William and Ellen Craft Escape Slavery in Daring Disguise

Ellen Craft — light-skinned enough to pass as white — disguised herself as an ailing white planter; William Craft traveled as her enslaved manservant. They traveled 1,000 miles by train, steamer, and carriage from Macon, Georgia to Philadelphia in four days. Their story became an international anti-slavery sensation. After the Fugitive Slave Act (1850) endangered them in Boston, they fled to England, lecturing to abolitionist audiences.