Ellen and William Craft - Return To The United States

Return To The United States

In 1868, after the American Civil War and passage of constitutional amendments granting emancipation, citizenship and rights to freedmen, the Crafts returned with three of their children to the United States. After raising funds from supporters, in 1870 they bought 1800 acres of land in Georgia near Savannah in Bryan County. There they founded the Woodville Co-operative Farm School in 1873 for the education and employment of freedmen. In 1876 William Craft was charged with misuse of funds, and he lost a libel case in 1878 in which he tried to clear his name. The school closed soon after. Although the Crafts tried to keep the farm running, dropping cotton prices, and post-Reconstruction era violence contributed to its failure. Whites discriminated against freedmen as they worked to re-establish white supremacy in politics and economics.

In 1890 the Crafts moved to Charleston, South Carolina to live with their daughter Ellen, who was married to Dr. William D. Crum, who would be appointed Collector of the Port of Charleston by President Theodore Roosevelt. The elder Ellen Craft died in 1897, and William in January 1900.

Read more about this topic:  Ellen And William Craft

Famous quotes containing the words united states, return to, return, united and/or states:

    “Steal away and stay away.
    Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any.
    Join the United States and join the family
    But not much in between unless a college.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “Adolescence is a time when children are supposed to move away from parents who are holding firm and protective behind them. When the parents disconnect, the children have no base to move away from or return to. They aren’t ready to face the world alone. With divorce, adolescents feel abandoned, and they are outraged at that abandonment. They are angry at both parents for letting them down. Often they feel that their parents broke the rules and so now they can too.”
    —Mary Pipher (20th century)

    “The house waited on your private beach
    each day,
    when you had the time to return to her.
    And you so often had the time,
    even when fury blew out her chimney,
    even when love lifted the shingles....”
    —Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    “There was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praisworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”
    —Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

    “It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls’ curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can.”
    —Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865–1922)