Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: Or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery - Softcover

Craft, William; Craft, Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1409932249 ISBN 13: 9781409932246

Publisher: Dodo Pr, 2009

Synopsis

Ellen Craft (c. 1826-c. 1897) was a slave in Macon, Georgia. Her mother was a slave and her father was her mother's owner. She married William Craft (c1826-1900) in 1846. In 1848, Ellen daringly decided to use her light skin to pass as white in order to travel by train and boat to the North, with William posing as her slave. In order to carry out this plan, Ellen also had to pass as male since a single white woman would not have been travelling alone with a male slave at this time. Although they encountered several close calls along the way, the plan worked. Eight days after they began in Georgia, William and Ellen arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas day, 1848. In 1850, William and Ellen went to England for fear that the Fugitive Slave Bill would end their freedom. Their narrative, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860), is one of the most compelling of the many fugitive slave narratives. The Crafts continued to make appearances abroad, and made a life there, including having four children. In 1868 they returned to the U. S. and eventually bought land in Georgia and opened an industrial school for young African Americans.

About this title

About the Author

Ellen Craft (1826–1891) and William Craft (September 25, 1824 – January 29, 1900) were slaves from Macon, Georgia in the United States who escaped to the North in December 1848 by traveling openly by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. She posed as a white male planter and he as her personal servant. Their daring escape was widely publicized, making them among the most famous of fugitive slaves. Abolitionists featured them in public lectures to gain support in the struggle to end the institution. As the light-skinned mixed-race daughter of a mulatto slave and her white master, Ellen Craft used her appearance to pass as a white man, dressed in appropriate clothing. Threatened by slave catchers in Boston after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Crafts escaped to England, where they lived for nearly two decades and reared five children. The Crafts lectured publicly about their escape. In 1860 they published a written account, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. One of the most compelling of the many slave narratives published before the American Civil War, their book reached wide audiences in Great Britain and the United States. After their return to the US in 1868, the Crafts opened an agricultural school for freedmen's children in Georgia and worked the farm until 1890. Their account was reprinted in the United States in 1999, with both the Crafts credited as authors.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dodo Pr
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1409932249
• ISBN 13: 9781409932246
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 60