Anna Maria Weems

rdf:langString Anna Maria Weems

rdf:langString Anna Maria Weems, also Ann Maria Weems (ca. 1840 – after 1863), whose aliases included "Ellen Capron" and "Joe Wright," was an American woman known for escaping slavery by disguising herself as a male carriage driver and escaping to Canada, where her family was settled with other slave fugitives. She and her younger sister were separated from her family at the age of seven, and her mother and brothers were sold in Alabama. Within a few months, her mother and two of her youngest brothers were manumitted and settled with their father in Washington, D.C. Then freedom for her sister, Catherine, was negotiated. The Weems had attained the money to pay ransoms through abolitionists in England and the United States. Unable to purchase Anna Maria Weems' freedom, she ran away at the age of 15. She left her slaveholder in Rockville, Maryland and traveled through Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Brooklyn, New York before arriving in Dresden, Ontario. The journey, made more treacherous due to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, occurred over two months, six weeks of which she was in hiding and most of which she was dressed as a young man. Three books have been written about Weems and her family member's struggle for freedom, entitled A Shadow on the Household, Stealing Freedom and The Underground Railroad: Anna Maria Weems.