Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom

The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery
Husband and wife William and Ellen Craft’s break from slavery in 1848 was perhaps the most extraordinary in American history. No account conveyed the ingenuity, daring, good fortune, and love that characterized their flight for freedom better than the couple’s own version, published in 1860.
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 a