The Arctic transpolar sea ice drift speed shows a pronounced increase over past decades, one of many manifestations of Arctic climate change. However, little is known so far how the drift changed in earlier periods. Here I use data from historical drift expeditions, in particular from the <em>Fram</em> in 1893–96, the <em>Sedov</em> in 1937–40, the <em>Tara</em> in 2007–08, and the <em>Polarstern</em> during MOSAiC in 2019–20, as well as from the Soviet/Russian North Pole drift stations, to derive a 130-year record of Arctic transpolar drift speed. The transpolar drift speed already increased significantly during the early 20<sup>th</sup> century warming, followed by a period of slowing drift in the 1950s–70s and a strong increase in recent decades, closely following the evolution of Arctic mean temperatures. The observed fractal scaling of the drifts can be explained quantitatively by a Brownian motion random walk process that includes temporal auto-correlation and a mean drift term due to currents and prevailing winds. Comparisons of the sea ice drift speeds with near surface wind observations reveal that the long-term changes in drift speed are not primarily caused by changes in wind speed.