As with any dark and difficult time period, be it a war or a natural disaster, poignant, daring, and almost unbelievable stories emerge. The story of Ellen and William Craft’s journey in late December 1848 to early 1849 encapsulates all three descriptions, as well as many more.
Written by Ilyon Woo, “Master Slave Husband Wife,” is both history book and thrilling prose. Many worthy historical reads begin with a distinct table of contents and a quality map, and Woo’s book does not disappoint. The title of each chapter, after the Overture, is the name of the city, state, or region affecting the Craft’s death-defying adventure. A clearly marked map shows just how far the couple advanced during their self-emancipation travels.
But as the story shows, the Crafts did not swim, run, hide, or navigate by starlight, as did many enslaved individuals of the South before the Civil War. No, the Crafts were not assisted by what was deemed the Underground Railroad, a system of people and places intent on navigating thousands toward a chance at freedom. Instead, the Crafts, with Ellen Craft’s light skin and her husband’s darker complexion, embodied the roles of a wealthy disabled Southern man and her male slave to enact a ruse that duped everyone they encountered on their travels by railroad, coach, and steamship.
“She dresses by candlelight … Ellen slips her feet into gentleman’s boots, thick soled and solid. Though she has practiced, they must feel strange, an inch of leaden weight pulling each sole to the ground, an extra inch she needs. Ellen may have inherited her father’s pale complexion, but not his height. Even for a woman, she is small.”
William has less to do to ready himself. Before they set out into the early morning darkness, “[t]hey kneel and pray ...” They hold hands as they step out of the cottage they will leave behind. The writer focuses on the gesture of holding hands, as the couple will not be able to show affection while they are playing their new roles. “they will take their places as master and slave, escaping to reunite as husband and wife.”“Here is a picture of a couple and a nation in motion: a moving panorama, to reference a medium of the age. At heart, this is an American love story—not in the fairy-tale sense, but an enduring relationship between a man and a woman, a couple and a country.”
“Master Slave Husband Wife” does not end with freedom, but the well-researched information reveals all that the Crafts accomplished for themselves and for the abolitionist movement that continued to the Civil War, a decade later. Most importantly, the book wraps with a reminder of the couple’s steadfast relationship:“Their love for each other carried them over state lines … and made it possible for them to accomplish together what they might never have achieved apart. They ran for each other, with each other. …”
