Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom | Page 3

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THE AMERICAN NEGRO
HIS HISTORY AND LITERATURE

RUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOM
William and Ellen Craft

RUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOM OR, THE
ESCAPE OF WILLIAM AND ELLEN CRAFT FROM SLAVERY.

"Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs Receive our air, that
moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall."
COWPER

RUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOM

PREFACE.
HAVING heard while in Slavery that "God made of one blood all
nations of men," and also that the American Declaration of
Independence says, that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness;" we could not understand by what right we were
held as "chattels." Therefore, we felt perfectly justified in undertaking
the dan- gerous and exciting task of "running a thousand miles" in
order to obtain those rights which are so vividly set forth in the
Declaration.
I beg those who would know the particulars of our journey, to peruse
these pages.
This book is not intended as a full history of the life of my wife, nor of
myself; but merely as an account of our escape; together with other
matter which I hope may be the means of creating in some minds a
deeper abhorrence of the sinful and abominable practice of enslaving
and brutifying our fellow-creatures.
Without stopping to write a long apology for offering this little volume
to the public, I shall commence at once to pursue my simple story.
W. CRAFT.

12, CAMBRIDGE ROAD, HAMMERSMITH, LONDON.

RUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOM.
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PART I.
"God gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right
we hold By his donation. But man over man He made not lord; such
title to himself Reserving, human left from human free."
MILTON.

MY wife and myself were born in different towns in the State of
Georgia, which is one of the principal slave States. It is true, our
condition as slaves was not by any means the worst; but the mere idea
that we were held as chattels, and de- prived of all legal rights--the
thought that we had to give up our hard earnings to a tyrant, to enable
him to live in idleness and luxury--the thought that we could not call
the bones and sinews that God gave us our own: but above all, the fact
that another man had the power to tear from our cradle the new-born
babe and sell it in the shambles like a brute, and then scourge us if we
dared to lift a finger to save it from such a fate, haunted us for years.
But in December, 1848, a plan suggested itself that proved quite
successful, and in eight days after it was first thought of we were free
from the horrible trammels of slavery, rejoicing and praising God in the
glorious sunshine of liberty.
My wife's first master was her father, and her mother his slave, and the
latter is still the slave of his widow.
Notwithstanding my wife being of African ex- traction on her mother's
side, she is almost white-- in fact, she is so nearly so that the tyrannical
old lady to whom she first belonged became so annoyed, at finding her
frequently mistaken for a child of the family, that she gave her when
eleven years of age to a daughter, as a wedding present. This separated
my wife from her mother, and also from several other dear friends. But
the incessant cruelty of her old mistress made the change of owners or
treatment so desirable, that she did not grumble much at this cruel
separation.
It may be remembered that slavery in America is not at all confined to
persons of any particular complexion; there are a very large number of
slaves as white as any one; but as the evidence of a slave is not
admitted in court against a free white person, it is almost impossible