Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

What a remarkable bit of history this author has brought to life. I had never heard the story of Ellen and William Craft who escaped slavery in 1848, traveling from Macon, Georgia by public transport in disguise. Ellen was enslaved in the household of her half-sister. Her husband William was a skilled cabinet-maker who had been allowed to keep a bit of the money he earned.

Their escape plan involved Ellen, who had very light skin, passing as a young white gentleman and William as her slave. Because Ellen could not read or write, her arm remained bandaged for the trip to explain why she was not able to sign documents that would otherwise be required for the trip. They traveled more than 1,000 miles by steamboat, train, and carriage, encountering slave traders and even friends of their enslavers who might have recognized them.

They became celebrities when they reached the North and spoke on the abolition circuit with others such as Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown. They learned to read and write and the experiences of their harrowing escape come to us in detail.

It’s hard to think about this, but it’s true that Ellen’s father was her enslaver. She was given to his other daughter Eliza when she married. Eliza and her husband Robert Collins could not believe that Ellen had willingly left until the evidence was undeniable. Eliza did not acknowledge Ellen was her half-sister.

Even in the North they were not safe. Though they were protected by some in Philadelphia, eventually they moved to Boston. The Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850 made even Boston unsafe, and they escaped to England, The story of the resistance in Boston by local authorities and free Blacks to men sent by Ellen’s enslavers was dramatic. After the initial resistance, it became clear that authorities there would be forced to conform to the new law.

The author gives us plenty of background, including about William Wells Brown, who took the couple under his wing and introduced them to the abolition speaking circuit. She writes in detail about the 1850 Compromise which included the law requiring stricter enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.

I appreciated the scene the author set of the Washington, D.C. the Crafts encountered, “The city had an unfinished feel especially toward the edges, like a picture half colored in. The Washington Monument was little more than a stump, while construction of the Smithsonian Institution had stopped for the winter. Only the Executive Mansion and the Capitol appeared fixed and majestic.” The author also noted that the year they escaped, 1848, was a year of revolutions in Europe.

Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife, Simon & Schuster, 2023, 410 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.