Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

The subtitle is :The Epic Journey From Slavery To Freedom, and that sums it up in a nutshell. Other than Frederick Douglass' story of escape, I haven't read many detailed accounts of just how southern slaves made their way northward other than by the Underground Railroad. Ellen and William devised an ingenious plan and carried it out in broad daylight, and most impressively, neither of them could read or write. Prior to their escape they worked to learn their letters, which having made my way in both Greece and Russia with that and that alone, helps, but not a lot. Ellen Craft was born to a white father, James Smith, who also enslaved Ellen’s 18-year-old mother (who also had a white father). Smith’s wife gave Ellen, who she might have had mixed feelings about, as a wedding present to their daughter, Eliza, when she married Robert Collins of Macon, Georgia. Being half-sisters, the girls had grown up together, and Ellen, looking as white as Eliza, was trusted as a “house slave” to sew and cook and take care of the children. While in Macon, Ellen fell in love with William Craft, an enslaved man who lived nearby. He was working as a carpenter, and keeping some of his earnings, although they mostly went to his owner. Together, they schemed to run away at the end of 1848, more than a decade before the Civil War and on the eve of a last ditch compromise whereby escaped slaves in the north would be returned to the south. The story of how they managed it all and what happened to them after is best read than said, but they were clever, resourceful, talented, and a little bit lucky. Like Douglass, they had to flee the country for a bit, and none of it was easy, but the ending is not a sad one.