An expansive account of how fugitive slaves escaped from Southern ports, providing a fitting sequel to his indispensable 2007 study, The Slave Ship: A Human History. Mr. Rediker writes with a commanding understanding of both slavery and seafaring, and Freedom Ship opens a new and often surprising perspective on the antislavery struggle ...
He estimates, fairly persuasively, that large numbers of fugitives boarded ships that would carry them North and occasionally even to England ... Mr. Rediker captures the ordeals of both slavery and the roughneck maritime world in brisk prose.
This beautifully written and compassionate account highlights a little-known aspect of antebellum resistance to enslavement ... Readers interested in studies of enslavement in the United States and American antebellum and maritime history will enjoy this book.
Revelatory and propulsive ... This is a radical reimagining of the antebellum period that enthrallingly depicts resistance to slavery as widespread, unwavering, and multiracial.
