The Zorg

A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery

By: Siddharth Kara

Narrated by: Dion Graham

"The Zorg remains a book of great importance and one that will likely become a classic. It takes a respected place within a growing historical literature about the slave ship in generaL…a potent exposé of the ancient clash between humanity and property.”—The New York Times Book Review

"[Narrator Dion] Graham's resonant voice is nearly perfect in all aspects. He is easy to follow, enunciates perfectly, and is suitably expressive throughout." — AudioFile

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. This program is read by Dion Graham, narrator of over 300 audiobooks and an AudioFile Golden Voice. Dion has won multiple Earphones and Audie Awards.

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.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

Critic reviews

“This remarkable, riveting book about a famous event of nearly two and a half centuries ago finds a raft of new information that generations of historians (myself included) have missed. And the episode involved was not just one more atrocity onboard a slave ship at sea; it was the spark that helped ignite the greatest human rights movement of all time.” —Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

"Mass murder aboard a slave transport, half-forgotten today but an iconic event...A vivid historical footnote, but also a milestone." --Kirkus

"A compelling, meticulously researched tale told with compassion and clarity, The Zorg reveals the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade and the humanity that led to its demise." --Hallie Rubenhold, bestselling author of The Five and The Story of a Murder

“The history at the heart of The Zorg is urgent, unflinching, and utterly essential. Siddharth Kara brings overdue attention to stories that demand to be known.” --Dr. Anthony Delaney, author of Queer Georgians and podcast host of After Dark

"enthralling and elegant...a harrowing glimpse of slavery’s horrors and an incisive investigation into one of history’s most reviled crimes." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Incredible book, devastating story

Well-researched and compellingly written, wonderfully and effusively narrated by Dion Graham. I really appreciated Kara’s symbolic, though culturally and historically informed, naming of two of the enslaved Africans on the Zorg whose actual names, along with the rest of those who were enslaved on the ship, have been forever lost to history, but whose important and courageous stories are thus not reduced in this retelling to those of the dehumanizing, number-based logs of their kidnappers, oppressors, and murderers.

A Chilling Ledger of Slavery

The Zorg is a meticulously researched and deeply unsettling work of narrative history that combines true crime, legal drama, and moral reckoning. The authors reconstruct the ill-fated voyage of the Dutch slave ship Zorg with remarkable clarity, showing exactly how the transatlantic slave trade functioned as a business rather than merely an atrocity. The explanations of how ships were financed and insured are fundamental to the story and chilling in their implications. Human lives were reduced to cargo, actuarial risk, and courtroom abstractions.

I was especially struck by the detailed depiction of how the slave trade operated in England, particularly at the port of Liverpool. The book makes clear how embedded slavery was in British commercial life, not just overseas but at home. Equally eye-opening were the sections describing operations along the African Slave Coast, which illuminate the brutal mechanics of capture, confinement, and transport in ways that feel immediate and concrete rather than generalized.
Structurally, the book is strongest in its opening sections. The buildup to the voyage and the explanation of the economic system surrounding it are riveting. The later portions, which focus on the resulting trials and legal aftermath, are important historically—especially in showing how outrage over the Zorg massacre helped inspire abolitionist reform—but they are less compelling as narrative, slowing the book’s momentum.

As an Audible production, the experience is mixed. Dion Graham has a rich, commanding voice that suits the gravity of the material, but his tendency to press down on long vowel sounds (“fooood,” “neeed,” “mooove”) became distracting over time. More troubling is the careless editing: mispronounced words were left in, and there was at least one noticeable skip in the recording.

A great and important story

I’m a big fan of Siddharth Kara’s work and The Zorg does not disappoint. It’s a remarkable story very well told. Also, the narration is exceptionally well done.

Careful investigation and compulsive reporting

The understanding of a difficult issue that was so carefully provided. An outstanding effort by the author

A hard listen

Some parts were difficult to listen to, but this is an important part of history that I'm glad it's accessibly told.