Lives of the slavery in 1860s: the book i chose: “Running a thousand Miles for freedom”

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21 November 2015
Lives of Slavery in the 1860s
The slavery of African Americans in the United States began in the 1600s (Craft, 1969). The laws at that time were clear on the difference between the white and black indentured servants. The white ones were to serve for a reasonable period while the blacks were to serve for life. The slavery system all came to an end in the 1860s following a series of events (Craft, 1969). It all began with the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. He enacted two acts that led to the eventual freedom of both the black and white slaves. The first act was the Emancipation Proclamation, which only gave freedom to the slave on the North (Craft, 1969). The other act, the Thirteenth Amendment was the one that finally helped free all slaves. This paper looks into the various historical aspects of the 1860s that impacted on the lives of two slaves, William and Ellen Craft, and their families as captured in the book Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.
William and Ellen Craft were both born and raised in slavery in Georgia. Ellen was fathered by a white slave owner and a black slave mother (Craft, 1969). Ellen had a striking resemblance to her father and could easily be mistaken for a white. William, on the other hand, was purely black with a dark complexion. Williams master allowed and organized for him to learn carpentry from a local cabinet maker in the area they lived in. …