The amazing, cross-dressing escape of Ellen Craft
William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom
This is the true story of the husband and wife who escaped from slavery in December 1848 by having her pass as a white man and her husband as her slave. In this fashion they made their perilous journey all the way from Georgia to Pennsylvania, and then, undisguised, to Boston with the help of Abolitionists. Eventually, they made it to England, the only safe place for former slaves at the time of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act. This excerpt describes the couple's careful preparation for their bold plan--a plan that saw Ellen cross established lines of race, gender, and class.
Now read on:
After I thought of the plan, I suggested it to my wife, but at first she shrank from the idea. She thought it was almost impossible for her to assume that disguise, and travel a distance of 1,000 miles across the slave States. However, on the other hand, she also thought of her condition. She saw that the laws under which we lived did not recognize her to be a woman, but a mere chattel, to be bought and sold, or otherwise dealt with as her owner might see fit. Therefore the more she contemplated her helpless condition, the more anxious she was to escape from it. So she said, "I think it is almost too much for us to undertake; however, I feel that God is on our side, and with his assistance, notwithstanding all the difficulties, we shall be able to succeed. Therefore, if you will purchase the disguise, I will try to carry out the plan."
But after I concluded to purchase the disguise, I was afraid to go to any one to ask him to sell me the articles. It is unlawful in Georgia for a white man to trade with slaves without the master's consent. But, notwithstanding this, many persons will sell a slave any article that he can get the money to buy. Not that they sympathize with the slave, but merely because his testimony is not admitted in court against a free white person.
Therefore, with little difficulty I went to different parts of the town, at odd times, and purchased things piece by piece (except the trousers which she found necessary to make), and took them home to the house where my wife resided. She being a ladies' maid, and a favourite slave in the family, was allowed a little room to herself; and amongst other pieces of furniture which I had made in my overtime, was a chest of drawers; so when I took the articles home, she locked them up carefully in these drawers. No one about the premises knew that she had anything of the kind.
What we love about this passage...
The narrative voice--reasonable, factual, straightforward--brilliantly contrasts with the sheer drama and sensation of the story itself. It's incredibly audacious even to think up such a plan, let alone execute it, knowing the consequences if they should fail.
This passage ends on note of scathing sarcasm: William tells us that his master reluctantly agreed to let him have a few days off, but 'he needed my services very much, and wished me to return as soon as the time granted was up. I thanked him kindly; but somehow I have not been able to make it convenient to return yet; and, as the free air of good old England agrees so well with my wife and our dear little ones, as well as with myself, it is not at all likely we shall return at present to the "peculiar institution" of chains and stripes.'
About the author
Born in Georgia into slavery, William Craft (1824-1900) and Ellen Craft (1826-1891) wrote about their daring escape to the north and, eventually, to permanent residence in England in their book Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom in 1860. An image of Ellen in her daring disguise graced the frontispiece:
The Crafts lived in England for almost twenty years and raised their five children there. The author Harriet Martineau was one of the many prominent Abolitionists who helped the Crafts, arranging for them to attend school as they had been denied an education as slaves. Almost immediately after their notorious 1848 escape, they had begun giving public lectures to tell their story and speak out against the evils of slavery; they continued to make such appearances for the rest of their lives, and the key attraction was always Ellen herself--audiences thronged to see the black woman who had passed for white, male, and upper class.
The Crafts returned to the United States in 1868, after the Civil War, and established a school in Georgia for the children of freedmen, working there until 1890.
To read alongside...
Although William's voice dominates the Crafts' story, it is Ellen who captivates most readers, just as she did the audiences who came to hear the couple's account in person. The playwright Mojisola Adebayo has written a one-woman performance Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey (2006), a re-telling of Ellen Craft’s escape that imagines her journey taking her as far as Antarctica:
https://www.blackplaysarchive.org.uk/explore/productions/moj-antarctic
The cross-dressing fugitive female slave also features in Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Other notable slave narratives include Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince; Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; and Elizabeth Keckley's (sometimes spelled Keckly) Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (you can read excerpts of both Prince and Keckley's narratives on The Ten Minute Book Club: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ten-minute-book-club)
More recently, Colson Whitehead has re-imagined the harrowing escape of runaway slaves in his novel The Underground Railroad (2016), which won, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Whitehead uses a blend of magical realism and historical fiction to consider the incredible feats of courage that took place in the antebellum Southern United States, as well as imagining the experiences of enslaved individuals that have been lost.
[The curators wish to thank Nicholas Perkins and Faith Binckes for drawing our attention to Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.]
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