Other editions of book Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom

Ellen et William Craft (1826–1891 et 1824-1900) étaient un couple d'esclaves américains qui parvinrent à fuir leur condition en 1848, en gagnant d'abord le Nord des États-Unis puis l'Angleterre, après le renforcement de la loi sur les esclaves fugitifs en 1850. Les conditions spectaculaires de leur évasion, à l'occasion de laquelle Ellen se fit passer pour un homme blanc et William pour son esclave, leur assurèrent une renommée immédiate.

Ellen Craft and William Craft were slaves from Macon, Georgia 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.

Ellen Craft and William Craft were slaves from Macon, Georgia 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.

== Special Edition for Low Vision Readers ==This is the harrowing and painful true story of William and Ellen Craft, a married couple who escaped slavery in 1848.About Super Large PrintAll our books are published with a font designed for maximum readability at twice the size of traditional Large Print books. You can see a sample of Super Large Print atsuperlargeprint.comKEEP ON READING!

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Ellen Craft and William Craft were slaves in Macon, Georgia in the United States. With great daring and courage they escaped to the North in December 1848. Their incredible escape was widely publicised, making them among the most famous of fugitive slaves. Abolitionists featured to gain support in the struggle to end the institution in the United States. The Crafts themselves had to move to England for twenty years where they wrote and published their story. In 1868 it was safe enough for them to return to Georgia in 1868 and opened an agricultural school for freedmen's children in Georgia.

In 1848 William and Ellen Craft made one of the most daring and remarkable escapes in the history of slavery in America. With fair-skinned Ellen in the guise of a white male planter and William posing as her servant, the Crafts traveled by rail and ship--in plain sight and relative luxury--from bondage in Macon, Georgia, to freedom first in Philadelphia, then Boston, and ultimately England.This edition of their thrilling story is newly typeset from the original 1860 text. Eleven annotated supplementary readings, drawn from a variety of contemporary sources, help to place the Crafts’ story within the complex cultural currents of transatlantic abolitionism.

In Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860), William Craft recounts the circumstances under which he and his wife escaped from slavery. His account also relates incidents that portray the evils of slavery, including its negative effects on slaveholders, white children sold into slavery, and other slaves. Craft offers tales of cruelty to show that "he who has the power, and is inhuman enough to trample upon the sacred rights of the weak, cares nothing for race or colour," suggesting that slavery is a product of sadism and not necessarily racial prejudice. To prove this point, Craft recounts the tale of Salomé. Muller, a white German girl sold into slavery in New Orleans after her father's death left her and her sister orphaned. Craft also references other accounts of white children stolen or sold into slavery who later obtained their freedom by either running away or being recognized. The Crafts' story begins with Ellen's experience as a daughter of a slaveholder and a slave. Her father's wife was unhappy that Ellen was thought to be one of her own children, so to distance herself from her husband's illegitimate slave child, she gave Ellen as a gift to her daughter (Ellen's half-sister). This kind sister retained legal possession of Ellen until the couple ran away. Craft's own master, on the other hand, sold off his entire family at different periods to finance outstanding debts. Fortunately, because Craft had already been apprenticed to a cabinet maker, his new master, a cashier at the bank who assumed rights to him, allowed him to continue his trade and earn money for his new master. Throughout the narrative, William quotes sections of law regarding slaves. These excerpts highlight the justifications Southerners made to keep slavery legal and explains why the Crafts were so eager to escape to the North even though neither experienced the extreme physical abuse characteristic of plantation life. Craft introduces a family known as the Slators, whose individual family members were forced into extra-marital relationships and separated from one another before escaping and buying one another's freedom. Determined not to allow any slave owner the opportunity to sell her children, Ellen decides not to have any children while she remains a slave, and this decision strengthens her desire to escape from slavery. Craft tells of struggling for years to find some way to escape before finally coming up with a promising plan: "Knowing slaveholders have the privilege of taking their slaves to any part of the country they think proper, it occurred to me that, as my wife was nearly white, I might get her to disguise herself as an invalid gentleman, and assume to be my master, while I could attend as his slave, and that in this manner we might effect our escape". At first Ellen struggles with the idea. If they were caught, they would be separated and punished, maybe even killed. Yet her desire for freedom overcomes her fears, and Ellen agrees. The pair begins assembling her disguise and arrange with their owners for a period of leave so that they will not be immediately missed. In order to carry out their escape, Ellen dresses as a man with one arm in a poultice sling to avoid having to write, which she has never learned to do, and another sling tied about her face to disguise her beardless and feminine features. On the night of their escape, William recounts that Ellen was so afraid that she burst into tears, before finally working up the courage to proceed.

William and Ellen Craft were fugitive slaves who escaped to the north of the USA in December 1848. Ellen passed as white and disguised herself as a male slave owner with her husband posing as her man-servant. They succeeded in reaching Canada and eventually England, having evaded all attempts to capture them. This is their remarkable, inspiring and uplifting story.

Husband and wife William and Ellen Craft's break from slavery in 1848 was perhaps the most extraordinary in American history. Numerous newspaper reports in the United States and abroad told of how the two -- fair-skinned Ellen disguised as a white slave master and William posing as her servant -- negotiated heart-pounding brushes with discovery while fleeing Macon, Georgia, for Philadelphia and eventually Boston. No account, though, conveyed the ingenuity, daring, good fortune, and love that characterized their flight for freedom better than the couple's own version, published in 1860, a remarkable authorial accomplishment only twelve years beyond illiteracy. Now their stirring first-person narrative and Richard Blackett's excellent interpretive pieces are brought together in one volume to tell the complete story of the Crafts. Ellen Craft (1826–1891) and William Craft (1824–1900) 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 passed 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 quadroon daughter of a mulatto slave and her white master, Ellen Craft used her appearance to pass as a white man, dressed in male clothing, during their escape. As prominent fugitives, they were threatened by slave catchers in Boston after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, so the Crafts emigrated to England. They lived there 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. THE BOOK: Their book provides a unique view of race, gender, and class in the 19th century. It offers examples of racial passing, cross-dressing, and middle-class "performance" in a society in which each of these boundaries was thought to be distinct and stable. While originally published with only William's name as author, twentieth-century and more recent scholarship has re-evaluated Ellen's likely contribution, noting the inclusion of material about Sally Miller and other women slaves. Reprints since the 1990s have listed both the Crafts as authors. Their escape, and particularly Ellen's disguise, which played on so many layers of appearance and identity, showed the interlocking nature of race, gender, and class. Ellen had to "perform" successfully in all three arenas simultaneously for the couple to travel undetected. Since only William's narrative voice tells their joint story in the book, critics say it is suggestive of how difficult it was for a black woman to find a public voice, although she was bold in action. Brusky says that, in the way that she used wrappings to "muffle" her during the escape to avoid conversation, Ellen in the book is presented through the filter of William's perspective. Historians and readers cannot evaluate how much Ellen contributed to the recounting of their story, but audiences appreciated seeing the young woman who had been so daring. On one occasion, a newspaper notes, there was "considerable disappointment" when Ellen Craft was absent. Since they appeared over a period of 10 years, as William recounted their escape, they could respond to audiences' reactions to Ellen in person and to hearing of her actions. It is likely their published account reflects her influence.

"Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom" chronicles the daring escape of William and Ellen Craft which is often known as the most ingenious plot in fugitive slave history. While Ellen posed as a white male planter William, her husband, posed as her personal servant. The couple cleverly travelled by train and steamboat, escaped nail-biting detection and arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Excerpt: "It is a common practice in the slave States for ladies, when angry with their maids, to send them to the calybuce sugar-house, or to some other place established for the purpose of punishing slaves, and have them severely flogged; and I am sorry it is a fact, that the villains to whom those defenceless creatures are sent, not only flog them as they are ordered, but frequently compel them to submit to the greatest indignity." William Craft (1824–1900) and Ellen Craft (1826–1891) were slaves from Macon, Georgia in the United States who escaped to the North in December 1848. Their daring escape was widely publicized, making them among the most famous of fugitive slaves in America. But due to the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 they had to immigrate to Britain for safety where they continued to garner support for the abolishment of slavery.

Ellen Craft and William Craft were slaves from Macon, Georgia 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.