By: Siddharth Kara
Location: NF 306.36 KAL
Genre: History, Non Fiction, Slavery
I have been to the slave castle in Ghana, I have looked through the "door of no return"- that place held spirits of fear and dark, and evil. It was dank and cold and brutal. Stories like this need to be forever told, yelled- least we sink into the depravity of such evil again!
A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
The Zorg was a Dutch ship. In 1780, it was captured by an English privateer and came under British command. It was loaded with 482 slaves and set sail for Jamaica. But it veered so far off course (thanks to incompetence) and provisions ran so low, that 132 slaves were thrown overboard, mostly women and children. In a case of irony, it only became well known because the owners of the slaves filed an insurance claim for the loss of their property that the insurance company refused to pay. This led to a legal trial which propelled the anti-slavery movement in both England and the US.
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.
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.
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