New York Times Bestseller
The
remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery
through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a
wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as “his” slave.
In
1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved
couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of
self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave,
while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their
escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open
on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in
Georgia to the free states of the North.
Along
the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even
friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true
identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities,
and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get
enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000
miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they
spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the
day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.
But
even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an
infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became
accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then
yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia,
forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United
States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes
never higher.
With
three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom,
Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story—one that
would challenge the nation’s core precepts of life, liberty, and
justice for all—one that challenges us even now