Share Your Research: Sailing to Freedom
When: Tuesday,
November 1, 2022
2:30 PM
-
3:30 PM
Where: Claire T. Carney Library, Office of Faculty Development
Description: Share Your Research:
Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
2:30 - 3:30 pm, Library 213
Presenter: Dr. Timothy Walker, Professor, Department of History
Underground Railroad scholarship has focused almost exclusively on interior overland routes used to escape enslavement in the Antebellum South. Largely overlooked, however, is the great multitude of enslaved persons who made their way to freedom aboard merchant vessels plying coastal routes along the Atlantic seaboard. This crucial but neglected aspect of the Underground Railroad story is the focus of a groundbreaking volume of ten essays edited by Timothy Walker. Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad demonstrates that escaping bondage by sea was commonplace -- especially from southern coastal regions where slave labor in maritime industries was ubiquitous. Such work gave enslaved people experience with vessels and seafaring, a knowledge of coastal geography, contact with ships' crews from northern free states, and access to ocean-going northbound voyages. Documented successful escapes from the far South were almost all achieved by sea. By highlighting these little-known stories and describing the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, this talk will reshape our perception of how it functioned, to provide a more comprehensive, accurate historical perspective.
To register, please email Ellen Mandly at emandly@umassd.edu. We encourage you to join our programs in person, especially if you are already on campus. If you are not, know that our programming will remain accessible through the continued offering of virtual participation. Please indicate modality preference when registering. Lunch will be provided for all in-person participants. Questions should be directed to twalker@umassd.edu
Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
2:30 - 3:30 pm, Library 213
Presenter: Dr. Timothy Walker, Professor, Department of History
Underground Railroad scholarship has focused almost exclusively on interior overland routes used to escape enslavement in the Antebellum South. Largely overlooked, however, is the great multitude of enslaved persons who made their way to freedom aboard merchant vessels plying coastal routes along the Atlantic seaboard. This crucial but neglected aspect of the Underground Railroad story is the focus of a groundbreaking volume of ten essays edited by Timothy Walker. Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad demonstrates that escaping bondage by sea was commonplace -- especially from southern coastal regions where slave labor in maritime industries was ubiquitous. Such work gave enslaved people experience with vessels and seafaring, a knowledge of coastal geography, contact with ships' crews from northern free states, and access to ocean-going northbound voyages. Documented successful escapes from the far South were almost all achieved by sea. By highlighting these little-known stories and describing the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, this talk will reshape our perception of how it functioned, to provide a more comprehensive, accurate historical perspective.
To register, please email Ellen Mandly at emandly@umassd.edu. We encourage you to join our programs in person, especially if you are already on campus. If you are not, know that our programming will remain accessible through the continued offering of virtual participation. Please indicate modality preference when registering. Lunch will be provided for all in-person participants. Questions should be directed to twalker@umassd.edu
Topical Areas: Faculty, Students, Graduate, Faculty Development