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 Netherlandsbound for AfricaΓÇÖs Windward and Gold Coastswhere it would take on its human cargo. The Zorg (a Dutch word meaning ΓÇ£careΓÇ¥) was one of thousands of such shipsbut the harrowing events that ensued on its doomed journey were unique. After reaching Africathe Zorg was captured by a privateer and came under British command. With a new captain and crewthe 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 slavesΓÇöby throwing dozens of peoplestarting with women and childrenoverboard. What followed was a fascinating legal drama in EnglandΓÇÖs 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 historyΓÇösparking the abolitionist movement in both England and the young United States Siddharth Kara utilizes primary-source researchgripping storytellingand painstaking investigation to uncover the ZorgΓÇÖs journeythe lives and fates of the slaves on boardand the mysterious identity of the abolitionist who finally revealed the truth of what happened on the ship.