William
and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom
Preface
RUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR
FREEDOM
OR,
THE ESCAPE OF
WILLIAM
AND ELLEN CRAFT FROM
SLAVERY.
"Slaves
cannot breathe in England: if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall."
COWPER
LONDON:
WILLIAM TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND.
------
1860.
LONDON:
RICHARD BARRETT, PRINTER,
MARK LANE.
RUNNING
A THOUSAND MILES
FOR
FREEDOM
[frontispiece
omitted]
PREFACE
---------
HAVING
heard while in Slavery that "God made of one blood all nations
of men," and also
that the American Declaration of Independence says, that "We hold
these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of
happiness;" we could not understand by what right we were held
as "chattels."
Therefore, we felt perfectly justified in undertaking the dan- gerous
and exciting task
of "running a thousand miles" in order to obtain those rights
which are so vividly set
forth in the Declaration. I beg those who would know the particulars
of our journey, to
peruse these pages. This book is not intended as a full history of the
iv
PREFACE.
life
of my wife, nor of myself; but merely as an account of our escape; together
with
other matter which I hope may be the means of creating in some minds
a deeper abhorrence
of the sinful and abominable practice of enslaving and brutifying our
fellow-creatures.
Without stopping to write a long apology for offering this little volume
to the public,
I shall commence at once to pursue my simple story.
W.
CRAFT.
12,
CAMBRIDGE ROAD,
HAMMERSMITH,
LONDON.
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