THE ESCAPE

Ellen and William Craft escaped from slavery in Macon, Georgia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in four days. Their story of traveling in the open, on railroad and steamship through five slave states was remarkable. It was unbelievable for fugitives who could neither read nor write to develop a plan and successfully execute it in eight days, to then arrive in a free state on Christmas Day 1848. But that was just the beginning of their story.

Ellen Craft (1824-a.1891) and William Craft (1824-1900) obtained travel passes from their individual enslavers, and left the tiny house where Ellen stayed. It was behind the home of her white, half-sister, Eliza Smith Collins and her legal enslaver, Dr. Robert Collins, a leader in Macon. Ellen’s father was a wealthy white plantation owner, Major James Smith, in Clinton, GA, and her mother, Maria—also biracial—was enslaved by Major Smith. As an 11-year-old, Ellen, an enslaved house servant, was literally a wedding "gift" to her half-sister Eliza, after Mrs. James Smith could no longer handle visitors to their home complimenting her under the assumption that little Ellen was her daughter, because she resembled Eliza. 

Ellen was so white-presenting that she and William developed a plan for her to dress as a frail, white man traveling North for medical treatment with William as her enslaved valet. Upon escaping the cottage four days before Christmas, Ellen cut her hair and became “Mr. Johnson”, who was dressed in a man’s trousers, cloak, hat and green-tinted spectacles. Ellen wore a sling to avoid being required to sign hotel registers and a poultice around her face to hide that there was no beard, and "restricting" her ability to speak. The disguise was successful with only a couple of close calls during their journey.  Read "After the Escape" here​