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.

The most ambitious work to date on the maritime underground * Wall Street Journal *
Gripping and illuminating, Freedom Ship gives new meaning to the old nautical phrase "cut and run" -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk
Rediker anchors his book in a series of extraordinary Blue Highway narratives * New York Post *
Marcus Rediker's deep knowledge of the maritime world is put to thrilling use in these stories -- Catherine Hall, author of Lucky Valley
Brings to light a fascinating archive of the world of antebellum African American sailors and dock workers -- Robin Blackburn, author of The Reckoning
These awe-inspiring escape stories . encourage those of us today who still believe in freedom to build on these legacies -- Angela Y. Davis, author of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

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.