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This well-researched true story reads like a suspense novel.
Ellen and William Craft uniquely escape their enslavement in Georgia: she passes as a white male Southern aristocrat, and he as her personal slave. After their harrowing journey north, they reach free Philadelphia, but as fugitive slaves, they are still in danger. Nonetheless, they join a lecture tour to support the Abolitionist cause.
Through their personal story, we learn the intimate complexities of slavery, the varying groups who oppose it and help fugitives, as well as those set on returning them to the South, and the difficulties that come to Blacks with Emancipation and Reconstruction—an enlightening and beautifully written book.
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The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the…