Transatlantic Women: Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and Great Britain

8. Great Exhibitions: Ellen Craft on the British Abolitionist Stage

As the only child of Dr. John Estlin, a major figure in England’s abolitionist movement of the mid-nineteenth century,Mary Estlin fervently followed in her father’s footsteps.Mary,a committed social activist,led the Bristol and Clifton Ladies’Anti-Slavery Society—one of many such women’s groups on both sides of the Atlantic.Given their prominent role,the Estlins sometimes hosted people who would speak at local abolitionist meetings.On 3 May 1851 John Estlin wrote to Eliza Wigham, secretary of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Emancipation Society, about one such visitor from America: “She fully feels the propriety of all we have said and done and is very thankful to us.”Five days later Mary Estlin also informed Caroline Weston, from the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, of their gracious lodger who “has wound herself round our affections and enlisted our sympathy.”As members of what Clare Midgley calls the transatlantic sisterhood , these two female abolitionists shared information as well as informants, such as this important American guest who knew firsthand about slavery’s evils.1 As the Estlins’ letters make clear, both father and daughter were moved by the presence of Ellen Craft, who, along with her husband, William, came to England in December 1850 after fleeing from slavery two years earlier (see figure 8.1).It was their particular method of escape,however,that captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic: the light-skinned Ellen posed as “Mr.Johnson,”a white master,while her darker husband pretended to be “his”slave.Capitalizing on the great interest generated by the couple’s adventure,William Craft wrote his 1860 memoir Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, a signature work in the field of slave narratives.2 Unfortunately such recognition, while fully warranted , has overshadowed Ellen Craft’s unique contributions to and struggles with the British antislavery movement.This chapter examines Ellen’s role as a chapter eight Great Exhibitions Ellen Craft on the British Abolitionist Stage Kenneth Salzer Great Exhibitions: Ellen Craft 137 light-skinned woman on and off the abolitionist stage, her whiteness marking a space where the British public could find common ground with an American female ex-slave. Reading letters and newspaper reports, as well as works by fellow fugitives, we can see how the presentation of Ellen as a fragile, pretty woman was designed not just to counteract her earlier gender transgression,but also to reinforce the genteel Victorian femininity that people would respond to positively—as evidenced by the Estlins’ sympathetic reactions. During her time on the lecture circuit, Ellen often allowed her visual status (rather than her spoken or written word) to convey the antislavery message; however, over the nineteen years she lived in England, she gradually shifted from that silent position, carefully choosing venues in which to assert her personal autonomy and racial allegiance.The Crafts’ transatlantic journey to freedom, rather than teaching Ellen to rely solely upon her whiteness, ultimately compelled her to claim her identity as a black woman, freeing her to be fully herself. To better assess Ellen’s transformation within the British abolitionist movement of the 1850s and 1860s,we should first consider her earlier life in America before and after her flight from bondage.Born in Georgia in 1826,Ellen suffered under the cruel hand of her mistress, who grew to detest the girl’s noticeable family resemblance to her master. Given as a wedding gift to her mistress’s half-sister, Ellen moved to Macon, where she met William in the early 1840s. While they married in 1846, the Crafts realized that they could still be separated from each other and any potential children. Facing such a dire prospect, figure 8.1 Ellen and William Craft, in their forties; from William Still’s The Underground Rail Road (1871). Copyright the New York Public Library Digital Picture Collection. 138 Tourism, Celebrity, and Reform the couple devised an escape plan that, according to R. J. M. Blackett, “was ingenious, if not totally reckless” (Beating 89). Ellen donned a homemade suit of men’s clothes, cut her hair short, wrapped her face in bandages, and wore a pair of green spectacles—all in an effort to convey the image of a sickly planter heading north for treatment, aided by his faithful servant. Setting out on 21 December 1848, William and Ellen spent the next four days traveling by train and steamer,temporarily exchanging their...