Ellen Craft

Because her skin was very light, Ellen Craft escaped Macon, Georgia in December 1848 disguised as a sickly white male slaveholder, with her husband William posing as "his" enslaved manservant. Unable to read or write, she kept an arm in a sling to avoid signing anything. They reached Philadelphia by Christmas and settled in Boston — but after the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, slave catchers pursued them even there, forcing the couple to flee to England until after the Civil War. Part of the Black Heritage Trail.