Natasa Misic -- Journal Entry 1

Natasa Misic -- Journal Entry 1

“Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery”

As I begin my reading of “Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery” I immediately have a setting and emotion set, foreshadowing what the story line will be about and what kind of mood it will give to its readers. Looking at the title alone I expect a life changing runaway slave story that happened hundreds of years ago when slavery was legal and the norm. I expect it to be sad, terrifying, exciting and have many other mixed emotions throughout the story. After reading the preface I have realized that this will most likely be a personal story/biography about an African American couple that has lived in the South during slavery and through the word of mouth heard that there is such a thing as freedom in the North and they are willing to do whatever it takes, including risking their lives, to escape slavery.

I believe this text was originally written for African Americans that may still be enslaved in the mid to late 1800s to let them know that there is hope and a chance for them to be set free. Of course now it is still read to educate a reader about slave stories and how mistreated human beings have been in hopes that history like this is never repeats itself. This text shows the injustice African Americans had to live with for hundreds of years but it also shows a few stories about white children being thrown into slavery and that it was a very unjust world unless you were a healthy white male. The following quote is about a man who had kidnapped two white children whose father has passed showing that slavery was in such high demands that if a slave owner could get away with selling white kids and letting them get tan they would. “The following facts are sufficient to prove, that he who has power, and is inhumane enough to trample upon the sacred rights of the weak, cares nothing for race or color” (page 3) It shows the sad truth to this day of soul less individuals who will do anything to make extra money. Even if slavery of African Americans may have been accepted at one point it time, kidnapping white children never has been legal and this goes to show that all people should fear slavery because a white man in power in the 1800s had all the say. Later one of the white girls was found and the slavery case was taken to Supreme Court finding the girl “white and therefore free.” (page 6) Unfortunately, most slaves did not have this future or the future of the Crafts.

Throughout this reading I first felt depressed and sad for all the slaves and the injustices they had to live with. Many of the side stories in the reading excluding the Crafts’ story showed how slaves were sold at auctions and separated from their entire families. The escape of the Craft’s was filled with anxiety of whether they are going to be able to make it to Philadelphia with their plan. Being almost caught several times made me, as a reader, anxious and nervous for them and of course I felt very happy for them when they were safe in a slave free state.

This text is a biography but obviously at a later time rewritten by someone else. My expectations of biographies are to read about a very interesting life story of a person. This story fulfilled my expectation; however, my only critique is the side stories don’t have anything to do with the Craft’s escape so it could make this a bit of a documentary as well.