Henry Box Brown

Henry "Box" Brown (1815-c.1879) was a 19th century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists in a dry goods container. He became a noted abolitionist speaker and later a showman.

Henry "Box" Brown was born into slavery in 1815 in Louisa County, Virginia. In 1830, Brown was sent to Richmond to work in a tobacco factory. There, he married another slave, Nancy, and the couple had three children. Brown used his wages to pay Nancy's master for the time she spent caring for them. However, in 1848, his wife and children were sold to a slave trader and sent to North Carolina. Brown was powerless to prevent this.

He then became determined to escape to freedom. With the help of a friend, the freed man James C. A. Smith, and a sympathetic white storekeeper named Samuel Smith, Brown devised a plan to have himself shipped to a free state in a box, as if he were a container of dry goods. Brown paid $86 (out of his savings of $166) to Samuel Smith, who contacted Philadelphia abolitionist James Miller McKim. McKim agreed to receive the box.

During the trip, which began on March 29, 1849, Brown's box travelled by many means: by wagon, then railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon. Several times, workers placed the box upside-down or handled it roughly, but Brown always remained still and gave no indication that he was inside. Brown escaped detection on the 27-hour-long journey.

Upon arrival in the "City of Brotherly Love", the box containing Brown was received by McKim, William Still, and other members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee. When Brown was released, one of those present remembered his first words as "How do you do, gentlemen?" He then sang a psalm from the Bible he had previously selected for his moment of freedom.

Henry Brown became a well-known speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society. He was bestowed the nickname of "Box" at a Boston antislavery convention in May 1849, and thereafter used the name Henry Box Brown. He published two versions of his autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown"; first in Boston in 1849 and the second in Manchester, England in 1851. Brown exhibited a moving panorama titled "Mirror of Slavery" in the northeastern U.S. until he was forced to move to England after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Brown toured Britain with his antislavery panorama for the next ten years, performing several hundred times a year and visiting virtually every town and city over that period.

Brown stayed on the British show circuit for 25 years, until 1875. In the 1860s, he began performing as a mesmerist, and some time after that as a conjuror, under the show names Prof. H. Box Brown and the African Prince. He married a second time and began a new family. In 1875, he returned to the U.S. with a family magic act. There is also a later report of the Brown Family Jubilee Singers.

"The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia", a lithograph by Samuel Rowse, depicted Henry Brown emerging from the shipping box into freedom in Philadelphia. The lithograph was published to help raise funds to produce Brown's anti-slavery panorama. One of only three known originals is preserved in the collection of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.

In 1997, Brown was the subject of a Tony Kushner play entitled "Henry Box Brown or the Mirror of Slavery".

ee also

* List of African-American abolitionists
* Slave narrative

Additional Reading and References

Books

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* (Revised version with introduction by Richard Newman, foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
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Internet

* [http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brownbox/menu.html Henry Box Brown, b. 1816 Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself] full text of the Narrative
* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASbox.htm Slave Trade Books website]
* [http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=75 Digital History website, African American Voices]
* [http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2124/Henry_Box_Brown_a_determined_and_innovative_abolitionist African American History; Henry Box Brown webpage]
* [http://www.vahistorical.org/boxbrown.htm Virginia Historical Society]