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.
Author(s): Timothy D. Walker (editor)
Edition: ebook
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 248
City: Amherst, MA & Boston, MA
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad
Chapter 2. Working on the Docks: Waterfront Labor, Coastal Commerce, and Escaping Enslavement from Charleston, South Carolina
Chapter 3. Black Watermen, Fugitives from Slavery, and an Old Woman on the Edge of a Swamp: Maritime Passages to Freedom from Coastal North Carolina
Chapter 4. Hampton Roads and Norfolk, Virginia, as a Waypoint and Gateway for Enslaved Persons Seeking Freedom
Chapter 5. The Underground Railroad in Maryland’s Ports, Bays, and Harbors: Maritime Strategies for Freedom
Chapter 6. Claiming Liberty by Sea: The Port of New York as a Fugitive’s Gateway from Enslavement
Chapter 7. Abolitionists and Seaborne Fugitives in Coastal Eastern Connecticut: Escaping Slavery in New London, Mystic, and Stonington
Chapter 8. Seaborne Fugitives from Slavery and the Ports of Eastern Massachusetts
Chapter 9. Making a Living in the “Fugitive’s Gibraltar”: People of Color in New Bedford, 1838– 1845
Chapter 10. Freedom on the Move by Sea: Evidence of Maritime Escape Strategies in American Runaway Slave Advertisements
Contributors
Index
Back Cover
