Seeking Refuge in a "Foreign Clime": Ellen and William Craft and the 1851 Census

My paper engages with reimagining the transatlantic climate of abolition by focus on a specific incident. Wilson Armistead, a Yorkshire Quaker merchant, abolitionist, and prolific author, hosted Ellen and William Craft in his... [ view full abstract ]

My paper engages with reimagining the transatlantic climate of abolition by focus on a specific incident. Wilson Armistead, a Yorkshire Quaker merchant, abolitionist, and prolific author, hosted Ellen and William Craft in his house in Leeds in 1851, when they were on a lecture tour of the UK. In a typically quiet (yet bold) abolitionist act, he ensured that they were recorded in the British Census as 'Fugitive Slaves'.  As the Crafts were well-known figures who received sympathetic attention, this unprecedented action was widely covered in UK newspapers.  The staunchly abolitionist Leeds Mercury, thundered: “What a disgrace to a professedly free and Christian country as America…that America's own born citizens are driven to seek refuge in a foreign clime from the man-stealer, and from the horrors of Slavery.”  My paper explores this forgotten story to ask how public documents can be subverted for unofficial purposes, and to consider what happens when abolitionists and academics meet in the archive.