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Ellen and William Craft (Ellen and William Craft - Wikipedia)Hollywood cannot compete with the true life adventures of William and Ellen Crafts- one of the most imaginative plots to ever come out of the Antebellum South.“For I had much rather starve in England, a free woman, than be a slave for the best man that ever breathed upon the American Continent.”[1]Most runaway slaves fled to freedom in the dead of night, often pursued by barking bloodhounds and bounty hunters. A few fugitives, such as Henry “Box” Brown who mailed himself north in a wooden crate, devised clever ruses or stowed away on ships and wagons.[2] One of the most ingenious escapes was that of a married couple from Georgia, Ellen and William Craft, who traveled in first-class trains, dined with a steamboat captain and stayed in the best hotels during their escape to Philadelphia and freedom in 1848.Ellen, a quadroon with very fair skin, disguised herself as a young white cotton planter traveling with her slave (William). It was William who came up with the scheme to hide in plain sight, but ultimately it was Ellen who convincingly masked her race, her gender and her social status during their four-day trip.[3] Despite the luxury accommodations, the journey was fraught with narrow escapes and heart-in-the-mouth moments that could have led to their discovery and capture. Courage, quick thinking, luck and “our Heavenly Father,” sustained them, the Crafts said in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, the book they wrote in 1860 chronicling the escape.[4]Ellen Craft 1846 (Ellen Craft: The Master of Disguise)Ellen and William lived in Macon, Georgia, and were owned by different masters. Born in 1826, as a child, Ellen, the offspring of her first master, Major James Smith and Maria a slave of African descent and European ancestry,[5] had frequently been mistaken for a member of his white family. Much annoyed by the situation, Smith's wife sent 11-year-old Ellen to her daughter in Macon as a wedding present in 1837, where she served as a ladies maid.[6]William Craft was forced to endure an entirely different upbringing. Throughout his childhood, William Craft’s masters regularly ripped his family apart by selling his parents and siblings. One master once sold William and his sister to separate slave owners.[7] William once recalled:“My old master had the reputation of being a very humane and Christian man, but he thought nothing of selling my poor old father, and dear aged mother, at separate times, to different persons, to be dragged off never to behold each other again, till summoned to appear before the great tribunal of heaven.”[8]Put up for auction at age 16 to help settle his master’s debts, William had become the property of a local bank cashier, Ira H. Taylor.[9] A skilled cabinetmaker, William, continued to work at the shop where he had apprenticed, and his new owner collected most of his wages. Craft’s new owner permitted William to hire himself out as a carpenter, and was allowed to keep earnings over $220 annually.[10] In time these meager earnings would prove to come in handy. Minutes before being sold on the auction block, William had witnessed the sale of his frightened, tearful 14-year-old sister.[11] His parents and brother had met the same fate and were scattered throughout the SouthJumping the Broom: 8 Historical Facts You Need to Know About This Wedding TraditionA twist of fate, and his impressive carpentry skills, eventually brought William and Ellen together. Denied the opportunity to marry[12] , in 1838, the couple “jumped the broom,” which was an African ceremony that consecrated the couple’s commitment to one another in secrecy.[13] Having experienced brutal family separations, the couple despaired over having children, fearing they would be torn away from them. “The mere thought,” William later wrote of his wife’s distress, “filled her soul with horror.”[14]Pondering various escape plans to Philadelphia, William, knowing that slaveholders could take their slaves to any state, slave or free, decided upon the idea of fair-complexioned Ellen passing herself off as his master—a wealthy young white man because it was not customary for women to travel with male servants.[15] Initially Ellen panicked at the idea but was gradually won over. Because they were “favourite slaves,”[16] the couple had little trouble obtaining passes from their masters for a few days leave at Christmastime, giving them some days to be missing without raising the alarm.[17]Figures of Ellen and William Craft presented at the University of Pittsburgh’s Free At Last?: Slavery in Pittsburgh in the 18th and 19th Centuries Exhibition, October 25, 2008-April 5, 2009.Before setting out on December 21, 1848, William cut Ellen’s hair to neck length. She improved on the deception by putting her right arm in a sling, which would prevent hotel clerks and others from expecting “him” to sign a registry or other papers.[18] Georgia law prohibited teaching slaves to read or write, so neither Ellen nor William could do either.[19] Refining the invalid disguise, Ellen asked William to wrap bandages around much of her face, hiding her smooth skin and beardless chin, giving her a reason to limit conversation with strangers.[20] She wore a pair of men’s trousers that she herself had sewed, completing her disguise with a pair of green-tinted spectacles to hide her eyes and a top hat[21] They knelt and prayed and took “a desperate leap for liberty.”[22]Woodcutting of Ellen Craft in disguise as a white, male plantation owner (Ellen and William Craft - Wikipedia)At the Macon train station, Ellen purchased tickets to Savannah, 200 miles away. As William took a place in the “negro car,” he spotted the owner of the cabinetmaking shop on the platform.[23] After questioning the ticket seller, the man began peering through the windows of the cars. William turned his face from the window and shrank in his seat, expecting the worst. The man searched the car Ellen was in but never gave the bandaged invalid a second glance.[24] Just as he approached William’s car, the bell clanged and the train lurched off.Ellen, who had been staring out the window, discovered that her seat mate was a dear friend of her master, a recent dinner guest who had known Ellen for years.[25] Her first thought was that he had been sent to retrieve her, but the wave of fear soon passed when he greeted her with “It is a very fine morning, sir.”[26] To avoid talking to him, Ellen feigned deafness for the next several hours.The Charleston Hotel 1840 (Former hotels of Charleston | CHStoday)In Savannah, the fugitives boarded a steamer for Charleston, South Carolina.[27] Over breakfast the next morning, the friendly captain marveled at the young master’s “very attentive boy” and warned him to beware “cut-throat abolitionists” in the North who would encourage William to run away.[28] A slave trader on board offered to buy William and take him to the Deep South, and a military officer scolded the invalid for saying “thank you” to his slave.[29] In an overnight stay at the best hotel in Charleston, the solicitous staff treated the ailing traveler with upmost care, giving him a fine room and a good table in the dining room.Trying to buy steamer tickets from South Carolina to Philadelphia, Ellen and William hit a snag when the ticket seller objected to signing the names of the young gentleman and his slave even after seeing the injured arm.[30] In an effort to prevent white abolitionists from taking slaves out of the South, slaveholders had to prove that the slaves traveling with them were indeed their property. Sometimes travelers were detained for days trying to prove ownership. As the surly ticket seller reiterated his refusal to sign by jamming his hands in his pockets, providence prevailed: The genial captain happened by, vouched for the planter and his slave and signed their names.[31]Baltimore, the last major stop before Pennsylvania, a free state, had a particularly vigilant border patrol.[32] Ellen and William were again detained, asked to leave the train and report to the authorities for verification of ownership.“We shan’t let you go,” an officer said with finality. “We felt as though we had come into deep waters and were about being overwhelmed,” William recounted, and returned “to the dark and horrible pit of misery.” Ellen and William silently prayed as the officer stood his ground. Suddenly the jangling of the departure bell shattered the quiet. The officer, clearly agitated, scratched his head. Surveying the sick traveler’s bandages, he said to a clerk, “he is not well, it is a pity to stop him.” Tell the conductor to “let this gentleman and slave pass.”[33]Philadelphia, Pennslyvania (1840's pictures)The Crafts arrived in Philadelphia the next morning—Christmas Day 1848. As they left the station, Ellen burst into tears, crying out, “Thank God, William, we’re safe!”[34]The comfortable coaches and cabins notwithstanding, it had been an emotionally harrowing journey, especially for Ellen as she kept up the multilayered deception. From making excuses for not partaking of brandy and cigars with the other gentleman to worrying that slavers had kidnapped William, her nerves were frayed to the point of exhaustion.[35] At a Virginia railway station, a woman had even mistaken William for her runaway slave and demanded that he come with her.[36]Abolitionists approached William at various stops, advising him to “leave that cripple and have your liberty”.[37] Another free African American man on the train to Philadelphia urged him to take refuge in a boarding house run by abolitionists.[38] Through it all Ellen and William maintained their roles, never revealing anything of themselves to the strangers except a loyal slave and kind master.Upon their arrival in Philadelphia, Ellen and William were quickly given assistance and lodging by the underground abolitionist network. They received a reading lesson their very first day in the city.[39] Three weeks later, they moved to Boston,[40] where William resumed work as a cabinetmaker and Ellen became a seamstress.After two years, in 1850, slave hunters arrived in Boston intent on returning them to Georgia.[41] Legally, both William and Ellen were still fugitives, and were in great danger when the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, part of the Compromise of 1850, law enforcement in non-slave states had an obligation to apprehend escaped slaves, including the Crafts.[42]U.S. Marshal's Return of Writ to Apprehend William CraftA civil case began in 1850 concerning the Craft's escape from slavery. A man named John Knight swore in affidavits that he knew William Craft as Ira H. Taylor's slave and Ellen Craft as Robert Collin's slave in Georgia.[43] The Massachusetts law enforcement and courts would have to send William and Ellen back to Macon.The court issued this warrant to find and capture William Craft, a “fugitive from labor,” with the intention of returning him to Georgia.[44] The Census of 1850 shows the Crafts living in freedom at the home of Lewis Hayden in Massachusetts.In 1850, a deputy U.S. Marshall sought them out at Hayden’s home. William and fellow black activist Lewis Hayden met them at the door of Hayden’s house, threatening to blow them all up with dynamite if they crossed the threshold.[45] It goes without comment, the U.S. Marshall departed.According to the warrant issued following this incident, “the complaintant [in the case] didn’t want the [original] warrant returned as he was “informed that the said Crafts [were still] in…this city.” However, within a few weeks the U.S. Marshall of Massachusetts reported: “I have made diligent search for…William Craft, and cannot find him…”[46]U.S. Marshal's Return of Writ to Apprehend William CraftThe Crafts fled once again, this time to England. They traveled from Portland Maine to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they boarded the Cambria, bound for Liverpool. As William later recounted in their memoir, "It was not until we stepped ashore at Liverpool that we were free from every slavish fear".[47] Upon arrival, they were aided in England by a group of prominent abolitionists, including Harriet Martineau. She arranged for their intensive schooling at the village school in Ockham, Surrey.[48]The Crafts eventually gave birth to five children, [49] while residing in Hammersmith, England.[50] Throughout the next twenty years, Ellen participated in reform organizations such as the London Emancipation Committee, the Women's Suffrage Organization, and the British and Foreign Freedmen's Society.[51] The couple supported themselves by presenting public lectures about slave conditions in the United States and their subsequent escape. William attempted to set up a carpentry business again, but they still struggled financially.[52]Ellen Craft 1874 (Ellen Craft: The Master of Disguise)After the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, Ellen located her mother Maria in Georgia, paying her passage to England.[53] In 1868, William, Ellen, Maria and three of their children returned to the states.With funds raised from supporters, in 1870 the Craft's purchased 1800 acres of land in near Savannah in Bryan County, Georgia.[54] There they founded the Woodville Co-operative Farm School in 1873 for the education and employment of freedmen.[55] In 1876, William Craft was charged with misuse of funds, and he lost a libel case in 1878 in which he tried to clear his name.[56] The school closed soon after. Although the Crafts tried to keep the farm running, dropping cotton prices and post-Reconstruction era violence contributed to its failure.[57]Charleston, South Carolina: The grave of abolitionist William Craft - Sacred Ground, Sacred HistoryIn 1890, the Crafts returned to Charleston, South Carolina to live with their daughter Ellen, married at the time to Dr. William D. Crum, appointed Collector of the Port of Charleston by President Theodore Roosevelt.[58] The elder Ellen Craft died in 1891, and, at her request, was buried under her favorite tree on their land.[59] William passed nine years later on January 29, 1900.[60]Footnotes[1] Ellen Craft: The Master of Disguise[2] The Narrative of Henry Box Brown (1849)[3] ellen craft quadroon - Google Search[4] RUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOM[5] How Ellen Craft and Her Husband William Escaped Enslavement[6] Ellen Craft: The Master of Disguise[7] Meet The Slave Who Disguised Herself As A White Man To Flee To Freedom[8] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/pesquisa/DetalheObraDownload.do%3Fselect_action%3D%26co_obra%3D11883%26co_midia%3D2&ved=2ahUKEwjai_Tgp5XnAhVIbs0KHQjYB38QFjABegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw150uuGpgcK-XGpAmKL4Bfa&cshid=1579630942741[9] I Was Born a Slave[10] Craft, William (1824-1900), runaway slave and abolitionist lecturer | American National Biography[11] Craft, William (1824-1900), runaway slave and abolitionist lecturer | American National Biography[12] Opinion | Slavery Denied Legal Marriage to Blacks[13] Here's the tangled history behind why some couples jump over a broom at their wedding[14] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/pesquisa/DetalheObraDownload.do%3Fselect_action%3D%26co_obra%3D11883%26co_midia%3D2&ved=2ahUKEwjai_Tgp5XnAhVIbs0KHQjYB38QFjABegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw150uuGpgcK-XGpAmKL4Bfa&cshid=1579630942741 [15] The Great Escape From Slavery of Ellen and William Craft[16] Disguise Leads To Freedom For Former Slaves[17] Q&A With Barbara McCaskill About Ellen and William Craft[18] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Daring-Escape-Ellen-Craft-History/dp/0876147872&ved=2ahUKEwia7prjqpXnAhX4Ap0JHYRHBTAQFjASegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw3FeS_uKvg77vkzXXx7cbRx&cshid=1579631999012[19] This Day in Georgia History[20] Ellen's Disguise - History by the Slice[21] Ellen's Disguise - History by the Slice[22] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[23] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.scadmoa.org/sites/moa/files/2019-07/The-Crafts-lesson-plan.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwia7prjqpXnAhX4Ap0JHYRHBTAQFjARegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw0ZpcuvyfmMqZGUSfMIf5Eh&cshid=1579631999012[24] Ellen and William Craft, slaves who escaped to freedom - African American Registry[25] Aboard the Underground Railroad--William Ingersoll Bowditch House[26] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[27] Craft and Crum Family Papers Link Charleston and England[28] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[29] Avery Research Center acquired 1860 first-edition slave escape narrative[30] One of the most remarkable escapes from slavery: The story of Ellen and William Craft[31] The Great Escape From Slavery of Ellen and William Craft[32] A bitter Inner Harbor legacy: the slave trade[33] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[34] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[35] "A Complication of Complaints": Untangling Disability, Race, and Gender in William and Ellen Craft's Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom[36] Fascinating life of escaped slave Ellen Craft at James Library in Norwell[37] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[38] How the Abolitionist Movement Became a Force In America[39] How Ellen Craft learned how to read and write[40] William and Ellen Craft[41] Fascinating life of escaped slave Ellen Craft at James Library in Norwell[42] Fugitive Slave Act 1850[43] John Knight's Affidavit Confirming He Knew William Craft as Ira H. Taylor's Slave[44] U.S. Marshal's Return of Writ to Apprehend William Craft[45] Oh Freedom! William and Ellen Craft’s Escape from Slavery and Continued Search for Freedom[46] U.S. Marshal's Return of Writ to Apprehend William Craft[47] William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery.[48] Lakeland Meetings: the Crafts and Harriet Martineau[49] Georgia Women[50] William and Ellen Craft[51] The Profits and the Perils of Partnership in the "Thrilling" Saga of William and Ellen Craft[52] http://Magnusson, Magnus (2006), Fakers, Forgers & Phoneys, Mainstream Publishing,[53] One of the most remarkable escapes from slavery: The story of Ellen and William Craft[54] Ellen Butler Craft (1826-1891) - Find A Grave...[55] https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/william-and-ellen-craft-1824-1900-1826-1891%3famp[56] The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison[57] People and Politics After the Civil War[58] William Demosthenes Crum: Caused an Uproar When Appointed Collector of Customs in Charleston, SC[59] Ellen and William Craft Make a “Crafty” Escape from Slavery[60] One of the most remarkable escapes from slavery: The story of Ellen and William Craft