Bøker av William Craft

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"Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom" chronicles the daring escape of William and Ellen Craft which is often known as the most ingenious plot in fugitive slave history. While Ellen posed as a white male planter William, her husband, posed as her personal servant. The couple cleverly travelled by train and steamboat, escaped nail-biting detection and arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Excerpt: "It is a common practice in the slave States for ladies, when angry with their maids, to send them to the calybuce sugar-house, or to some other place established for the purpose of punishing slaves, and have them severely flogged; and I am sorry it is a fact, that the villains to whom those defenceless creatures are sent, not only flog them as they are ordered, but frequently compel them to submit to the greatest indignity." William Craft (1824-1900) and Ellen Craft (1826-1891) were slaves from Macon, Georgia in the United States who escaped to the North in December 1848. Their daring escape was widely publicized, making them among the most famous of fugitive slaves in America. But due to the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 they had to immigrate to Britain for safety where they continued to garner support for the abolishment of 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.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again ¿ worldwide.

In this short work of 1860, William Craft (c.1825-1900), assisted by his wife Ellen (c.1825-91), recounts the remarkable story of how they escaped from slavery in America. Having married as slaves in Georgia, yet unwilling to raise a family in servitude, the couple came up with a plan to disguise the light-skinned Ellen as a man, with William acting as her slave, and to travel to the north in late 1848. This compelling narrative traces their successful journey to Philadelphia and their subsequent move to Boston, where they became involved in abolitionist activities. Later, the couple sought greater safety in England, where they lived for a number of years and had five children. A success upon its first appearance, the book touches on the themes of race, gender and class in mid-nineteenth-century America, offering modern readers a first-hand account of how barriers to freedom could be overcome.

In 1848 William and Ellen Craft made one of the most daring escapes in the history of slavery. This edition of their story includes 11 annotated supplementary readings, drawn from contemporary sources, to help place the Crafts' story within the cultural currents of transatlantic abolitionism.