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 account of their escape titled 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 Civil War, their book reached wide audiences in the United Kingdom and the United States. After their return to the U. S. in 1868, the Crafts opened an agricultural school in Georgia for freedmen's children. They worked at the school and its farm until 1890. Their account was reprinted in the United States in 1999, with both the Crafts credited as authors.

Ellen Craft was born in 1826 in Clinton, Georgia, to Maria, a mixed race enslaved woman, and her wealthy planter owner, Major James Smith. At least three quarters European by ancestry, Ellen was very fair skinned and resembled her white half siblings, who were her enslaver's legitimate children. Smith's wife gave the 11 year old Ellen as a wedding gift to her daughter, Eliza Cromwell Smith, to get the girl out of the household and remove the evidence of her husband's infidelity. Ellen grew up as a house servant to Eliza, which gave her privileged access to information about the area. William was born in Macon, where he met his future wife at the age of 16 when his first enslaver sold him to settle gambling debts. Before he was sold, William witnessed his 14 year old sister and his parents being separated by sales to different owners. William's new enslaver apprenticed him as a carpenter and allowed him to work for fees, taking most of his earnings.

At age 20, Ellen married William Craft, in whom her enslaver Collins held a half interest. Craft saved money from being hired out in town as a carpenter.

Ellen planned to take advantage of her appearance to pass as white while the pair traveled by train and boat to the North; she dressed as a man since, at the time, it was not customary for a white woman to travel alone with an enslaved man. She also faked illness to limit conversation, as she was prevented from learning to read and write with the threat of death because she was enslaved. William was to act as a personal servant. During that time, enslaved people frequently accompanied their enslavers during travel, so the Crafts did not expect to be questioned. To their surprise, they were detained, but only temporarily. An officer had demanded proof that William was indeed Ellen's property. They were finally let on the train due to sympathy from passengers and the conductor. Their escape is known as the most ingenious plot in fugitive slave history, even more ingenious than that of "Henry Box Brown." She wore her right arm in a sling to hide the fact that she could not write. They traveled to nearby Macon for a train to Savannah. Although the Crafts had several close calls, they successfully avoided detection. On December 21, they boarded a steamship for Philadelphia, in the free state of Pennsylvania, where they arrived early on the morning of Christmas Day. Their innovation was in escaping as a pair, though Ellen's bravery and genius made their escape successful. Historians have noted other enslaved women who posed as men to escape, such as Clarissa Davis of Virginia, who dressed as a man and took a New England bound ship to freedom; Mary Millburn, who also sailed as a male passenger; and Maria Weems from the District of Columbia, who as a young woman of fifteen, dressed as a man and escaped. Soon after the Crafts arrived in the North, abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and William Wells Brown encouraged them to recount their escape in public lectures to abolitionist circles in New England. They moved to the well established free black community on the north side of Beacon Hill in Boston, Audiences were intensely curious about the young woman who had been bold in the escape. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which increased penalties for aiding fugitive slaves and required residents and law enforcement of free states to cooperate in capturing and returning formerly enslaved people to their owners. The act provided a reward to officers and simplified the process by which people might be certified as enslaved people, requiring little documentation from slave catchers. Commissioners appointed to hear such cases were paid more for ruling that a person was enslaved than not. A month after the new law took effect, Collins sent two bounty hunters to Boston to capture the Crafts. Willis H. Hughes and John Knight traveled north from Macon intending to capture William and Ellen Craft; upon arriving in Boston, they were met with resistance on the part of both white and black Bostonians. Abolitionists in Boston had formed the biracial Boston Vigilance Committee to resist the new Slave Bill; its members protected the Crafts by moving them around various "safe houses", such as the Tappan Philbrick house in the nearby town of Brookline, until they could leave the country. The two bounty hunters arrived in Boston on October 25, 1850 and, after resistance from from the locals, fled south after being warned on October 30th that their safety in Boston could not be assured. Collins even appealed to U. S. President Millard Fillmore, asking him to intervene so he could regain his "property". Fillmore agreed that the Crafts should be returned to their enslavers in the South and authorized the use of military force if necessary to take them.

In 1996, Ellen Craft was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement. In September 2018, at the village of Ockham, Surrey, where they found refuge, a sign commemorating their escape was unveiled at an event their great great grandson Christopher Clark and other descendants attended. Their residence in Hammersmith, London is commemorated by a blue plaque on the wall of Craft Court, the office of the Shepherds Bush Housing Association. The plaque was unveiled in September 2021.