlantic slave trade spanned nearly
four centuries.
-Investors
in the trade were not just royalty but
others, from the business
elite to the merchant classes, who saw a
lucrative return on their
dollars.
-Pirates
roamed the ocean looking for vulnerable
ships to commandeer the human
cargo for sale on the open markets.
-The
ships were fully staffed beyond a captain
and motley crew of sailors;
there were also navigators and medical
personnel whose presence
helped to guarantee a safe passage of
healthy slaves at the end of
the tortuous journey.
-
The American Revolution was a major
disruption in the slave trade,
particularly for maritime logistics and
knowledge of which Caribbean
islands were under enemy control.
-The
embryonic stages of globalism were exposed,
and the international
fractures highlighted. It is how the Zorg, a
Dutch ship, got targeted
and captured by a British privateer; the
Netherlands was on the wrong
side of England.
-The
business of slavery was highly sophisticated
and included a labyrinth
of laws, trade agreements between countries,
a network of ports,
insurance markets, and financial systems.
Free Africans on the Gold
Coast, like the Fante, negotiated a vital
and profitable role between
African tribes and Europeans during the
slave trade.
There
have been a few scholarly challenges to
Kara’s nonfiction work. The
central argument of The Zorg is undeniable:
the significance of this
particular slave ship in the abolition of
slavery in Britain. The
book deepened my understanding of the
tentacles of an institution
built on the backs of Africans and
reinforced the legal justification
for reparations. Its tentacles are so strong
and far-reaching that
they have shaped the course of world history
and human relationships
for years to come.
Note:
Author and historian Siddarth Kara will be a
guest on Voices from the
Battlefield hosted by Jamala Rogers on
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
at 1:00 pm CST.
