History doesn't usually grab me. But I just finished a podcast series that left me crying so hard I could barely breathe.

Against the Odds is produced by Wondery—or what's left of it. Amazon bought the company and basically decimated it, but they left a couple podcasts intact. Now they're rebranding it as Audible Originals, and eventually these shows will probably only be available with an Audible subscription. For now, they're still free on the open Internet with a couple of ads per episode. Considering the quality, that's basically no ads.

The series I'm talking about is called "Shipwrecked on the Sahara." It's one of the earlier adventure series they produced, and if you're reading this on Facebook, I'll be posting links to each episode over the next few days.

Here's why you should care.

In August 1815, an American merchant ship called the Commerce was wrecked off the coast of northwest Africa. At that point in history, there was literally one American outpost on the entire continent—and it was far out of reach.

Captain James Riley and his crew—mostly white, Christian sailors, plus one freed Black man—were captured and enslaved by nomadic Arab tribes. What followed was a desperate journey across the Sahara Desert that tested every limit of human survival.

The series is based on Captain Riley's memoir, originally titled "An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce," published in 1817. The book became a massive bestseller—nearly a million copies sold before the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln read it as a young man and later said it was one of the three most influential books of his life, alongside the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress. It shaped his views on slavery more than almost anything else.

Author Dean King rediscovered Riley's forgotten memoir in the 1990s and wrote Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival in 2004. King actually retraced Riley's route across the Sahara—on camels and in Land Rovers—as part of his research. The podcast series draws heavily from King's book, and there's an interview with him at the end.

The story is brutal. Riley and his crew endured starvation, dehydration, beatings, and enslavement. At one point they had to drink camel urine to survive. Riley went from 240 pounds to 90 pounds by the time he was ransomed. The desert was so scarce that people didn't fight over water and food—they shared it, even with enemies, because no one knew where the next meal or drink would come from.

The crew was sold and traded multiple times. Riley ended up in the possession of an Arab trader named Sidi Hamet. Riley convinced Hamet to buy him and his remaining crew members and take them north to the coast city of Mogador (now Essaouira, Morocco), promising money he didn't have from a friend who didn't exist. He wrote a desperate letter to a stranger begging for ransom, knowing Hamet would kill him if he was lying.

The British consul in Mogador—William Willshire—received the letter. He'd never met Riley. He had no proof these men were who they claimed to be. But he paid the ransom anyway, based solely on that handwritten letter. No gift cards involved.

The friendship that developed between Riley and Sidi Hamet is one of the most beautiful parts of the story. It will change the way you think. The most honorable people in this story are probably the Arab traders who owned them. The people who lied the most are the white Christians. It's just the way it is. But they were adapting to survive. It's halfway understandable.

What struck me most was how this journey changed the course of a nation. Lincoln read Riley's account as a boy and saw firsthand—through the eyes of white men—what slavery actually meant. The degradation. The loss of humanity. The brutal reality of being owned. It shaped his moral convictions in ways that helped end slavery in America.

Think about how lucky you are to walk up to a sink, turn it on, and have clean water pour out like magic. We have the luxury of choosing not to eat meat. In Riley's story, caravans had to slaughter their own camels for food and sustenance. Even camel blood didn't go to waste.

I feel like I'm spoiling the whole series, but trust me—there's enough here to keep you listening. The podcast is riveting. The writing, the pacing, the storytelling—it's all exceptional.

One last thing: I cried at the end not just because of the suffering, but because of what it meant. This story—this brutal, honest account of enslavement—helped convince one of the greatest presidents in American history that slavery was evil. And he ended it.

That's the power of a true story told well.

Originally written by Bryan Scott Gruver on March 10, 2026. Edited by Claude.