The Natural Order of Things

This is written from the perspective of a white Southerner who encountered the Crafts on their journey north. He gives his account of the Crafts to a reporter who is doing a piece on the release of “Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom” in 1860.

Well, yes, I did meet the Crafts as they were running away, and no, I never would've guessed that old man and his boy were really a wife and husband. Seems downright perverted, if you ask me, twisting the natural order of things like that. Now, before I get distracted and tell you about all the wrong those two done, I'll get back to my chance meeting with the fugitives.

I was riding on a steamer to Charleston for the pleasure of a cotton man down in Georgia. He hates putting “vital business correspondence” in the hands of them post office pony boys so he sent me to run a packet up there. I'm not a rich man by any means, by that I mean I've got no slaves on my books, but I do know a thing about negroes and how to handle them. So I was talking with a few other like-minded men, weren't none of those abolitionist beasts in sight, when I spot this sick old man and his boy stepping along real close behind. That old man gave me a look I should have fought him for, and then walked off. Now, knowing what I know now, it all makes sense.

The old man was a negro woman, crazy as that might sound. She was one of them light-skinned types, though, the type that will bedevil a white man into congress with her so she bear even lighter mulattoes for her schemes. The good thing, though, is that she stuck with her own race the way she should.

Now, the woman's flaws aside, what man would ever want to be with a woman who put on pants and commanded him around like he weren't worth nothin'? Maybe things are different for negroes, after all, we do need to put them in their place so they don't go getting their sights on our women. But you think they'd keep some little bit of manhood when it comes to their womenfolk. Negroes will always be the lesser race, but even among their kind the man should rule over the woman, not the other way 'round.

What's even more disturbing is how they managed to come by all that money. The “old man's” clothes were mighty fine, and the journey on a steamer isn't cheap. The Crafts are sneaky slaves, that's clear as day. They managed to earn the trust of their master, who only tried to do the right thing by them, and then betrayed it. The Craft boy even wrote about how nice it was, him learning a trade and all and getting a leave saying something like “some of the best slaveholders will sometimes give their favourite slaves a few days holiday” (17). What kind of devil could write of his master's kindness in one sentence and then talk about his escape in the next?

Now they're in London, living like colored kings. Were I a smarter man, I would suggest some laws or such to stop this kind of treachery from happening. Things are difficult enough right now without slaves trying to start trouble.Maybe a kind of identification system could tell the negroes from whites so no one could get away with this foolishness. But, being the humble type of man I am, all I can do is give my version of things and hope it will be useful for others.