The Zorg / Siddharth Kara. 3.5 stars

[LibraryCin]

3.5 stars

The Zorg was the name of a British-run ship that brought Africans in the 1780s to the Caribbean as slaves. The people were crammed in, there was bad weather, and the crew had trouble with navigation. As they were running low on water, they used this as an excuse to throw some of the people overboard to “save” the rest (by making sure there was enough water). Insurance companies usually paid for lost slaves on the way, but they were fighting it this time since more than half of them had died. What had really happened? After the trial, this gave abolitionists something more to work with to turn public opinion.

It took me a while to get “into” this (though that may have been due to everything going on with me when I started reading the book), so I missed a few things here and there, including during some of the passage over the ocean. But I really got interested during the trial after the fact, maybe a bit before that… probably around the time they decided to throw people overboard. I’d like to say it picked up more at that point, but it might also just be that my life slowed down just a little bit and I could focus better.