The Freedom Trek of Ellen and William Craft

Justifying the Unjustifiable

In July 2023, Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said that Black people benefitted from slavery by learning skills. Surprisingly, many slaves failed to appreciate how fortunate they were in being able to master life lessons, such as:

• Being crammed into overcrowded hovels;
• Toiling all day in fields under a broiling sun;
• Enduring the pain of a branding and whipping; and,
• Submitting to the sexual assaults of their owners.

Many ungrateful slaves turned their backs on these opportunities and joined revolts or tried to run away. Ellen and William Craft were among those who made a break for freedom.

Slaves for Sale

William Craft was born into slavery in 1824 in Macon, Georgia. Ellen Craft was born two years later; her mother was a slave and her father, Major James Smith, was a white slave owner.

In common with many slaves, William was separated from his family as he was sold to another owner. He also had to watch as his 14-year-old sister was sold at auction.

He later wrote that being traded like cattle “sent red-hot indignation darting like lightning through every vein. It quenched my tears, and appeared to set my brain on fire, and made me crave for power to avenge our wrongs!”

Ellen was light-skinned and was sometimes mistaken as a member of Smith's family. Displeased by this, the plantation owner's wife sent Ellen away, at the age of 11, as a wedding present to her daughter who lived in Macon.

William and Ellen met, fell in love, and were given permission to marry by their separate owners. They determined not to have children only to see them ripped away from them and enslaved.

The Escape Plot

William was one of DeSantis's fortunate slaves as he learned the trade of cabinet making. He was even allowed to keep some of the money he earned from his craft. Ellen was a house slave who enjoyed more privileges than field slaves.

Together, the couple hatched a daring escape plot. Ellen, who could pass for being white, disguised herself as a male plantation owner, while William played the part of “his” faithful servant.

In secret, Ellen sewed up a pair of pants, and donned a top hat and spectacles that William had quietly bought. She also took on the persona of a sickly person by putting her right arm in a sling and bandaging much of her face to cover up her lack of facial hair. As she could neither read nor write, the sling provided a plausible excuse for her inability to sign her name if required. She walked with a limp and feigned deafness to avoid conversations.

The story being that “he” was heading north for treatment.

As trusted slaves, their owners granted them permission for a few days leave just before Christmas in 1848. This gave them a little time before their absence would be noticed.

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The Journey to Freedom

On the morning of December 21, 1848, they boarded a train in Macon heading for Savannah. Their escape almost ended in disaster before the train left. A friend of Ellen's enslaver sat down next to her and she would surely have been recognized had she not kept her face towards the window and her “deafness” not precluded conversations.

At Savannah, they boarded a steamer headed for Charleston, South Carolina. From there, it was another steamer to Wilmington, North Carolina. Then, there were more trains and more steamers until they reached Baltimore on December 24.

Once again, their flight was almost exposed. An official told Ellen “he” must sign documents proving his ownership of his slave in order for William to travel into Pennsylvania, a non-slave state.

They were saved when the conductor of the train that got them to Baltimore vouched for them. The official had a quandary, saying “I really don't know what to do; I calculate it is all right ... As he [Ellen] is not well, it is a pity to stop him here. We will let him go.”

They boarded the train for Philadelphia and freedom.

The Fugitive Slave Act

Imagine, if you can, the feeling of elation the Crafts must have felt as they stepped off the train in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. William Craft wrote that he “felt that the straps that bound the heavy burden to my back began to pop, and the load to roll off.”

They were free, no longer oppressed by the degrading ignominy of not being recognized as human. They had marketable skills with which they could build their lives together. (Maybe, DeSantis is right. No, he emphatically isn't.)

The couple stayed with abolitionist Bradley Ivens who advised them to keep moving north. So, they travelled to Boston where anti-slavery sentiments were high. William found employment as a cabinet maker and Ellen as a seamstress. Together, they learned to read and write.

But then, in September 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. This allowed slave owners to capture any of their possessions that had escaped to free states and return them to bondage.

Once again, the Crafts had to flee; this time to England, where they lived for 20 years. They raised five children and spoke against slavery.

At the Great Exhibition of 1851 they appeared arm-in-arm with abolitionist William Wells Brown. Another anti-slavery campaigner, William Farmer, wrote that “This arrangement was purposely made in order that there might be no appearance of patronizing the fugitives, but that it might be shown that we regarded them as our equals, and honored them for their heroic escape from Slavery.”

In 1860, they published their account of their escape, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. Through their book they said they hoped to build “a deeper abhorrence of the sinful and abominable practice of enslaving and brutifying our fellow-creatures.”

Following the abolition of slavery, they returned to the United States in the 1870s. In 1873, they opened the Woodville Co-operative Farm School in Georgia to educate freed slaves.

Bonus Factoids

• North Carolina's Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, a Black man, has written that “slavery is not bad” and “some people need to be slaves ... I would certainly buy a few.”
• Trent Franks, formerly a Republican Member of the House of Representatives, said in 2010 that “Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery.”
• In 2012, Loy Mauch, Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives said “If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?”
• Historian Paul Ham writes in The Conversation that “all mainstream Christian denominations were deeply involved in the slave trade, as were the main branches of Islam ... How could this be possible? The answer is rooted in a grotesque misuse of the very words of the Bible. Of the many ways that Christians have invoked the Bible to justify their actions, none has exceeded in cruelty and willful ignorance their appropriation of the 'Curse of Ham' to justify slavery. Ham ... was the youngest son of the Biblical patriarch Noah. When Ham saw his father drunk and naked, Noah felt so humiliated that he put a curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, condemning his descendants to perpetual slavery.” See Genesis 9:24-25.

Sources

• “DeSantis Says Black People Benefited From Slavery by Learning Skills Like 'Being a Blacksmith.' ” Kenneth Niemeyer, Business Insider, July 23, 2023.
• “ 'A Desperate Leap for Liberty': The Escape of William and Ellen Craft.” National Park Service, undated.
• “The Great Escape From Slavery of Ellen and William Craft.” Marian Smith Holmes, Smithsonian Magazine, June 16, 2010.
• “William and Ellen Craft.” Barbara McCaskill, New Georgia Encyclopedia, July 17, 2020.
• “The ‘Curse of Ham’: How People of Faith Used a Story in Genesis to Justify Slavery.” Paul Ham, The Conversation, March 12, 2024.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2024 Rupert Taylor