DOC In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional by Richard Lee in History

Description

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.