Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery book cover

Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery

Paperback – January 1, 1999

Price
$16.95
Format
Paperback
Pages
120
Publisher
LSU Press
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0807123201
Dimensions
6 x 0.2 x 9 inches
Weight
6.1 ounces

Description

About the Author Richard J. M. Blackett is the Andrew Jackson Professor ofHistory at Vanderbilt University and the author of several booksabout nineteenth-century history, including Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War.

Features & Highlights

  • 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 authorial accomplishment only twelve years beyond illiteracy. Now their stirring first-person narrative and Richard Blackett's excellent interpretive pieces are brought together in one volume to tell the complete story of the Crafts.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

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★★
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Most Helpful Reviews

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Engrossing

I read this for a college history survey course before it was mistakenly announced that the book was out of print. The book was dropped from the syllabus, but I am glad I read it anyway.
The first and shortest part of the book is William Craft's powerful account of how he and his wife Ellen executed a daring escape from servitude in Georgia. Their plan was remarkable in its ingenuity: The almost white Ellen, outfitted with a master's clothes and a poultice on her face to prevent incriminating speech with strangers, and her husband William, disguised as a servant, escaped to freedom in the north. Travelling by rail, the pair exultantly crossed over into Canada and from thence headed for England.
The second part of the book is a third person summary of the couple's travels after their ambitious escape. It follows them from Georgia through the slave and free states, in which they were well received and protected (especially in Boston), up to Halifax and across the water to England. I found the final two thirds of the book the most enjoyable, as it treated of foreign travel, in which I have a keen interest. Both portions of the book are beautifully written and often gripping. I hope a few of my classmates read this before that announcement. This book is both pleasurable to read and historically vital.
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