
Freedom Ship
The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Cornell Womack
-
By:
-
Marcus Rediker
About this listen
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 listening for anyone looking to understand the complete story of one of North America's most significant historical moments.
©2025 Marcus Rediker (P)2025 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
“Many people familiar with the history of slavery in the United States associate the terror of the Middle Passage with tall ships traversing the high seas of the Atlantic, while they think of the Underground Railroad as the legendary land-based route that those fleeing bondage traveled to freedom. In this important new work, Freedom Ship, distinguished maritime historian Marcus Rediker turns this binary on its head by showing in dramatic human terms how escape by sea was a primary method used by enslaved Black Americans in the decades leading up to the Civil War. It’s a fascinating work, anchored in a commitment to history from below, that will undoubtedly expand the map of our understanding of how—and by whom—the abolitionist movement gained momentum in the crucial years that redefined our nation.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road
“Who could be better qualified to bring us a little-known slice of history concerning slavery and the political world of the Atlantic Ocean than Marcus Rediker? As someone who has admired his previous work on both subjects, I’m not surprised that he’s done it again. Freedom Ship is a fascinating, evocatively told story—and an inspiring one.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
“Marcus Rediker has done more than any other historian to chronicle the history of what he calls ‘maritime radicalism’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Freedom Ship he focuses our attention on how the expansion of seaborne capitalism made possible the consolidation of American slavery but also created opportunities for thousands of slaves to escape from bondage by sea. Mining sources including fugitive slave narratives, newspaper advertisements for those seeking freedom, and the records of abolitionist societies, he tells the riveting stories of men and women whose quest for freedom transforms our understanding of the Underground Railroad, as well as of those who aided them in escaping—dockworkers, sailors, sympathetic ship captains, and members of African American communities up and down the East Coast, most of them previously unknown to history.”
—Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize−winning author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Wars of the Lord
- The Puritan Conquest of America's First People
- By: Matthew J. Tuininga
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Puritan Christianity, Matthew J. Tuininga shows, shaped both the spiritual and military conquests of New England from beginning to end.
-
The Afterlife of Malcolm X
- An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America
- By: Mark Whitaker
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With impeccable research and original reporting, Mark Whitaker tells the story of Malcolm X’s far-reaching posthumous legacy. It stretches from founders of the Black Power Movement such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton to hip-hop pioneers such as Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Leaders of the Black Arts and Free Jazz movements from Amiri Baraka to Maya Angelou, August Wilson, and John Coltrane credited their political awakening to Malcolm, as did some of the most influential athletes of our time, from Muhammad Ali to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and beyond.
-
-
Excellent
- By SciFi-Nerd on 05-18-25
By: Mark Whitaker
-
Phantom Fleet
- The Hunt for Nazi Submarine U-505 and World War II's Most Daring Heist
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this swashbuckling adventure story, bestselling historian Alexander Rose draws on long-classified encrypted documents and intercepted German transmissions to unravel, for the first time, the astounding tale of a daring heist cooked up by an owlish egghead and a glory-seeking buccaneer to score the richest prize on the high seas.
By: Alexander Rose
-
The Raider
- The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II
- By: Stephen R. Platt
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Raider, Cundill Prize-winning historian Stephen R. Platt gives us the first authoritative account of Carlson’s larger-than-life exploits: the real story, based on years of research including newly discovered diaries and correspondence in English and Chinese, with deep insight into the conflicted idealism about the Chinese Communists that would prove Carlson’s undoing in the McCarthy era. Tracing the rise and fall of an unlikely American war hero, The Raider is a story of exploration, of cultural (mis)understanding, and of one man’s awakening to the sheer breadth of the world.
-
-
Outstanding book about a unknown hero
- By Scott Brownell on 05-20-25
By: Stephen R. Platt
-
The Last Great Dream
- How Bohemians Became Hippies and Created the Sixties
- By: Dennis McNally
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fascinating, far-reaching, and definitive, THE LAST GREAT DREAM is the ultimate guide to a generation-defining countercultural movement, an Underground 101 course for newcomers and aficionados alike.
By: Dennis McNally
-
The Year God Died
- Jesus and the Roman Empire in 33 AD
- By: James Lacey
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late 31 AD, after the Roman senators murdered Lucius Sejanus, the Roman Emperor Tiberius's closest confidant, the Empire was forever changed. If Sejanus had not been murdered, Jesus would never have been crucified. This profound connection between the lives of Sejanus and Jesus is the first of many revelations in this startling reexamination of the Roman world in which Jesus walked. With new evidence and meticulous research, Dr. James Lacey weaves a majestic and accurate description of who Jesus was.
By: James Lacey
-
The Wars of the Lord
- The Puritan Conquest of America's First People
- By: Matthew J. Tuininga
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Puritan Christianity, Matthew J. Tuininga shows, shaped both the spiritual and military conquests of New England from beginning to end.
-
The Afterlife of Malcolm X
- An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America
- By: Mark Whitaker
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With impeccable research and original reporting, Mark Whitaker tells the story of Malcolm X’s far-reaching posthumous legacy. It stretches from founders of the Black Power Movement such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton to hip-hop pioneers such as Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Leaders of the Black Arts and Free Jazz movements from Amiri Baraka to Maya Angelou, August Wilson, and John Coltrane credited their political awakening to Malcolm, as did some of the most influential athletes of our time, from Muhammad Ali to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and beyond.
-
-
Excellent
- By SciFi-Nerd on 05-18-25
By: Mark Whitaker
-
Phantom Fleet
- The Hunt for Nazi Submarine U-505 and World War II's Most Daring Heist
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this swashbuckling adventure story, bestselling historian Alexander Rose draws on long-classified encrypted documents and intercepted German transmissions to unravel, for the first time, the astounding tale of a daring heist cooked up by an owlish egghead and a glory-seeking buccaneer to score the richest prize on the high seas.
By: Alexander Rose
-
The Raider
- The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II
- By: Stephen R. Platt
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Raider, Cundill Prize-winning historian Stephen R. Platt gives us the first authoritative account of Carlson’s larger-than-life exploits: the real story, based on years of research including newly discovered diaries and correspondence in English and Chinese, with deep insight into the conflicted idealism about the Chinese Communists that would prove Carlson’s undoing in the McCarthy era. Tracing the rise and fall of an unlikely American war hero, The Raider is a story of exploration, of cultural (mis)understanding, and of one man’s awakening to the sheer breadth of the world.
-
-
Outstanding book about a unknown hero
- By Scott Brownell on 05-20-25
By: Stephen R. Platt
-
The Last Great Dream
- How Bohemians Became Hippies and Created the Sixties
- By: Dennis McNally
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fascinating, far-reaching, and definitive, THE LAST GREAT DREAM is the ultimate guide to a generation-defining countercultural movement, an Underground 101 course for newcomers and aficionados alike.
By: Dennis McNally
-
The Year God Died
- Jesus and the Roman Empire in 33 AD
- By: James Lacey
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late 31 AD, after the Roman senators murdered Lucius Sejanus, the Roman Emperor Tiberius's closest confidant, the Empire was forever changed. If Sejanus had not been murdered, Jesus would never have been crucified. This profound connection between the lives of Sejanus and Jesus is the first of many revelations in this startling reexamination of the Roman world in which Jesus walked. With new evidence and meticulous research, Dr. James Lacey weaves a majestic and accurate description of who Jesus was.
By: James Lacey
-
The First Fleets
- Colonial Navies of the British Atlantic World, 1630-1775
- By: Benjamin C. Schaffer
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The First Fleets, Benjamin C. Schaffer reveals how, contrary to widespread beliefs, the American colonies had a long tradition of independent naval defense decades before the Revolution. He demonstrates that Anglo-American governments established and maintained significant provincial naval forces and that the history of provincial navies illuminates broader aspects of colonial history and the colonies' ultimate break with the British Crown. Based on meticulous research, Schaffer recounts the sea-borne threats that American colonies faced from the French, Spanish, pirates, and others.
-
The Slave Ship
- A Human History
- By: Marcus Rediker
- Narrated by: Cornell Womack
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this widely praised history of an infamous institution, award-winning scholar Marcus Rediker shines a light into the darkest corners of the British and American slave ships of the eighteenth century. With meticulous detail, Rediker uncovers the harsh realities of the slave trade, shedding light on the inhumane treatment of captives and the power dynamics aboard the ships. From the economic motivations driving the trade to the efforts of abolitionists, this book reveals the birth of African American culture amidst a backdrop of horror and despair.
By: Marcus Rediker
-
Ground Combat
- Puncturing the Myths of Modern War
- By: Ben Connable
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ground Combat reveals the gritty details of land warfare at the tactical level and challenges today's overly subjective and often inaccurate approaches to characterizing war. Ben Connable's motivation for writing the book is to offer an evidence-based approach to examining the future of war.
By: Ben Connable
-
Putin's Sledgehammer
- The Wagner Group and Russia's Collapse into Mercenary Chaos
- By: Candace Rondeaux
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler. Wagner’s power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia’s conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner’s core commanders was blown up in midair.
By: Candace Rondeaux
-
Plato and the Tyrant
- The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece
- By: James Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Plato and the Tyrant, acclaimed historian and classicist James Romm draws on personal letters of Plato to show how a philosopher helped topple the leading Greek power of the era: the opulent city of Syracuse. There, Plato encountered two authoritarian rulers, a father and son both named Dionysius, and tried to steer them toward philosophy. At the same time, he worked on his masterpiece, Republic, in which he conceived a ruler who unites perfect wisdom with absolute power.
By: James Romm
-
Detained
- A boy's journal of survival and resilience
- By: D. Esperanza, Gerardo Iván Morales
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas, Gerardo Iván Morales
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D Esperanza was just thirteen years old when he lost his caregivers, his beloved grandmother and uncle. Since both of his parents were working and living in the United States, D was left on his own in a small town in Honduras. He quickly realized he simply could not make enough money to survive so he made the difficult decision to head north with his cousins and hopefully reunite with his parents in el norte. Together, the boys struggled to survive a long and treacherous journey through Central America and Mexico.
By: D. Esperanza, and others
-
Scorched Earth
- A Global History of World War II
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 23 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the triumph of an American-led democratic order. In Scorched Earth, historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin dispatches the myth of World War II as a good war. Instead, he depicts the conflict as it truly was: a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe.
-
Queen of All Mayhem
- The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West
- By: Dane Huckelbridge
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On February 3, 1889, just two days shy of her forty-first birthday, Myra Maybelle Shirley—better known at that point by her outlaw sobriquet “Belle Starr”—was blown from her horse saddle and killed by a pair of shotgun blasts, delivered by an unseen assailant, only a few miles away from her home in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma. Thus ended the life of one of the most colorful, authentic, and dangerous women in the history of the American West.
-
The World's Game
- Reflections on Western Culture
- By: Frederic Raphael
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 19 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this epic narrative, Frederic Raphael explores the most significant moments, ideas and figures that have shaped the world’s stage. He takes us on a journey through history: from the reigns of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, to Plato and Socrates and the origins of philosophy, the turning point of World War Two and the invention of the atom bomb, and, finally, the social and cultural divisions of modern day. It is often a story of conflict: the rise of anti-Semitism, the tensions between science and faith, progress and strife, comedy and ruthlessness.
By: Frederic Raphael
-
Humans
- A Monstrous History
- By: Surekha Davies
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science Dr. Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein's monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal.
By: Surekha Davies
-
The Concise Untold History of the United States
- By: Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In November 2012, Showtime debuted a ten-part documentary series based on Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s The Untold History of the United States. The book and documentary looked back at human events that, at the time, went underreported, but also crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history over the 20th century. The book and documentary looked back at human events that, at the time, went underreported, but also crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history over the twentieth century.
-
-
Wisdom
- By ST on 05-20-25
By: Oliver Stone, and others
-
Tides of Fortune
- The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries
- By: Zack Cooper
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is largely unknowable. But Zack Cooper argues that the American and Chinese militaries are following a well-trodden path. For centuries, the world's most powerful militaries have adhered to a remarkably consistent pattern of behavior, determined largely by their leaders' perceptions of relative power shifts. By uncovering these trends, this book places the evolving military competition between the United States and China in historical context.
By: Zack Cooper