How did ellen craft die
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"A Desperate Leap for Liberty": The Escape of William and Ellen Craft
Footnotes
[1] William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery (337 Strand, London: William Tweedie, 1860), https://archive.org/details/runningthousandm00craf/page/88/mode/2up?q=may, 13, 2, 16, 27, 29.
Image: William Still, Still's Underground Rail Road Records: With a Life of the Author. Narrating the Hardships, Hairbreadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom (United States: William Still, 1886), https://www.google.com/books/edition/Still_s_Underground_Rail_Road_Records/KD9LAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover, 368.
[2] Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, 29, 30, 31.
Image: Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.
[3] Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, 41, 42, 43-45; “The Crafts: An Extraordinary Path to Freedom,” The Savannah College for Arts and Design, https://www.scadmoa.org/sites/moa/files/2019-07/The-Crafts-lesson-plan.pdf; Marion Smith Holmes, “The Great Escap
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Ellen and William Craft
American fugitive slaves and abolitionists
Ellen Craft (1826–1891) and William Craft (September 25, 1824 – January 29, 1900) were American abolitionists who were born into slavery in Macon, Georgia. They escaped to the Northern United States in December 1848 by traveling by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Ellen crossed the boundaries of race, class, and gender by passing as a white planter with William posing as her servant. Their escape was widely publicized, making them among the most famous fugitive slaves in the United States. Abolitionists featured them in public lectures to gain support in the struggle to end the institution.
As prominent fugitives, they were threatened by slave catchers in Boston after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, so the Crafts emigrated to England. They lived there for nearly two decades and raised five children. The Crafts lectured publicly about their escape and opposed the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. In 1860, they published a written ac
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Freedom seeker William Craft notably escaped slavery by acting as the enslaved man of his wife Ellen Craft, who disguised herself as a sickly, White gentleman.
Growing up enslaved in Georgia, Craft experienced the painful separation of his family. He recalled the irony that his enslaver "had the reputation of being a very humane and Christian man," however, "thought nothing of selling my poor old father, and dear aged mother, at separate times, to different persons, to be dragged off never to behold each other again."1 After selling Craft's parents, his enslaver sold three more of William's siblings. Due to his enslaver's financial issues, the bank took ownership of William (age 16) and his sister (age 14) and sent them to auction.2 Having been refused the opportunity to say goodbye to his sister, Craft recalled watching "tears trickling down her cheeks" as her enslaver took her away.3
While enslaved, William Craft worked as an apprentice to a cabinetmaker, building his craftsmanship skills that would help him later in life. Craft soon met Ellen Smith, an enslaved woman wi
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