Book
Sailing to freedom : maritime dimensions of the Underground Railroad
Publication Information
Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2021]
Physical Description
xiii, 231 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm
Summary
"In 1858, Mary Millburn successfully made her escape from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia aboard an express steamship. Millburn's maritime route to freedom was far from uncommon. By the mid-nineteenth century, an increasing number of enslaved people had fled northward along the Atlantic seaboard. While scholarship on the Underground Railroad has focused almost exclusively on overland escape routes from the antebellum South, this groundbreaking volume expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea and what the journey looked like for many African Americans. With innovative scholarship and thorough research, Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known stories and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, including the impact of African Americans' paid and unpaid waterfront labor. These ten essays reconsider and contextualize how escapes were managed along the East Coast, moving from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland to safe harbor in northern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, New Bedford, and Boston. In addition to the volume editor, contributors include David S. Cecelski, Elysa Engelman, Kathryn Grover, Megan Jeffreys, Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, Mirelle Luecke, Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Michael D. Thompson, and Len Travers"--
Contents
- Sailing to freedom : maritime dimensions of the Underground Railroad
- Working on the docks : waterfront labor, coastal commerce, and escaping enslavement from Charleston, South Carolina
- Black watermen, fugitives from slavery, and an old woman on the edge of the swamp : maritime passages to freedom from coastal North Carolina
- Hampton Roads and Norfolk, Virginia, as a waypoint and gateway for enslaved persons seeking freedom
- The Underground Railroad in Maryland's ports, bays, and harbors : maritime strategies for freedom
- Claiming liberty by sea : the port of New York as a fugitive's gateway from enslavement
- Abolitionists and seaborne fugitives in coastal eastern Connecticut : escaping slavery in New London, Mystic, and Stonington
- Seaborne fugitives from slavery and the ports of eastern Massachusetts
- Making a living in the "fugitive's Gibraltar" : people of color in New Bedford, 1838-1845
- Freedom on the move by sea : evidence of maritime escape strategies in American runaway slave advertisements.