William and Ellen Craft
"Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall."
HAVING heard while in Slavery that "God madeof one blood all nations of men," and also that theAmerican Declaration of Independence says, that"We hold these truths to be self-evident, thatall men are created equal; that they are endowedby their Creator with certain inalienable rights;that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuitof happiness;" we could not understand by whatright we were held as "chattels." Therefore, wefelt perfectly justified in undertaking the dan-gerous and exciting task of "running a thousandmiles" in order to obtain those rights which are sovividly set forth in the Declaration.
I beg those who would know the particulars ofour journey, to peruse these pages.
This book is not intended as a full history of thelife of my wife, nor of myself; but merely as anaccount of our escape; together with other matterwhich I hope may be the means of creating insome minds a deeper abhorrence of the sinful andabominable practice of enslaving and brutifying ourfellow-creatures.
Without stopping to write a long apology foroffering this little volume to the public, I shallcommence at once to pursue my simple story.
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"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."
MY wife and myself were born in differenttowns in the State of Georgia, which is one of theprincipal slave States. It is true, our condition asslaves was not by any means the worst; but themere idea that we were held as chattels, and de-prived of all legal rights—the thought that wehad to give up our hard earnings to a tyrant, toenable him to live in idleness and luxury—thethought that we could not call the bones andsinews that God gave us our own: but above all,the fact that another man had the power to tearfrom our cradle the new-born babe and sell it inthe shambles like a brute, and then scourge us ifwe dared to lift a finger to save it from such a fate,haunted us for years.
But in December, 1848, a plan suggested itselfthat proved quite successful, and in eight daysafter it was first thought of we were free from thehorrible trammels of slavery, rejoicing and praisingGod in the glorious sunshine of liberty.
My wife's first master was her father, and hermother his slave, and the latter is still the slave ofhis 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 tyra