12
1619
A01=Marcus Rediker
Abolition
Author_Marcus Rediker
Barbara
British
Category=JBSL
Category=JBSL1
Category=NHTM
Category=NHTS
Civil
colonialism
Cotton
Dadzie
Democracy
Emancipation
Empire
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Fields
Harding
imperialism
Maritime
Olusoga
Pirate
plantation
Project
Railroad
Reckoning
Reconstruction
Slave
Twelve
Underground
US
War
Years
Product details
- ISBN 9781836741718
- Weight: 615g
- Dimensions: 153 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 10 Mar 2026
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Freedom Ship is a gripping history of the enslaved African Americans who stowed away on vessels that carried them to liberty. Up to 100,000 fugitives successfully fled the horrors of bondage in the American South. Many moved northwards through a network of secret routes and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. Thousands of others, most of them completely unknown, escaped by sea. Their dramatic accounts of whispered conspiracy and billowing sails make Freedom Ship essential and enthralling reading.
From the docks of Savannah and Charleston to Boston Harbor and beyond, Freedom Ship traces the seekers who turned their sights to the sea. Stowaways regularly arrived in Britain aboard cotton ships bound for Liverpool. Moses Roper, one of the most determined runaways in American history, travelled 350 miles through slave country before boarding the Napoleon and sailing for England. He became the first self-emancipated bondsman to lecture in the cause of abolition in Britain. Legendary abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman both saw the shipping lanes as paths to freedom.
Marcus Rediker displays a prodigious command of archival research to embark on a thrilling journey along the Atlantic seaboard, following those who risked everything in a maritime pursuit of freedom.
From the docks of Savannah and Charleston to Boston Harbor and beyond, Freedom Ship traces the seekers who turned their sights to the sea. Stowaways regularly arrived in Britain aboard cotton ships bound for Liverpool. Moses Roper, one of the most determined runaways in American history, travelled 350 miles through slave country before boarding the Napoleon and sailing for England. He became the first self-emancipated bondsman to lecture in the cause of abolition in Britain. Legendary abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman both saw the shipping lanes as paths to freedom.
Marcus Rediker displays a prodigious command of archival research to embark on a thrilling journey along the Atlantic seaboard, following those who risked everything in a maritime pursuit of freedom.
Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. His many books include The Slave Ship, The Amistad Rebellion and The Fearless Benjamin Lay. He has produced a film, Ghosts of Amistad, with director Tony Buba, and written a play, The Return of Benjamin Lay, with playwright Naomi Wallace. He lives in Pittsburgh.
