Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea

Historian Rediker (The Slave Ship) zooms in on an all-but-unknown leg of the underground railroad in this revelatory and propulsive account. Slavery peaked, Rediker notes, during “the golden age of American maritime trade,” when “every trade route was a potential route for a runaway.” Digging through firsthand narratives by escapees and records from abolitionist organizations, he finds that escapes by sea were far more prevalent than previously realized. Several famous figures made maritime escapes, and their stories are narrated here with cinematic flair, among them the writers Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, both of whom dressed up as sailors to pass as seamen on escapee-friendly vessels. However, Rediker digs further, seeking to understand whom these vessels were piloted by. He finds evidence of organized resistance to slavery among the era’s sailors, pointing to a range of confluences including how Black radical David Walker’s pamphlets (which called for a Haitian-style revolution) were abundantly smuggled into the South by Black and white sailors; the arrest of white sea captain Jonathan Walker for smuggling runaways; and accounts like the one of an escaped 14-year-old girl who, when asked by abolitionists in the North how she escaped, reported simply being asked in passing by a white sailor if she’d like to hop aboard. This is a radical reimagining of the antebellum period that enthrallingly depicts resistance to slavery as widespread, unwavering, and multiracial. (May)