Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

Slave Resistance

In the past, US history books certainly included the fact that the US once allowed humans to be bought and sold as property, yet at the same time those books excluded the fact that slaves never stopped trying to escape and often organized revolts against their involuntary servitude.

Methods of escape were always desperate but often ingenious. One, Henry “Box” Brown, mailed himself north in a wooden crate.

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

William and Ellen Craft

William was born in Macon, Georgia to a master who sold off Craft’s family to pay gambling debts.  William’s new owner, a local bank cashier, apprenticed him as a carpenter in order to earn money from William’s labor.

Ellen Craft was born in Clinton, Georgia and was the daughter of an African American biracial slave and her white owner.  Because of her light complexion, strangers often mistook Ellen as white. Bothered by such a situation, Ellen’s plantation mistress sent the 11-year-old Ellen to Macon to the mistress’s daughter as a wedding present in 1837, where Ellen served as a ladies maid.

It was in Macon that William and Ellen met.

In 1846 their owners allowed Ellen and William to marry, but they could not live together since they had different owners. Obviously unhappy with that forced separation and the fear that their masters could sell any children, the couple started to save some of the meager wages their owners allowed them to keep and William and Ellen planned an escape.

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

Escape

In December 1848, they attempted just that. Because they were “good” slaves, their masters permitted them passes for a few days leave at Christmastime. Those days would give the couple time to be missing without notice.

As it was not customary for a white woman to travel with a black male servant, they decided that they would escape by traveling as a white male and his black servant.

On December 21, 1848, William cut Ellen’s hair and put her right arm in a sling.  Not being able to read or write, but knowing others would ask Ellen, the “white male” to sign papers at check points along their way, an injured arm prevented signatures.

Also William partially covered Ellen’s face with a “bandage” to further hide her female appearance. Ellen dressed in trousers she’d sewn and a top hat.

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

The perilous journey

They went by train from Macon to Savannah; a steamship to Charleston, South Carolina; another steamer to Wilmington, North Carolina; a train to Fredericksburg, Virginia; another steamer to Washington, D.C; a train to Baltimore, Maryland, and thence to Pennsylvania.

They had to travel separately the whole worrisome journey with constant fear that someone would see through their ruse and reveal them.

That fear was almost realized several times, but they nonetheless arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas day, 1848.

The Crafts moved on to Boston, which had an established free black community and a well-organized, protective abolitionist activity. William, a skilled cabinetmaker, started a furniture business.

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

Fugitive Slave Act

In 1850, the US Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act which made it a crime for residents of free states to harbor or aid fugitive slaves like the Crafts. The act also rewarded anyone for assisting slave owners by apprehending their fugitive “property” and returning them to slavery.

Two slave catchers, Willis Hughes and John Knight, traveled north to capture the Crafts.  The town of Boston sheltered the couple and kept them away from the bounty hunters.

Hughes and Knight returned south, but still feeling unsafe anywhere, the Crafts moved to England in 1851.

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

West London

The Crafts settled in West London where they eventually raised their  five children: Charles Estlin Phillips, William, Brougham, Alfred, and Ellen. They continued in the abolitionist movement by lecturing in England and Scotland.

In 1860 they published Running a Thousand Miles For Freedom.

During their nineteen years in England, the Crafts taught, ran a boarding house, and  William created commercial and mercantile agreements in West Africa.

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

Return to the US

They returned to the United States in 1870 and settled near Savannah, where they opened the Woodville Co-operative Farm School in 1873 to teach and employ newly freed slaves.  The school closed after a few years because of a lack of funding.

In 1890 William and Ellen Craft moved to Charleston to live with their daughter.  Ellen Craft died there in 1891.  William Craft died in Charleston in 1900.

Here is a link to a PDF of their book: Running a Thousand Miles

Christmas 1848 Slave Escape

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

After four years of Robert Newsom repeatedly sexually assaulting her, the girl Celia killed Newsom as he was about to rape her again

Missouri hung Celia.

December 21, 1855

“Spiegel im Spiegel” from Alina by Arvo Pärt

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

1850

It was 1850 and Robert Newsom owned 800 acres of land in Middle River, Missouri. He also owned five male slaves. During that summer Newsom purchased Celia, a fourteen-year-old girl from a slave owner in neighboring Audrain County. 

Newsom immediately began to rape Celia. Between 1851 and 1855 Celia gave birth to two children.

In late 1854 or early 1855, George, one of  Newsom’s slaves, began a relationship with Celia.

In early March 1855, Celia was again pregnant.  George told Celia that she must stop Newsom’s abuse. George would later say that  “he would have nothing more to do with her if she did not quit the old man.”

Celia asked Newsom’s adult daughters to intervene. They may or may not have, but if they did, nothing happened. Newsom continued to rape Celia. Celia asked Newsom to stay away while she was pregnant. He refused.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

June 23, 1855

On June 23, 1855 around 10 PM, Newsom entered Celia’s cabin. He advanced upon her, but she picked up a large stick and struck him in the head. He collapsed. She hit him again, killing him.

Celia  decided to burn Newsom’s body. She built a  large fire in the cabin’s fireplace, dragged Newsom’s body into it, and kept the fire burning.  Late in the night, with the body mostly ashes, she dispersed them in the outside yard.  She buried larger pieces of bone under the hearth.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

June 24, 1855

Noting the absence of Newsom the next morning, the worried family searched for him. Neighbors assisted, one of whom was William Powell. Powell knew of the relationship between George and Cilia (and also likely knew of Newsom’s abuse). Powell questioned George suspecting that George may have sought revenge.

George denied any knowledge and at first did not cooperate, but did eventually tell Powell that the last thing he knew Newsom had done was walk toward Celia’s cabin.  A search of the cabin turned up nothing.

Powell questioned Celia. He threatened to take away her children if she did not cooperate.  She did finally admit that Newsom had come to her cabin and that with him still outside she had hit him and that he had left.

Powell continued to question Celia, She finally confessed to the killing, but as self-defense. A more intense search of her cabin and the area revealed Newsom’s burnt bone fragments, buttons, a pocketknife, and other personal items. Authorities arrested Celia.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

June 25, 1855

At the June 25 inquest, Celia insisted that she did not mean to kill Newsom. Nonetheless, a six-person panel found probable cause to charge Celia with murder. She was brought to the Callaway County jail in Fulton, nine miles to the north of the Newsom farm.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

October 9, 1855

The trial began in the Callaway County Courthouse. Circuit Court Judge William Hall presided.  Hall chose John Jameson as Celia’s defense lawyer. Jameson was an experienced lawyer, but a slave owner. Hall also appointed two inexperienced lawyers to assist Jameson.

The twelve jurors were all white males (women were not allowed as jurors at the time), all but one married with children, and several were slave owners.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

October 10, 1855

The trial

Celia’s defense planned on demonstrating that her actions were in self-defense, but Judge Hall denied many defense requests that would have ameliorated the charge, including the request to instruct the jury that the killing was justifiable if done to prevent a sexual assault.

The jury returned a guilty verdict the same day.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

October 11, 1855

Defense lawyers moved to set aside the jury verdict and grant a new trial. Hall ruled two days later.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

October 13, 1855

Judge Hall denied the defense’s motion for a new trial and sentenced Celia to be “hanged by the neck until dead” on November 16.  Judge Hall refused to issue an order staying execution until the Missouri Supreme Court could rule on Celia’s appeal.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

November 11, 1855

While in jail Celia delivered a stillborn child. By November 11, the Missouri Supreme Court still had not ruled on the appeal. What probably happened next is that the defense team helped Celia escape and kept her hidden until the November 16 execution date passed.  In late November, they Celia returned to jail. Hall set a new execution date of December 21.

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

December 14, 1855

The Supreme Court ruled against Celia in her appeal on December 14. In part, the state justices said they “thought it proper to refuse the prayer of the petitioner,” having found “no probable cause for her appeal.”

Missouri Hangs Slave Celia

December 21, 1855

Celia died on the gallows at 2:30 P.M.

More: Another source