Sailing to Freedom

Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad

Timothy D. Walker

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 offshore 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 seaborne 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.

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Cover design by Frank Gutbrod
Cover illustration by C. H. Reed, Escaping from Portsmouth, Virginia; Escaping from Norfolk in Captain Lee’s Skiff, ca. 1857. From The New York Public Library, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-fc1a-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

Acknowledgments

Introduction
TIMOTHY D. WALKER

Chapter 1
Sailing to Freedom
Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad
TIMOTHY D. WALKER

Chapter 2
Working on the Docks
Waterfront Labor, Coastal Commerce, and Escaping Enslavement from Charleston, South Carolina
MICHAEL D. THOMPSON

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
DAVID S. CECELSKI

Chapter 4
Hampton Roads and Norfolk, Virginia, as a Waypoint and Gateway for Enslaved Persons Seeking Freedom
CASSANDRA NEWBY-ALEXANDER

Chapter 5
The Underground Railroad in Maryland’s Ports, Bays, and Harbors
Maritime Strategies for Freedom
CHERYL JANIFER LAROCHE

Chapter 6
Claiming Liberty by Sea
The Port of New York as a Fugitive’s Gateway from Enslavement
MIRELLE LUECKE

Chapter 7
Abolitionists and Seaborne Fugitives in Coastal Eastern Connecticut
Escaping Slavery in New London, Mystic, and Stonington
ELYSA ENGELMAN

Chapter 8
Seaborne Fugitives from Slavery and the Ports of Eastern Massachusetts
KATHRYN GROVER

Chapter 9
Making a Living in the “Fugitive’s Gibraltar”
People of Color in New Bedford, 1838–1845
LEN TRAVERS

Chapter 10
Freedom on the Move by Sea
Evidence of Maritime Escape Strategies in American Runaway Slave Advertisements
MEGAN JEFFREYS

Contributors

Index

Contents