Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

Ellen is familiar with Charleston and the city’s layout. Early in Eliza’s marriage to Robert Collins, the family lived briefly in Charleston. When the family returned to Macon, Ellen met William. She was 15, and he was 18. Ellen was resistant to the idea of marrying because she had seen the horrors of families ripped apart. William and Ellen married, but they were determined not to have children until they had devised their means of escape. Marrying William was its own challenge. Collins was not supportive of Ellen marrying someone outside of his own charge, but Eliza insisted.

Now boarding the steamer ship, Ellen and William recognize that they will be watched more closely than ever. Their love for each other must appear to others as an idealized bond between enslaver and enslaved.

Ellen attracts the notice of a man with a gold pocket watch on the steamer ship. The man notes that Mr. Johnson’s voice is soft and feminine. Other passengers take notice as well. Ellen must sleep in a cabin with other men, making it even more challenging to conceal the truth. William and Ellen make a show of Mr. Johnson’s illness in the hopes of keeping others from coming too close. The mere suspicion that Mr. Johnson may be infected with cholera, a deadly disease that spreads rapidly in close quarters, is enough to keep others at bay. While Ellen sleeps in the cabin with other white men, William sleeps on top of some cotton bags outside.

Other men on the ship offer Ellen advice about how to handle William. She is admonished for saying thank you and warned that he will try to run when they reach the North. One passenger offers to buy William. The man with the gold pocket watch looks for Mr. Johnson when they arrive in Charleston but cannot find him. He recalls something another passenger said about the peculiar traveler: “that the invalid was ‘either a woman or a genius’” (67). Weeks later, while reading the paper, the man with the watch realizes that both were true.

After two years together as a married couple, William and Ellen devised a plan to escape. They watched as others around them endured extreme cruelty and violence. Although the Crafts never identified a single reason for their swift departure, Woo offers some insight into what may have caused the couple to plot and enact a plan in only four days.

Robert Collins had a history of bad deals and was in financial ruin. Ellen would have been aware of his financial failings and the lawsuit filed against him for fraud. The man accusing Collins was William Butler Johnston (also written as Johnson). Woo emphasizes the significance of Ellen’s choice to use the name of her enslaver’s enemy as her alias. Ellen did not know that, to protect his daughter, James Smith purchased the Collinses’ home and made the mansion, Ellen, and any children Ellen may have the sole property of Eliza, not Collins. Since Collins was about to lose everything, William and Ellen may have feared separation. Rumors of a miscarriage may have served as another motivating factor.

Christmas was an advantageous time to leave, as many enslavers granted passes for visiting family. Ellen used her skills as a seamstress and her light skin to disguise herself as a wealthy enslaver with disabilities. William quietly and cautiously purchased the items Ellen would need to secure her costume. Ellen begged Eliza to allow her to visit a sick aunt, and Eliza begrudgingly consented, granting Ellen a pass. The only part of the plan to figure out was the signature that Ellen would have to provide in Charleston as Mr. Johnson. Unable to read or write, Ellen bound up her arm in a sling, hoping it would provide her with the excuse she needed to ask someone else to sign for her.

William and Ellen leave the boat and confront Charleston, a hub for the transatlantic slave trade. All around them, they see evidence of what they hope to escape, including the Sugar House, a center for torture.

The couple learns that the steamer ship traveling directly to Philadelphia is closed for the season, so they must take an intricate series of ships, carriages, and trains to reach their destination. Ellen and William travel to a well-known hotel befitting the status of the character Mr. Johnson to spend a few hours. There, Ellen is treated with deference and respect. William meets a man named Pompey, an enslaved worker from Africa brought long after the international slave trade had been banned by the federal government.

To begin their journey from Charleston to Philadelphia, William accompanies Ellen to the Customs House. When asked to sign Mr. Johnson’s name on the register, Ellen indicates to the officer that her arm is broken. The customs officer becomes irate and draws unwanted attention. Luckily, one of the white men Ellen conversed with on the steamer ship that morning intercedes and signs for his new friend.