Know more about Ellen and William Craft
The Crafts and the notion of race
Ellen Craft’s father was her first enslaver. Her skin colour was so light as to make a living mockery of the idea of enslavement through race in the USA.
Ellen’s parentage is an example of the high rate of enslavers sexual violence on those they enslaved. The 1619 Project states that modern genetic research from 23andMe shows that enslaved women contributed more to the modern genetic makeup, even though 60% of America’s enslaved were men. This backs up the historical information that women were raped and forced to have the children of their enslavers and other whites.[1]
Transatlantic enslavement enacted Partus Sequiter Ventrum - The child follows the condition of the mother[2] - even though those countries controlling this used patriarchal lineage. This meant that children born to enslaved and enslaver were considered enslaved in the eyes of the law and society. This enabled enslavement societies to increase their workforce and save social embarrassment or acknowledgement of sexual violence.
The Crafts and the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was within a package of moves to hold together an already fractious and crumbling United States that by this point was clearly divided over the issue of enslavement. The US had become divided on attempts to outlaw enslavement in the capital and its spread to newly acquired western lands such as Texas and California.[3]
The Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 was a turning point towards the American Civil War. The normally anti-federal intervention Southern states passed a law that enabled all those who had self emancipated to be caught and returned to enslavement. This spread over the whole country, not just the Southern states. So in Northern states where people thought they were free and safe, this law took away those assurances, plunging people who had strived for freedom back into enslavement or the very real fear of capture. ‘Slave-Catchers’ roamed the North and were paid $10[4] per person captured. The law required all people to assist in the capture of emancipated black people, an unprecedented move. The 1793 Fugitive Slave Law had made the taking back of enslaved people the responsibility of the enslaver. It was formed at a time before cotton was king and the South wanted to take enslaved labour and plantations to the west. It was also formed before a number of Northern states had ended enslavement.
In what was a lauded debate and passing of laws in Congress, Daniel Webster, a Massachusetts senator delt a killer blow for the South, saying northerners had a, ‘disinclination to perform, fully, their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service, who have escaped into the free States.’[5] The compromise was hailed a success. Secession was averted but the problem was only kicked down the road. By overriding Northern states rights, more people became aware and active in the issue. (Although this has to be tempered with the fact that the majority of the North simply felt obliged to go along with the law no matter their feelings on it, like Abraham Lincoln). It did not deter escape. It did nothing to halt the enslavement of free black people.
Northern states had been able to afford the emancipated a degree of security under their statewide laws. The Southern enslaving states rode roughshod over this. People could be fined and imprisoned for helping the emancipated.
With the passing of the law many who could left the North to go to Canada. Again forced to flee, staying one step ahead of the enslaver. Within 24 hours of the laws passing Reverend Theodore Parker, a Black minister from Boston noted more than 30 black Bostonians had left.[6]
By this time the Crafts were succeeding in Boston; both their businesses were doing well. Ellen may have been pregnant.[7] They did not leave. [1] [2]
Eric Foner recalls that the Crafts were alerted to the arrival in Boston of two slave catchers by the Boston Vigilance Committee. The committee, ‘distributed broadsides identifying the slave catchers, harassed them on the streets, and had them arrested for defamation for calling the Crafts slaves.’[8] They then enabled the Crafts to flee to Canada and then England, but not before the two slave catchers tried to lure William to a hotel room to be ‘secured'. They then planned to take Ellen. William was tipped off by the hotel manager and the couple decided to leave Boston. The two slave catchers remained in Boston and tried lots of ways to recapture the Crafts. They got the law on their side, but it was slow for them. Word was taken to the Crafts that if they submitted peacefully, their freedom could then be bought and they could be released. They refused. The local people, both Black and white rallied around them and harassed the slave catchers. It was only when the Vice-President of the US, Millard Fillmore got involved and there was talk of sending troops to capture the Crafts did they agree to leave the USA. They married and left for Canada and then to England.[9]
Britain and Wells-Brown
The Crafts had met William Wells Brown [INSERT LINK TO WWB] back in Boston. He had persuaded them to go on the abolitionist lecturing circuit. When the Crafts came to Britain they were invited to meet Wells Brown. Ellen was too sick to travel following the journey. William met Wells Brown in Newcastle.[10]
Wells Brown had recently been presented with a purse of 20 sovereigns, worth over £3,000 [3] [4] today, on behalf of the ladies of Newcastle.[11]
Both then travelled to Edinburgh, where they began to give lectures. They were joined shortly after by Ellen who became the first woman on this lecturing path.
They kept up a blistering pace. In one newspaper report, The Newcastle Chronicle Friday 21st March three meetings in our area are reported;
Thursday 13 March 1851 William Craft and Wells Brown spoke in the Lecture Room, Nelson Street, Newcastle
Friday 14th March they spoke at the Wesleyan Chapel in South Shields. They spoke to a packed audience who listened with interest. Ellen was in the audience and the paper noted, ‘she is not so dark as some of the brunettes among our own country women,’ and ‘attracted much attention’.
On Monday 17th March 1851 Wells Brown and the Crafts addressed an anti slavery meeting at Bethal Church, Villiers Street, Sunderland. A collection was made.
Tuesday 18th March 1851 they attended a fundraiser for a black school in Canada in the Temperance Hall in Newcastle. There Wells Brown and William spoke about the need to educate young people forced out of the United States, William lamenting his lack of formal education.[12]
The Crafts spent most of their time in Britain in London. While William Craft was in Dahomey[5] [6] (Now in modern day Southern Benin), West Africa Ellen Craft, in London, raised money for another emancipated person from Georgia, who had escaped enslavement and came to England with her five children.[13]
Newcastle remained interested in the Crafts after they returned to the USA in 1869. A Newcastle Chronicle article from Saturday 9th October 1869 records the Crafts attending a meeting in Boston where they paid tribute to the priest who had helped and married them. He had given them a Bible and pistol when they left Boston.
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William Craft and the London Anthropological Society.
The Crafts were in Newcastle on Friday, August 23 1863. At this time the London Anthropological Society travelled to the region to be part of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was given the better title, ‘Wise Week’ by locals. The science festival spread out throughout the city with talks on all aspects of science, from close to home such as John Hancock, who founded the Natural History Museum; talks on concrete from the area; Thomas Bewick’s engravings. A number of venues were used to hold events. The distance of the planets was held at the Friends’ Meeting House, Chemistry talks were held at the Lecture Room on Nelson Street, Geology in the Music Hall. Zoology in the Council Chamber and in the Large Assembly a talk by Dr James Hunt, ‘On the Physical and Mental Characters of the Negro’.[14] Hunt used the pseudo-science of the day to legitimise racism and the subjugation of Black people. Hunt made no distinction between the many peoples of the continent of Africa, saying that a race’s religion could not be changed. He was highly selective in the evidence he used to assert his racism. Levels of language, according to Hunt, were shared by Europeans and Africans, and therefore should not be used to classify (or to stratify) yet, physical and physiological factors could be. [15]
William Craft was asked to attend this talk to challenge Hunt. In what would have been an incredibly offensive thing to sit through, Craft attended. It is not known if Ellen went with him.
David Olusoga says Craft was, ‘a gifted and celebrated public speaker and a dangerous debating opponent.[16]’
At the meeting, Craft refuted the racism pseudo-science he had just heard about the physical features of Black people being proof of inferior intellect and jabbed back at Hunt. Craft then pointed out that Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who had recently been married, was black, well educated and a favourite of Queen Victoria, was obvious proof of Hunt’s mistaken ideas.
Craft rebutted so well that the best Hunt could do at the end of the meeting and in the following days was to say that Craft could not be 100% black as he was obviously so intelligent.
Henry Holland, writing in the Newcastle Chronicle on 19th September 1863 was scathing about Hunt and his collaborator, Carter Blake:
The priesthood of science are, in exceptional circumstances, quite as intolerant and haughty as the worst specimens of the religious priesthood.. . The Anthropological Society was got up for the glorification of Messers. Blake and Hunt, the society is what hard speaking people call a ‘humbug’. No wonder the notorious couple were hissed as well as trounced in the section. Carter Blake showed no gentlemanly consideration for the feelings of Mr Craft, although he is the last man who should speak on a facial question. Mr Craft’s clear, open, generous, and manly countenance, contrasted most successfully with that of his bitter opponent. The sinister, pinched up face of the latter, would make a better frontage for hidden atheism than we have seen for many a day. Messrs Blake and Hunt will not soon be forgotten in Newcastle. Their tone was inhuman, and some high-mettled military gentleman, speaking of them, and in defence of the African race, would be inclined to say, injuries may be forgiven, but insults never.’[17]
This event was indeed remembered in our region. A year later in a short article about Theodore Parker it was recalled that William Craft had, ‘defended, against Dr Hunt, his right to be considered a man.’[18]
What happened to the Crafts?
The Crafts settled in London and raised a family while continuing to campaign and to work. In 1868 they returned to the United States. Their work continued. They opened a school for black children, now freed who needed an education.
Notes to teachers
The Crafts’ story, as well as being inspiring, contains so many elements that their narrative could be used to teach about US enslavement in total. The fact they were not field hands is interesting, skin colour and ‘race’, the effect of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law had on them shows the differences between North and South and allows more in depth knowledge of the hold of enslavement on the nation as a whole, their parentage and ingenious escape, their working with other abolitionists and work in Britain tells a whole narrative from their point of view.
[1] Hannah-Jones, N. et al. (2022) The 1619 project: A new origin story. New York, NY: Random House Large Print, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. which uses the article ‘Large DNA Study Traces Violent History of American Slavery. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/science/23andme-african-ancestry.html. Accessed on 1st August 2023
[2] Hartman, S. (2021) Lose your mother. Serpent’s Tail. p84.
[3] Foner, E. (2015) Gateway to freedom: The hidden history of America’s fugitive slaves. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 119
[4] Newman, R.S. (2018) Abolitionism: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. P87
[5] Woo, I. (2023) Master slave husband wife: An epic journey from slavery to freedom. London: Ithaka. P 199
[6] Woo, I. (2023) Master slave husband wife: An epic journey from slavery to freedom. London: Ithaka. P 206
[7] Woo, I. (2023) Master slave husband wife: An epic journey from slavery to freedom. London: Ithaka. P207. The Crafts had five children. The first was born in London. This from https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/william-and-ellen-craft-1824-1900-1826-1891/#:~:text=The%20Crafts%20attended%20the%20Ockham,Brougham%2C%20Alfred%2C%20and%20Ellen. Accessed on 1st August 2023.
[8] Foner, E. (2015) Gateway to freedom: The hidden history of America’s fugitive slaves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
p147-8
[9] Woo, I. (2023) Master slave husband wife: An epic journey from slavery to freedom. London: Ithaka. P245-248
[10] Woo, I. (2023) Master slave husband wife: An epic journey from slavery to freedom. London: Ithaka. P 268-274
[11] Woo, I. (2023) Master slave husband wife: An epic journey from slavery to freedom. London: Ithaka. P274. The amount was worked out from a google search.
[12] Newcastle Courant Friday 21st March 1851. Accessed on 28th July 2023. Accessible at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000085/18510321/011/0004
[13] Newcastle Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser Saturday 16th 1863. Accessed on 28th July 2023. Accessible at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000864/18630516/084/0002
[14] The Newcastle Daily Journal, August 28 1863. Accessed on 25th July 2023. Available at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000242/18630828/010/0005
[15] Anthropology at the British Association: The Anthropological Review. Vol 1, No. 3 (1863) Accessed 26th July 2023 p 383
[16] Olusoga, D. (2021) Black and British: A forgotten history. London: Picador. P 375-6.
[17] Newcastle Chronicle, Saturday 19th September 1863. Accessed 26th July 2023. Available at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000864/18630919/085/0004
[18] Newcastle Daily Chronicle. Thursday September 1st 1863. Accessed on 28th July 1864. Accessible at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001633/18640901/105/0002 This is an interesting page as there is an indepth article on how US presidential elections were conducted.
Instead of two sentences, could this be one? I think you are saying that the reason the Crafts didn't flee is because Ellen was pregnant. It might also be useful to point out whether the Crafts had any living children at this point.
It is vague in the source. They had five children, but born when in London. I will add this to the reference
This is a bit vague. Is there any way to translate this into a more accurate figure? I think a sovereign would be about £1, which is £155.56 in current currency, according to Dr Google. That is £3,100.
changed and I have added this to the reference
Where is Dahomey? How does this link with the preceding location in Newcastle?
altered