Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea

by Marcus Rediker

A definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins, from a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and the award-winning author of The Slave Ship

As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America now known as the Underground Railroad. Yet imagery of fugitives ushered clandestinely from safe house to safe house fails to capture the full breadth of these harrowing journeys: many escapes took place not by land but by sea.

Deeply researched and grippingly told, Freedom Ship offers a groundbreaking new look into the secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada. Sprawling through the intricate riverways of the Carolinas to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay to Boston’s harbors, these tales illuminate the little-known stories of freedom seekers who turned their sights to the sea—among them the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, one of the Underground Railroad’s most famous architects.

Marcus Rediker, one of the leading scholars of maritime history, puts his command of archival research on full display in this luminous portrait of the Atlantic waterfront as a place of conspiracy, mutiny, and liberation. Freedom Ship is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the complete story of one of North America's most significant historical moments.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Politics, Civil War, Audiobook, Race

416 pages, Hardcover

Published May 13, 2025

About the author

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d’études mondiales in Paris. He is the author of numerous prize-winning books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (with Peter Linebaugh), The Slave Ship, and The Amistad Rebellion. He produced the award-winning documentary film Ghosts of Amistad (Tony Buba, director), about how the Amistad Mutiny of 1839 lives on today in popular memory among the people of Sierra Leone.

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United)]

I like reading books where I have someone to root for. In Marcus Rediker's Freedom Ship, I got plenty of them. Rediker focuses on the maritime flights from slavery in the years right before the Civil War. The first thing you notice about the book is how richly researched and sourced it is. Finding stories on escaped slaves is extremely hard because many of them knew documentation could mean the end for them or anyone who followed behind them. Rediker even tells the story of an enraged Frederick Douglass lambasting an escaped slave who chronicled his method of escape and thus making it impossible to be used again. Needless to say, the research can be thin.

Rediker does an admirable job taking numerous different accounts and forming them to a cohesive book. There are some disjointed sections. For instance, earlier chapters look at a particular aspect of the escape like the free ports these ships would land at. These chapters have multiple stories of escape. Later chapters focus on one particular person to round out the narrative. All of the stories are interesting regardless, but it does feel like two books in one at times. The later chapters are a bit more engaging since you get more time with one person and can get a better sense of them and the trials they have been through.

This is a solid book which should be great for most readers and I definitely recommend it especially for people interested in the Civil War era.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Viking Books.)

[Faith]

I was unaware that the sea was used as an escape route by many enslaved people, both before and during the Civil War. This book primarily covers the pre war period. The author obviously did a tremendous amount of research. The final 25% of the ebook consisted of end notes and references. There were many examples of incredible perseverance and courage - by enslaved people, abolitionists, ship captains and crews. I was particularly intrigued by the story of the woman who hid from her lecherous owner for 7 years (she pretended to have run away, but was really hidden in a house) and finally managed to get on a ship headed North. The chapter on Frederick Douglass also had details that were new to me. He was an expert caulker in the Baltimore shipyard and he made several attempts to escape by sea.

While the book is informative, I found the organization of the book a little haphazard. The unevenness may be partially attributable to the difficulty in obtaining full stories on people who were trying to escape notice, often changed their names and did not leave written records. So some stories contained a lot of details, while others were brief.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Lily]

The "underground railroad" needs to be retired as a catch-all descriptor for how enslaved people made their way to freedom. As the title suggests, the majority of escapes happened on ships. What this book revealed to me was the inspirational acts of mutual aid, the brave direct action that went up against unjust laws, and the networks of care provided to escapees. Rediker shows the reader the powerful, well organized movements in respective cities against slavery, movements that were the heartblood of the abolitionist cause. One can draw deep parallels between governmental power, the use of police, legislative battles, judicial rulings and executive action of the 19th century and what is occurring right now in 2025. Kidnapping people off the streets has been "legal" before, just as it is "legal" now. Which begs the questions: What is "law and order"? What is the role of the police? What is justice?
Great read for those looking to deepen their understanding of the abolitionist movement.

[AFMasten]

Many stories of escape you've never heard of or read.

[Melanie]

I read this authors book The Slave Ship about the “logistics” of the Middle Passage. This book is about the Middle Passage to Freedom - the Underground Railroad was frequently an escape by sea. How was I never taught this? Several chapters about specific individuals and their journeys. Several about the brave souls in the north who facilitated the transition to freedom. Well researched and quite readable.

[David Partikian]

As a retired mariner, I actively seek out books by Markus Rediker, perhaps the finest maritime historian chronicling the Anglo-American maritime world. Rediker’s “bottom up” socio-economic insights into the “political” activism of outcasts, i.e. mariners, is a welcome addition to the maritime history canon, which often relies on hagiographical accounts of the explorers that approach deification. Rediker’s historical method gives the reader insight into these forgotten others who either crewed merchant ships (or the rogue pirate vessels) or—in his best-known work, The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007)—were the actual human “cargo,” i.e. the slaves forced to transit the infamous “Middle Passage.” With his latest effort Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea (2025), Rediker continues his work emphasizing both the underdog and the horrors of the US slave trade, in this case, by relating and reviewing slave escapes via the “Underground Railroad,” which is actually a terra-centric misnomer since the vast majority of escapes involved a sea transit, either inland up the Chesapeake or up the Eastern Coast; those slaves who escaped from the Deep South, i.e. Alabama, Georgia or Mississippi had to, as a rule, find themselves to either New Orleans or Mobile where they stow on vessel bound for a Free State. Thus, in focusing on narratives of slave escapes in the decades preceding the Civil War, Rediker elucidates the demographics and activity of the coastal maritime trade that occurred within the USA in a profession where many mariners were empathetic to the abolitionist cause and where—more importantly—many of the mariners and dockside workers were either free blacks or enslaved blacks granted a longer leash to work cargo in various Southern ports. This is a pertinent point that is glossed over in most common histories. Dock work and longshore work was (and is) grungy and often reserved for the underclass, leaving ample opportunity for the clever and motivated workers to engineer elaborate escapes, escapes which fueled Southern resentment and the atrocious Fugitive Slave Law.

As in The Slave Ship Rediker’s narrative method involves regurgitating long out-print and forgotten narratives, outlandish ones that defy our ability to believe, to compile a case that proves his point. While such a method can make the reader feel like he is reading a bunch of loosely tied together short stories with an overarching theme, the method serves a purpose and gives a better sense of how slaves escaped, due to similarities in the accounts, rather than mere statistical analyses would have. And, as mentioned above, the common thread is that the “Underground Railroad,” in almost three quarters of the known escapes, actually included a water route and originated with an opportunity to hide away on a cargo vessel, often with crew members in on the plot.

Since I am in no way an expert on the slave trade and the Fugitive Slave Law (last having tacked the subject in undergraduate history classes), I loved the way Rediker broke the book into chapters explaining how an escaped slave managed to integrate him- or herself into various Northern port cities; some were friendlier than others and some—New York—in particular catered to slave catchers, while others, e.g. Boston, were more hostile to them, though the Fugitive Slave law was problematic; Herman Melville’s father in law, a Supreme Court judge in Massachusetts, famously presided over a Fugitive Slave case, making knowledge on the subject a must for anyone obsessed with Melville or reverential of his novella Benito Cereno. After reading Freedom Ship, I feel like I have a firm grasp on the network of helpers and the possible pitfalls that escapees faced in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Bedford as well as reasons that they often continued their journeys to Canada or Liverpool, or—more often than not—as crew members on merchant ships or whalers. Even that hardscrabble existence was preferable to slavery.

Of the escape accounts that Rediker (re)relates, two leave a lasting impression and are worth the proverbial price of admission just because they are so horrifying and memorable: Harriet Jacobs’, who hid for seven years in a poorly ventilated attic space (just under the nose of her sexual abuser), before being set up by relatives who worked the North Carolina waterfront with a ship where the crew was vetted enough to trust. Seven years! The other involves the plight of Northern abolitionist captain, Jonathan Walker, who had his hand branded with an “SS” for “Slave Stealer” after a court ruling in Pensacola, Florida after a failed attempt to liberate slaves. He served ample time in prison and eventually returned to New England a broken man, but one who gained a significant following on the abolitionist lecture circuit.

Although Freedom Ship departs from Rediker’s previous efforts in that it is more about the evils of slavery than life on an actual vessel, his insights into the Antebellum routes between the North and the South as well as the demographics of the docks and crews make the work an essential read for maritime historians. Bonus points for this book appearing in the USA while a fascist government tries to erase the very tale Rediker relates.

[Kristi]

Overall, a fine book that was very informative about many people and historical events I've never heard about before. It was a bit more of a dry read than I had wanted, but that's neither here nor there.

[Brandon]

I read this book for my thesis and started thanking the heavens that a resource like this existed. In the book, Rediker charts a "maritime underground railroad" that existed throughout the first half of the 19th century. Along its path, enslaved people found freedom with the assistance of free Black Americans, dock workers, northern abolitionists, seafarers, and a wide range of "conductors" who are absent from traditional overland narratives. The sheer number of these freedom seekers is remarkable, and their stories reveal complicated social, political, religious, and economic networks from American history. The book does a really great job of exploring these networks through a large number of specific freedom seekers, which makes for a personal and affecting history.

The strongest point of the book, by far, is its focus on the voices of freedom seekers and those who assisted them. Rediker's excellent research presents a wide variety of Black perspectives, free and enslaved, which are often underplayed or omitted from previous histories. This means that popular readers have specific personalities through which to understand complicated legislation, legal jurisdictions, and overlapping interests. For scholarly readers, the various case studies challenge assumptions and encourage more nuanced understandings of the periods. Most importantly, the text - in argument and in arrangement - prioritizes the words and deeds of the freedom seekers themselves. Rediker recognizes the mental and physical effort that went into escaping slavery, and works effectively to place freedom seekers at the core of the national debate around American slavery. It is a correction to the broader historiography that is much needed.

One challenge with the book is the structure, which I think makes it easier to use the book as a research tool than as a narrative work. In his conclusion, Rediker identifies specific phases regarding freedom seeking, associated with specific methods, goals, and responses. These phases are useful and provide valuable context on the history of slavery in America - but they're reserved for the end! I wish these phases had been introduced earlier in the text and used to orient each section as the book goes along. A more narrative, less segmented form of the text therefore places these freedom seekers in conversation with each other more, and more directly traces their influences on one another (when applicable). At the moment, some of the chapters feel out of place, such as those for Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. While well-written and useful, they disrupt the momentum of the text and feel like summaries of others' published works. If they were integrated into a broader argument about these chronological phases, I feel that they might have worked better.

Overall, an excellent text and a supremely useful work for my thesis. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the underground railroad or freedom seekers. I think it has appeal to popular readers and scholarly readers alike, and I would specifically recommend it to my Grandpa, Stella, and my coworkers.

[Desirae]

I hadn’t known the sea was a road to freedom—that its tides once carried the desperate hopes of the enslaved. Long before and during the Civil War, many sought their deliverance not just across land but over water. This book lingers mostly in the era before the war’s thunder, yet its resonance is timeless. The author’s scholarship is deep, almost reverent—the final quarter of the ebook is devoted solely to endnotes and references, a testament to the care taken.

The pages are filled with stories of astonishing courage and quiet defiance—from enslaved souls risking everything, to abolitionists, captains, and crews who defied law and conscience to do what was right. One story clings to me still: a woman who vanished not in flight, but in hiding, concealing herself within the walls of a house for seven long years to escape her owner’s grasp. When at last she reached a northbound ship, the moment must have felt like the wind itself had changed course for her.

Even Frederick Douglass—so often quoted, yet never fully known—emerges in greater detail here. Before he became a beacon of the movement, he was a skilled caulker in the shipyards of Baltimore, and made multiple attempts to flee by sea. His story, like so many others, reminds us that escape was often a maritime endeavor, a fact history has tucked beneath its broader narratives.

Indeed, this book makes a compelling case: the term “Underground Railroad” does not encompass the full geography of resistance. The ocean, the docks, the ports—they were highways to freedom, just as vital, just as storied. What rises from these accounts is not only the bravery of individuals, but the powerful networks of mutual aid, the fierce collective action, the intricate webs of care that sheltered escapees and defied oppressive laws.

Rediker doesn’t merely recount history—he reveals it as living struggle. He draws back the curtain on the abolitionist strongholds in port cities, where resistance pulsed with clarity and purpose. And as we read in 2025, the parallels are impossible to ignore. The machinery of state—its courts, its police, its policies—once made it legal to abduct people off the streets. And now, again, such things hide behind the mask of legality. What, then, is justice? What is “law and order”? And whose order, whose law, does it serve?

This is a vital read for anyone seeking a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the abolitionist movement. While the narrative sometimes feels uneven—perhaps because many of those who fled left few footprints—the spirit of their stories endures. Some tales are richly detailed; others flicker briefly, like glimpses of lanterns in the fog. But all of them speak to a collective longing: to be free, to be whole, to be heard.

[Vintagebooklvr]

This work is an important addition to scholarship done on abolition and enslaved people's escape to freedom in the United States. It focuses on escapes by water: ocean, rivers and streams. Other works focus on escapes by land but even many of these were partly by water which is mentioned but rarely analyzed.

Rediker obviously did a great deal of research and provides plenty of footnotes. It was easy to read; you did not have to be a scholar to understand or to appreciate this work. Anyone can marvel at the courage, adaptability and intelligence necessary of the enslaved person to escape by water. There were many accounts that fill the book.

But Rediker went beyond this to analyze the nature of ports, the seapersons, and the people who lived there which have been a source of spreading ideas, resistance to authority and freedom from times of antiquity. He particularly brought to light the work of Blacks, freed and enslaved, who helped others escape, on their journeys with supplies and hiding places, getting off boats alluding those who sought to capture them, and then with resources to set up new lives. Vigilante Committees were established to physically prevent enslaved people from being recaptured or forcibly removing them boats.

There was plenty of other information too that helped filled in the picture of the abolition movement and enslaved people's escapes that have been neglected or ignored with the focus on the land. He highlighted some individuals, most that may have not been heard of even amongst those who studied this area, who helped hundreds and even thousands of people.

I did find some of the flow a bit rough when it went from short escape account to account without much analysis. At the same time this wasn't a fictional narrative where segues are important. It was historical non-fiction. It filled in a gap in scholarship that I didn't realize was missing but that anyone could find informative. It was more than informative; it was hopeful because most of these escapes required a network of support, big or small. People were willing to help others even if it meant loss of wealth, imprisonment, torture and death. Maybe we can learn something from them and apply it to present day.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Socraticgadfly]

Fascinating book and deserving of 5 stars, more than one person, omitting facts rather than ignoring errors this time, gave it.

The biggie is Rediker showing that the vaunted mythical "Underground Railroad" was really more an "Underwater Submarine," with the exception that actual subs didn't exist. In other words, the majority, probably a clear majority, of escapes by the enslaved in the US South were by sea, not land.

Redeker, going where the data is, focuses on three destinations — Philadelphia, New York and Boston — and the Norfolk area in Virginia, then the coastal Carolinas as departure points. He does more briefly mention sea escapes from a place like New Orleans, but these would have been more difficult with a voyage of 3 weeks or more even in the best of weather.

Redeker notes how Blacks were a significant portion of sailors, and then, how both free Blacks and enslaved who had been hired out made up a significant portion of dock workers, provided a background for escapes by sea, even though they haven't gotten the press of the Underground Railroad.

From there, it's off to look at "Vigilance Societies" and other abolition organizations in the three aforementioned cities. Redeker stresses how Black abolitionists took the lead over White counterparts in many such cases while adding that the word "abolitionist" has often been used to focus on White people's actions. All good stuff. We get more information about some of these group's leaders, along with details of some individual escapes, and battles over the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

The one thing I wish I had heard more about — even just being told that we have a lack of information — is something about riverine water escapes, in addition to ocean-going ones. With the invention of the steamship, after all, ships could sail UP the Mississippi and tributaries, not just down. Cotton from Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi could get to New York and thence to Britain or New England by going up the Ohio, either to Pittsburgh and railroads, or via the canals of Ohio, to the Erie Canal. Were such escapes attempted?

[Dawn Michelle]

2025 Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Challenge Wk 12 [Wandering]

Amazing book about a very tough subject. Learning about all the slaves that escaped to the North by sea was both heart-breaking *AND* inspiring. The idea that so many who were brought INTO slavery by slave ships chose [because it was often their only option] to escape that slavery by ship was awe-inspiring *AND* left me completely gobsmacked for much of the book. You are left drained from all the information, emotions and just the sheer audacity [in a VERY good way] of the people who would do anything to be free. I bow in honor of them and am grateful to have read some of their stories.

I wish I had known the author had written a book [as he is an excellent writer] about said slave ships before I read this one [I found out in one of the later chapters of this book] as it would be interesting to see the intersection of peoples between the two books [and I would HIGHLY recommend reading the authors book on slave ships, or any book about the slave ships [Ben Raines or Nick Tabor is a good place to start; also Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston is also an excellent read about this subject, especially if you know little or nothing about this abhorent practice], but overall, it is not needed to read this excellent book. I highly recommend this book to everyone; sometimes we need books like this to remind us of our history, even the ugly parts.

Thank you to NetGalley, Marcus Rediker, and PENGUIN GROUP Viking Penguin/Viking for providing this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

[Elizabeth Ziegenfus]

I feel like this topic has been hiding in plain sight. As a teacher of American history, I talk about the many people who self-emancipated by running away. But as Dr. Rediker demonstrates, many of these people did not run away. They sailed away. He writes of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, both well known people, but also William Powell, a free Black sailor who creates a haven in New York City for Black sailors and refugees from slavery. Dr. Rediker also tells the story of Jonathan Walker, an ordinary white sailor who, as a result of his Christian convictions, commits to assisting a group of enslaved men escape, earning Walker months in a Florida jail and a branding on his hand for being a "slave stealer." Both Powell and Walker deserve to be better known for their courageous activism.

Dr. Rediker also presents fascinating descriptions of the nation's ports as liminal spaces populated by a wide array of people-- a multiethnic proletariat often at odds with the powerful elites who controlled the ports. These stories demonstrate how the battle of slavery was being fought at the grassroots level. Local Black activists in the North protecting refugees utilizing all means at their disposal, both the legal machinery and the threat of violence. Local officials in the South creating oppressive regulations and brutal penalties in an attempt to maintain control over these fluid spaces that provided opportunity for escape.

This book broadened my understanding of the resistance to slavery in the 19th century. Highly recommended.

[Cathy VanLear]

I thoroughly enjoyed Rediker’s focus on the maritime flights from slavery in the years before the civil war. He obviously did a tremendous amount of research as he did an admirable job taking numerous accounts of escape and forming them into a cohesive book.

The later chapters were a bit more engaging as you spent more time with the individuals and became more involved with their trials. The pages are filled with stories of astonishing courage and incredible perseverance from enslaved souls risking everything. Abolitionists, captains, and crew who defied law and conscience to do what was right.

The only challenge I had with this book is the structure sometimes felt uneven. Yet this may be due to the fact that many of those who fled left few footprints in order to achieve their freedom. Although some tales were filled with details others only gave a glimpse leaving me wanting more but all spoke of needing to be free.

One indication of a good book for me is my emotional attachment and throughout this book I felt anger and horror, yet hopefulness.

Freedom Ship is a great read for those looking to deepen their understanding of the abolitionists movement. Yet this book is much more than just an informative read as it left me with the desire to help others no matter the loss… wealth, imprisonment, or death… and we definitely need more of this human compassion today!

Thanks to Goodreads, the publisher, and Rediker for an arc of Freedom Ship and for the opportunity to give my honest review of this enlightening and inspiring account of escaping slavery by sea.

[Jordan Seifert]

4.75/5

"This book makes it clear that the thoughts, voices, actions, and agency of enslaved people were indispensable to the origins and growth of the antislavery movement." (Epilogue; pg. 324; Hardback)

An eye-opening account of escaping bondage by sea. Like most Americans I learned about the Underground Railroad. However, I was surprised to hear that a significant majority of those escapes were by ship. This book offers a great addendum to the history of the Underground Railroad.

While escaping slavery is the main topic, Rediker also makes a great point about how major ports were at the crossroads of the Industrial Revolution. As shipping expanded in the early 1800s, so did the means of escape for fugitive slaves. It's also a great look at the solidarity of dockworkers, sailors, abolitionists, merchants, and Free Blacks coming together to help their fellow man.

Other than the exciting stories of escape, there are mini-biographies on Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Jonathan Walker, and others. You'll learn about the history of trade in America. You'll learn about major sea routes toward freedom. And You'll learn how abolitionists worked together to create a system of escape in these ports.

The system of maritime escape is a fascinating one and I for one am glad that Marcus Rediker has published a great book on it. You'll be horrified, angry, and yet hopeful when you hear these stories. If you're a history buff, please read this book when you can!

[Jenni Stein]

Brought to light some of the first abolitionist and freed enslaved black americans that used the waterways to escape. It is hard to read about the atrocities committed by slave owners and what the people whose histories are told went for to gain their freedom. The book took me a long time to read because of that, but hearing some of the people that of the people that fought to end slavery whose names we haven't heard, the hardships and perseverance of those escaping by sea tears at your heart and inspires all to be/do better.

[Maddy]

Not a flowing novel which is my usual read, so I needed to remove myself from that expectation. This is a true history book written from the perspective that is deserved… the main character. An important piece of literature that should enhance all of our knowledge. The Underground Railroad being an oppressive and limiting term within itself? Wow. Thank you for their names, this author put in an amount of research I cannot personally fathom… yet I am thankful.

[Joanne]

Important read, an excellent read. I knew about the Underground Railroad, but hadn’t a clue about the water version and after reading Freedom Ship I’m wondering why I was so dense? The way the people of this time got the word spread about fugitives really amazed me. Word seemed to spread quite quickly for no communication other than word of mouth, newspapers, magazines, books, assemblies, and lectures. I was very impressed with how communities worked together.

[Fran]

Among the overarching stories of homo sapiens on planet Earth is one of struggle between freedom and oppression.
A companion to Rediker's brilliant 'The Slave Ship,' this a deeply researched, detailed story of resistance, of the 'indestructible determination to be free.'
These stories tell of intelligence, creative and daring action, and networks of solidarity, that stood up to a deeply entrenched 'slave power,' which needed to create multiple interlocking systems of law and violence to sustain its white supremacy.

[Anthony]

A revealing look at the often overlooked, forgotten, and hidden history of a civil disobedience known as maritime escaping to freedom. The author delves into what actions were taken, risks involved, and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 used to try and stop the hemorrhaging of enslaved people seeking freedom in the north using waterways to their advantage.

[Jwt Jan50]

holding off on the stars for now - remarkable research, each section remarkable in and of itself - but the first third a little disjointed and jumps back/forth between the decades of the early 18th century. And I'm in the 'doldrums' myself at the moment - so, I'll be back to this one when I'm a little more responsible.

[Roger Smitter]

Marcus Redike has come with a get book about history. And he showed us a different kind of way for different ways to get through books about "history." And it's gives a new way to link about "history."

[William Kelly]

This is a solid book. Great for beginners. But it doesn’t add a whole lot to our current understanding of freedom seeking - for which I give it three stars. Solid but not revolutionary. That said, it is excellent for non-specialists and broad audiences.

[Sue]

Well researched, lots of footnotes. I thought the book read like a book of fiction, entertaining and yet educational.

[Renee Howe]

Very informative. Gives a needed perspective to they experience of the people who experienced the events.

[Carol Read]

Detailed information on self emancipation efforts by sea by enslaved individuals

[Thomas Eckenrode]

Wow!

[D]

A good sequel to the author's "Slave Ship" - a human history.

[D]

4+

[Debbie]

My client referred to this book. It gets in-depth the freedom seekers that choose to go by sea. There were abolitionists as Harriet Tubman that helped