Smaller battles were fought against slavery by ships and ship owners of the day. The Charles W Morgan was a whaling bark of the period. Her owners just prior to the Civil War and in deed at leats one of her captians were Quaker abolishionists. They carried more then one runanway slave on whaling voyages in the decade leading up to this Civil War. This was no small rick, as they most likely would have been jailed for aiding a runaway - if they'd been caught. Of course for the runaway, he'd be out of sight and therefore unlikely to be captured for the 3 years or so of the journey. Additionlly, he would have found a level of equality he had not known on land - he would have risen to positons on board that his skills and work ethic qualified him for. In fact, one of the early harpoon heads was invented by Lewis Temple, a 'negro' boatsteerer and whaling craft maker. The boatsteerer was the fellow who started the kill, threw the harpoon - and this was s skilled position.

I'm curious about how many runaway African slaves worked on whaler and other ships.