Framed piece of an October (?) 1850 newspaper reporting on the departure of William and Ellen Craft whose escape from enslavement in the South was ingenious and daring. After Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, the Crafts were some of the most well known individuals who escaped slavery. The Crafts fled the South to escape enslavement and ultimately fled the United States due to the Fugitive Slave Act. The sailed to Halifax and then on to England.
Notice how the paragraph ends:
SUCCESSFUL RESISTANCE.
A correspondent of the Boston Daily Journal writing from Portland, Me., says:-
"William and Ellen Crafts, against whom writs were issued in your city, charging them as being fugitiveslaves, took passage on the steamer Commodore, at her wharf in this city, on Saturday evening last, for Halifax. They will take the British steamer at that port, and leave behind them the
"Land of the free and home of the brave"
Other text on the page reports on activities in Indiana regarding the Fugitive Slave Law and in Georgia.
"Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves."
Source: American Battlefield Trust.
The last photo is of the blue plaque erected on 5th October 2021 by English Heritage at 26 Cambridge Grove, London, W6 0LA, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
More historical background
Last June I talked with Ilyon Woo about her book, Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, which was about the escape of the crafts and won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. This was as a part of History Camp Author Discussions from The Pursuit of History, the non-profit organization I co-founded and lead. (You can view the discussion in our archive.)
In the promotion for the book, the publisher (37 Ink, an imprint of Simon & Schuster) included this historical background:
"The year 1848 was a year of global democratic revolt. Sicily, Paris, Berlin, Vienna – people across Europe rose up against tyrannical power. Americans received news of these uprisings while the ground beneath their own feet shifted: there were five hundred thousand square miles of new territory to be claimed westward; immigrants from Ireland, Germany, China, and elsewhere were arriving; in New York, the first Women’s Rights Convention was held; and the two-party political system was breaking down as voters became polarized over the issue of slavery.
"Against this backdrop in Macon, Georgia, the enslaved married couple William and Ellen Craft planned their escape from bondage. Their story is one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as a master and slave, sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across 1,000 miles in broad daylight, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains from bondage to the free states of the North.
"The world is remembering the heroic couple, with not one but two movies planned: first, an adaptation of William and Ellen Crafts’ memoir,
directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper, and second, a
film directed by Lynn Nottage and Tony Gerber that focuses on the Crafts’ lives after their escape in the free North, when they had to navigate their sudden celebrity. In 2023, the year of the 175th anniversary of the Crafts’ escape,
MASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFE: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo launched a renaissance for the Crafts and their story. Now available in paperback (on sale January 16, 2024/ Simon & Schuster), the book brings William and Ellen Craft’s cinematic story of daring, determination, and love to life.
"During William and Ellen Craft’s journey, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers who might have revealed their true identities. One traveler who encountered Ellen Craft in disguise as a disabled White man remarked that the invalid was “either a woman or a genius.” It turns out Ellen was both!
"After securing their freedom in the North, the tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles crisscrossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.
"But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States. With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story—one that would challenge the nation’s core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all."
"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."
Source: Wikipedia
Image credit for plaque: Spudgun67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Shipping: $30. Please allow two weeks for shipping.
