Movies such as 12 Years a Slave give us a vivid glimpse of the perilous quest for freedom that many African‑American slaves faced. Yet there are ten additional, equally riveting narratives that showcase a blend of luck, cunning, and sheer determination. These 10 captivating stories illustrate how ordinary people performed extraordinary feats to flee bondage.
10 Captivating Stories of Escape
10 Harriet Jacobs
Born in 1813, Harriet Jacobs endured relentless sexual abuse at the hands of her owner, James Norcom. Even after she found a lover and bore two children, Norcom’s predatory behavior persisted, pushing her to the breaking point. In 1835 she fled to the homes of friends, hoping to evade his cruelty.
Realizing that a direct northward flight was nearly impossible, Jacobs concealed herself in a cramped crawl space hidden within her grandmother’s attic on a North Carolina plantation. The tiny, rat‑infested chamber barely fit her, yet she survived there for a harrowing seven years, clinging to the hope of eventual liberty.
In 1842 Jacobs finally escaped by boat, reaching Philadelphia where members of the Philadelphia Vigilant Committee welcomed her. She later chronicled her ordeal in the memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, offering a powerful first‑person account of her suffering and resilience.
9 Ellen And William Craft
William Craft and his wife Ellen made one of the most audacious escape attempts of their era. Married in 1846 in Macon, Georgia, the pair were owned by different masters, and Ellen was the mixed‑race daughter of a white planter and his enslaved partner.
Terrified that separation would follow, the duo devised a plan to pose as a slave and his white owner. Social conventions forbade a white woman from traveling alone with a male slave, so Ellen disguised herself as a white man, concealing her features with bandages and masculine attire.
In December 1848 they journeyed by rail and steamer, lodging in upscale hotels to maintain their façade. After weeks of careful subterfuge, they arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. The couple later settled in England, raised a family, and published an account of their daring escape.
8 Ayuba Suleiman Jallo
Ayuba Suleiman Jallo, also known as Job ben Solomon, hailed from a distinguished Muslim family in Senegal. In 1730, he and his interpreter were captured by an invading tribe and sold into slavery by the Royal African Company, eventually ending up on a tobacco plantation in Annapolis, Maryland.
While attempting to flee, Jallo was seized and imprisoned. Reverend Thomas Bluett, a local clergyman, began communicating with him through gestures and soon discovered Jallo’s fluency in Arabic and his Islamic faith.
After being returned to his master, Jallo wrote a heartfelt Arabic letter to his family, which reached the desk of James Oglethorpe, the RAC’s director who had originally sold him. Moved by the plea, Oglethorpe arranged for the RAC to purchase Jallo’s freedom. In 1734 he returned to Senegal, later securing the release of his interpreter in 1738.
7 Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, later famed abolitionist, longed for freedom from an early age. In 1833, at twenty, he became engaged to Anna Murray, a free Black woman, and seized the chance to flee his work as a ship caulker in Baltimore.
Disguised as a soldier, Douglass boarded a northbound train armed with a free sailor’s protection pass supplied by a friend. Though the portrait on the pass bore no resemblance to him, the conductor gave it only a cursory glance, allowing Douglass to pass.
He endured several close calls en route to New York, where an abolitionist family took him in. He reunited with Anna, moved to Bedford, Massachusetts, and remained a fugitive slave until 1846, when antislavery supporters helped him purchase his freedom.
6 Eliza Harris
Eliza Harris’s harrowing flight inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to feature a character based on her in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. When her master planned to sell her only surviving child, Eliza fled, taking the toddler toward the frozen Ohio River.
The river’s surface had shattered into jagged ice floes, making navigation treacherous. After waiting in a nearby house all day, the ice continued to break apart, and night brought the sound of pursuers. Determined, Eliza bolted, plunging into the frigid water whenever a chunk sank beneath her, pushing her child onto the next slab and pulling herself up.
Breathless and nearly frozen, she persisted until she reached the opposite bank, where a kindly man directed her to a safe house. From there, Eliza was ushered onto the Underground Railroad, securing her freedom.
5 Henry Highland Garnet
When Henry Highland Garnet was nine, his eleven‑member family slipped away from their master’s plantation under the pretense of attending a funeral. The father had secured permission, but the family never intended to return.
They trekked roughly 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) on foot and by carriage, eventually reaching Delaware. In Wilmington the group split; Henry, his mother, father, and sister continued on to Long Island, where they adopted the surname Garnet. Henry would later emerge as a pivotal leader in Black education and religious life.
4 Henry ‘Box’ Brown
Born and raised in Virginia, Henry Brown watched his wife and children sold to an out‑of‑state owner, spurring a desperate resolve to escape. With the aid of a freed slave and a sympathetic white shopkeeper, he devised a bold plan to ship himself in a wooden crate to Philadelphia.
On March 3, 1849, Brown was crammed into a small crate labeled “Dry Goods.” After a grueling 27‑hour voyage, the crate arrived at the Philadelphia home of abolitionist James McKim, where Brown emerged free.
Less than a year later, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced Brown to flee to England. He eventually returned to the United States in 1875, having started a new family after his harrowing ordeal.
3 Drennen Slave Girl
In 1850, businessman John Drennen, his wife, and their 14‑year‑old slave girl checked into the opulent Monongahela House hotel in Pittsburgh after a taxing journey from the South. The girl assisted her mistress with dressing for dinner and helped the black hotel staff move a trunk of soiled clothing for laundering.
She was struck by the black employees, who were paid wages and not owned, a stark contrast to her own bondage. Their presence sparked a yearning for freedom within her.
Seizing an opportunity, the girl simply slipped out the back door of the hotel and vanished, never to be seen again by her owners. Her escape was likely inspired by the antislavery activity that thrummed beneath the hotel’s elegant façade.
2 Robert Smalls
In the early morning of May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls and several fellow enslaved crewmen commandeered the Confederate steamer CSS Planter in Charleston, North Carolina, while the white crew members were ashore. The group gathered their families at a prearranged rendezvous point before setting sail.
Disguised in the captain’s coat and hat, Smalls expertly navigated the vessel past Fort Sumter, steering it out of the harbor and into the Union blockade that patrolled the coastline.
Upon reaching the blockade, Smalls and his comrades raised a white surrender flag, signaling their intention to join the Union. Their daring feat earned them hero status in the North and demonstrated that formerly enslaved individuals could serve as capable soldiers.
1 Lewis Williams
Lewis Williams grew up in Kentucky, where his family escaped slavery and settled in Cincinnati, a hotbed of abolitionist activity. In his early twenties, a fortune‑teller coaxed him into revealing details of his previous escape.
The teller relayed this information to Williams’s former master, who traveled to Ohio to claim a reward. Williams was arrested and faced extradition back to Kentucky. Reverend William Troy, a prominent Cincinnati Black leader, orchestrated a daring rescue.
Troy found a look‑alike who resembled Williams. During the courtroom drama, Troy gathered supporters to create a diversion while the double switched places with Williams. Amid the confusion, Williams slipped out the door on his hands and knees, eventually making his way to Canada. The story concludes with a note about the article’s author, Tiffany, a freelance writer from Southern California, inviting readers to follow her on Twitter.