Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Marcus Rediker, "Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea" (Penguin, 2025)

Host: Morteza Hajizadeh (Critical Theory Channel)
Guest: Marcus Rediker
Date: September 20, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features eminent historian Marcus Rediker discussing his new book, Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea. The conversation explores the largely overlooked history of enslaved people who escaped bondage via maritime routes, challenging the land-centric (“terrocentric”) focus of most abolitionist histories. Rediker delves into the labor, solidarity, and resistance networks that made maritime escapes possible, uncovers both the practical and imaginative elements of flight by sea, and draws connections to current social struggles for justice and solidarity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Origins and Inception of "Freedom Ship"

• Rediker’s inspiration: The idea took root over 30 years ago during research for The Many-Headed Hydra ([02:56]).
  • He was struck by fugitive slave advertisements, especially those warning ship captains against taking on escapees.
  • Realized most scholarship focused on land escapes (esp. the “underground railroad”), neglecting escapes by sea.
• This book serves as a sequel to Rediker’s widely acclaimed The Slave Ship, deepening his exploration of resistance and maritime history.

“This kind of prompted me to pursue the subject... to show that there was this very big, powerful engine of resistance that we knew relatively little about.”
– Marcus Rediker ([06:36])

Research Methods and Sources

• Four major source types ([08:01]):
  1. Runaway advertisements: Hundreds of newspaper ads placed by enslavers, now easier to research thanks to digitization. They provide fragmented but humanizing stories.
  2. Abolitionist interviews: Organizations in Northern port cities collected escapees’ first-person narratives.
  3. Vigilance committee records: Especially William Still’s archive in Philadelphia, documenting over 900 escapees.
  4. Court records: Essential for reconstructing events from “history below,” showing how working-class people traversed the legal system.
• Rediker emphasizes the importance of reading against the biases and interpolations of white abolitionists to hear the authentic voices of the escapees.

"These advertisements...frequently tell a very human story... even though they're small, they frequently tell a very human story that this man or this woman was missing..."
– Marcus Rediker ([09:11])

Maritime Escape as ‘Art’ and Collective Action

• Myth-busting the “Underground Railroad” metaphor ([15:31]):
  • Almost no one escaped truly “underground,” and few by train; "Freedom Ship" corrects the occlusion of the sea in our historical imagination.
• Maritime escape required unique skills:
  • Knowledge of local geography, seasonality of shipping, social intuition (“head work”), technical and navigational skills, food sourcing, and the ability to read people for help or danger ([16:43]).
• Escape was fundamentally social and collective:
  • Dockworkers, sailors (especially Black sailors), market women, and free Black and interracial communities worked together to facilitate escape.

“You needed the ability to read people very quickly… who can help you in this escape and who can harm you...this is not an abstraction. If you run away from bondage and you fail, you're going to pay with the flesh on your back… there's going to be a violent punishment.”
– Marcus Rediker ([18:20])

The Social Networks of Escape

• The ‘Motley Crew’ ([23:31]):
  • Docks were hubs for multi-ethnic labor solidarity; the “motley crew” included people of many races and backgrounds united by maritime work.
  • Free Black communities in Southern and Northern ports played strategic, often undercover roles in sheltering fugitives and building trust.
  • Packet ships and recurring contracts fostered relationships and networks facilitating serial escapes.

“This world of work along the docks...was an extraordinarily important place to the history of capitalism...once these workers have been organized to cooperate with each other, they can then come up with projects of their own that the merchants...would not approve of..."
– Marcus Rediker ([23:55])

Interracial and International Solidarity

• Irish and white sailors ([28:28]):
  • Notably, Irish sailors, due to their own colonial experience, often identified with and aided Black escapees.
• Frederick Douglass's story ([28:33]):
  • Douglass’s first “spark of flight” was from Irish sailors’ dockside encouragement in Baltimore, a seminal moment in his journey to freedom.

"Are you a slave? ...You could get away from here and find freedom in the North."
– Rediker, quoting Irish sailors’ words to young Frederick Douglass ([28:40])

Disseminating Abolition—The Case of David Walker

• David Walker’s Appeal (1829) ([30:23]):
  • Used maritime networks to spread radical abolitionist writings southward, stashing pamphlets on sailors for clandestine distribution.
  • Southern authorities’ panic prompted the “Negro Seamen Acts,” targeting Black sailors for quarantine/jailing—not for actual disease, but to contain “contagious” resistance.

“He would give copies of this pamphlet to sailors and say, okay, where are you going?... He would even go so far as to create a secret, hidden compartment in the clothing of the sailors...”
– Marcus Rediker ([31:16])

State Suppression and Grassroots Defiance

• Negro Seamen Acts ([33:02]):
  • Required quarantine/jailing of Black sailors in Southern ports; intended to isolate Black sailors from enslaved people.
  • Laws largely failed due to persistent interracial solidarity; white and Black sailors continued to assist escapes and spread abolitionist ideas.

Frederick Douglass: Maritime Labor and Imagination

• His skills as a caulker (a specialized maritime trade) and his knowledge of seafaring cultures directly aided his escape; he disguised himself as a sailor and used borrowed ID papers ([36:16]).
• Nautical imagery, such as “freedom’s swift angels” (his phrase for ships on Chesapeake Bay), shaped his vision for liberation.

The Critical Role of Women

• Women as escapees and facilitators ([40:47]):
  • Higher percentage of female maritime escapees (23%) than by land (20%).
  • Women like Harriet Jacobs escaped with help from mariner relatives; “market women” used their dockside positions to smuggle documents and gather intelligence for escapes.
  • These women created “kinship and communities of aid,” providing shelter, resources, and strategic cover.

“The intelligence provided by the market women was the key. So the role of women in this world of escape is really significant, both as escapee and as people who facilitated the escape.”
– Marcus Rediker ([44:23])

Perils, Punishments, and Abolitionist Symbols

• Jonathan Walker, “The Man with the Branded Hand” ([46:40]):
  • For aiding enslaved people’s flight, sailor Jonathan Walker was captured, imprisoned, and branded “SS” (Slave Stealer) on his hand—a rare punishment for a white man.
  • His scar became an abolitionist rallying symbol.

Black Maritime Unions and Further Solidarity

• William Powell and the first Black maritime union ([50:43]):
  • Powell ran a boarding house for Black sailors in New York, serving as an organizing, educational, and mutual aid hub.
  • In 1863, the American Seamen’s Protection Union Association was established—the first Black maritime union, rooted in practices and solidarities developed through resistance and escape networks.

Resistance and the Fugitive Slave Act

• Maritime escapes fuel southern anxieties and national crises ([54:02]):
  • Escapes on northern-owned ships infuriated southern elites; losses intensified southern demands for stricter Fugitive Slave Laws.
  • In Boston, “death by a thousand cuts” resistance from below—abolitionist networks, mass protests, and fugitives themselves—ultimately nullified the Fugitive Slave Act in that city.

Lessons for Contemporary Struggles

• Maritime escape as a model of subaltern solidarity ([58:54]):
  • Rediker draws parallels to today’s social movements: effective solidarity is built and protected at the grassroots, not given from above.
  • Resistance is unpredictable, cumulative, and can succeed even against tremendous odds.
  • The abolitionist struggle and maritime escapes provide “stories of successful resistance” that contemporary activists can learn from—especially given the persistent need to build collective will and imagine new worlds.

“Resistance from below can make tremendous change when you least expect it...building local solidarity is really, you know, solidarity is not an inherent thing. It's something that has to be built and nurtured and protected and defended.”
– Marcus Rediker ([60:00])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On historiography: “History is usually made at the sea, but there's this bias towards the land...I call it terocentrism.”
  • Host, setting up the episode’s framework ([07:14])
• On the ‘underground railroad’ metaphor: “Very few people escaped slavery underground and very few escaped by train...the metaphor focused our vision, but literally occluded from our sight, other things.”
  • Marcus Rediker ([15:31])
• On radical possibility: “This resistance came from below...all of the risks were borne on the ground by the fugitives and the people who stood in solidarity with them…building local solidarity is really, you know, solidarity is not an inherent thing.”
  • Marcus Rediker ([59:06])
• On hope and imagination: “Imagine a new world. Imagine new frontiers. This is what these slaves did...even in the 18th century it was unthinkable for these people to be free.”
  • Host, drawing explicit connections to today’s struggles ([62:53])

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Inception of the book & research journey: [02:56]
• Primary sources and methodological challenges: [08:01]
• Debunking the ‘underground railroad’ metaphor: [15:31]
• Social networks and ‘motley crew’ solidarity: [23:31]
• Spread of David Walker’s Appeal and Black maritime activism: [30:23]
• Harriet Jacobs, women and kinship in escape: [40:47]
• Jonathan Walker’s branded hand: [46:40]
• Formation of the first Black maritime union: [50:43]
• Maritime resistance and the Fugitive Slave Act: [54:02]
• Lessons for modern social movements: [58:54]

Tone and Language

The conversation is scholarly yet accessible, with Rediker’s passion for “history from below” and social justice shining through. Historical anecdotes, gripping vignettes, and recurring themes of resilience, collectivity, and imaginative subversion permeate the discussion. The host, Morteza Hajizadeh, effectively links past and present, inviting listeners to draw lessons for contemporary activism and the ongoing necessity of hope.

Recommended for: Historians, educators, students, activists, and anyone interested in slavery and abolition, maritime history, stories of resistance, and the radical potential of solidarity across boundaries.