Jump Ship to Freedom

Jump Ship to Freedom is a historical novel published in 1981 by American authors James Lincoln Collier and his brother, Christopher Collier. It tells the story of Daniel Arabus, a fourteen-year-old slave living in America in the wake of the Revolutionary War.

Daniel's father had fought in the Revolutionary War and was paid in "soldier's notes" for his service. That meant he was promised cash at a later date. After the father dies at sea, Daniel's master, Captain Ivers, keeps the notes for himself. In an attempt to win the notes back through a diversion, Daniel makes an extremely smoky fire in the fireplace of Ivers's estate. The gambit fails, and Ivers forces Daniel to accompany him on his next shipping voyage to the West Indies, where he will attempt to sell Daniel and be rid of him once and for all. This separates Daniel from his mother, who remains behind with Captain Ivers's wife, Mrs. Ivers.

Captain Ivers is in the business of transporting goods from Connecticut to New York, Philadelphia, and the West Indies on his ship the Junius Brutus. Along with Daniel, Ivers forces his nephew, Birdsey Brooks, to accompany him on this voyage. Daniel and Birdsey become friends, bonding over the menial but distracting work of carrying out various day-to-day operations on the Junius Brutus. The ship makes its stops in New York and Philadelphia, but then one day, the crew encounters a terrible storm. Birdsey and at least one other crewmember are knocked overboard. The storm snaps the ship's mast in half, and Ivers is forced to return the ship to the nearest port in New York.



Once there, Daniel starts another fire as a diversion, this time designed so that he might escape. He is successful in doing so, but then he finds himself on the streets of New York: alone, hungry, and worst of all, a runaway slave in danger of being captured at any moment. Fortunately, Daniel makes a number of friends who help him survive. These include Carrie, a fellow slave, Black Sam Fraunces, a swarthy tavern operator, and a sick but enterprising Quaker Peter Fatherscreft.

While scrapping out a meager existence in New York, Daniel overhears that the Continental Congress is about to convene in Philadelphia to write a constitution uniting the thirteen colonies. At this news, Daniel begins to desperately hope that the new United States will finally be able to handle the business of honoring the soldier's notes it dispensed at the end of the war. With the money earned from the notes, Daniel hopes to buy his mother's freedom as well as his own.

Meanwhile, Fatherscreft learns of a compromise proposal over slavery that he hopes will be discussed and possibly ratified at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. It would stipulate that slavery would be illegal in the North and legal in the South. However, it would also mean that a fugitive-slave law would be enacted requiring escaped slaves found in the North to be returned to their rightful owner. Fatherscreft hopes to travel to Philadelphia so he can advocate on behalf of slaves at the Convention. However, he is too sickly to travel alone, and so Fraunces asks Daniel to accompany them.



The journey from New York to Philadelphia is perilous for both individuals: for Fatherscreft because he is very ill; for Daniel, because he is a runaway slave. The two almost make it to Philadelphia without being detected. Unfortunately, Fatherscreft dies before he completes the journey. That leaves it up to Daniel to deliver the message that the Continental Congress is ready to compromise on slavery. Daniel is torn about his decision. On one hand, delivering the message means that he will remain a slave. On the other, it is Fatherscreft's dying wish that a compromise be reached on slavery for the good of the country and to stave off a Civil War. In the end, Daniel resolves to deliver the message to William Samuel Johnson, an early American statesman and eventual signer of the Constitution. Resigned to his fate, Daniel makes his way back to Ivers and gives himself up to be a slave again. However, Johnson remembers the great risks Daniel had taken to deliver the message. In return, he buys his and his mother's freedom from Ivers.

Jump Ship to Freedom is an instructive look at early colonial America at a key moment in history targeted at younger readers.