However, with the arrival of African slaves came a unique solution-people who could not escape back to their own people and people who had a dark skin tone so that by sight of skin one could usually deduce whether someone was slave or free.
But this did not always work as planned. Skin tone differs among people. All people of African ancestry do not have the same tone of skin. Some are darker and some are fairer. And add to that the fact that slave owners often bred their female slaves to "create" more slaves and you can see that someone can be born a slave yet look surprisingly pale. And someone with a pale complexion can be considered "black" based on lineage. The musical and movie Show Boat featured such a scenario. The ingénue was married to the leading man. She looked white, but she was 1/16th. black. Many states had laws at the time Show Boat was written that forbad people from different races from marrying, and thus the ingénue was to be arrested for being black and marrying a white man. (The quick thinking of her husband was classic!)
In this installment on the Underground Railroad we find a fugitive couple who used their skin tone-or variation of such-in their escape. Meet William and Ellen Craft, originally from Macon, Georgia.
William and Ellen Craft were a slave couple who fled to Boston in January of 1849. Ellen was fair skinned and took the lead in this escapade. She dressed like a White gentleman and disguised herself accordingly. Can you say, Some Like it Hot? William played her dark-skinned slave.
This escapade, fortunately, was recorded for us by William Craft himself. In 1860 Craft wrote a narrative entitled Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom. This act in and of itself was risky in 1860. The Fugitive Slave Law was still on the books. By writing down this account, William left himself and his wife open for recapture. Fortunately for us William Craft left one of the rare accounts of the Underground Railroad.
William Craft wrote about life as a slave: "It is true, our condition as slaves was not by any means the worst; but the thought that we couldn't call the bones and sinews that God gave us our own . . . haunted us for years." William and Ellen were enslaved in the notorious rice paddy region of Macon, Georgia. It is believed they had it easy compared to other slaves in the rice paddies; however, they did not have freedom.
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