Henry Box Brown (l. c. 1815-1897) was an enslaved African American who became famous as "the man who mailed himself to freedom" after he had himself shipped in a box from Richmond, Virginia, to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 29 March 1849. Afterwards, he became a popular speaker on the anti-slavery lecture circuit and, later, an entertainer.
Henry Brown was born a slave c. 1815 in Louisa County, Virginia, and, at the age of 15, he was sent to Richmond and, as he was especially dexterous in handling tobacco, was hired out by his master to a local tobacco factory. As usual with such arrangements, Brown was allowed to keep some of the money he earned, most going to his master.
He was married to a slave named Nancy, and they had three children. Brown paid his master a regular fee to prevent him from selling Nancy and the children, but his master sold them anyway to a minister in North Carolina. After years of enduring the cruelties of slavery, this betrayal was too much to bear, and Brown began trying to think of ways to escape to the free states in the North.
Mailed to Freedom & Later Life
With the help of his friend, Dr. Smith, and a sympathetic storekeeper who agreed to help for the sum of $86.00, Brown was shut up in a wooden box 3 feet x 2.67 feet x 2 feet (91 x 81 x 61 cm) and mailed to the famous Quaker abolitionist Passmore Williamson (l. 1822-1895) in Philadelphia. He traveled in the box, into which he had bored air holes, for 27 hours, arriving safely and, according to his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself (1851), after recovering his senses, greeted his new friends with "How do you do, gentlemen?" and then burst into a song of praise.
He was afterwards known as Henry Box Brown and turned his escape into his livelihood, re-enacting it for audiences on the anti-slavery lecture circuit. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass (l. c. 1818-1895) disapproved of Brown sharing his story as he felt it prevented others from escaping using his same method.
When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed by Congress, giving slaveholders the right to reclaim escaped slaves, Brown went to England where he supported himself as a hypnotist, magician, and entertainer, traveling with a large panorama he used to help tell the story of his 1849 escape. He married, had a family, and remained in England for 25 years, returning to the US in 1875 and continuing to perform as a showman and mesmerist. He moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1886, still performing his shows, and died there of natural causes in 1897.
The first edition of Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown was published in Boston in 1849, and the better-known edition in Manchester, England, in 1851. It became a bestseller, and Brown regularly drew large audiences to his shows. There is no evidence to suggest Brown was literate when he arrived in Philadelphia or, later, in Boston, and the 1849 work is thought to have been ghostwritten by the abolitionist Charles Stearns as an as-told-to autobiography (Delbanco, 215). There is evidence, however, that Brown could read and write by the time the 1851 edition was published in England, and he is thought to have directly contributed to that work.
Brown's ingenuity in escaping slavery has been compared with Ellen and William Craft's Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860), which tells the story of the formerly enslaved Crafts' escape with Ellen disguised as a Southern gentleman and William as her slave. Both are regarded as important works in the genre of the slave narrative of 19th-century America.
Text
The following is taken from Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Electronic Edition, as published on the site Documenting the American South, pp. 49-57, detailing Brown's escape and travels in the box between Richmond and Philadelphia. The full text of the narrative is given in the bibliography below.
I now began to get weary of my bonds; and earnestly panted after liberty. I felt convinced that I should be acting in accordance with the will of God, if I could snap in sunder those bonds by which I was held body and soul as the property of a fellow man. I looked forward to the good time which every day I more and more firmly believed would yet come, when I should walk the face of the earth in full possession of all that freedom which the finger of God had so clearly written on the constitutions of man, and which was common to the human race; but of which, by the cruel hand of tyranny, I, and millions of my fellow-men, had been robbed.
I was well acquainted with a store-keeper in the city of Richmond, from whom I used to purchase my provisions; and having formed a favourable opinion of his integrity, one day in the course of a little conversation with him, I said to him if I were free I would be able to do business such as he was doing; he then told me that my occupation (a tobacconist) was a money-making one, and if I were free I had no need to change for another.
I then told him my circumstances in regard to my master, having to pay him 25 dollars per month, and yet that he refused to assist me in saving my wife from being sold and taken away to the South, where I should never see her again; and even refused to allow me to go and see her until my hours of labour were over. I told him this took place about five months ago, and I had been meditating my escape from slavery since, and asked him, as no person was near us, if he could give me any information about how I should proceed. I told him I had a little money and if he would assist me, I would pay him for so doing.
The man asked me if I was not afraid to speak that way to him; I said no, for I imagined he believed that every man had a right to liberty. He said I was quite right and asked me how much money I would give him if he would assist me to get away. I told him that I had 166 dollars and that I would give him the half; so we ultimately agreed that I should have his service in the attempt for $86.
Now I only wanted to fix upon a plan. He told me of several plans by which others had managed to effect their escape, but none of them exactly suited my taste. I then left him to think over what would be best to be done, and, in the meantime, went to consult my friend Dr. Smith, on the subject. I mentioned the plans which the storekeeper had suggested, and as he did not approve either of them very much, I still looked for some plan which would be more certain and more safe, but I was determined that come what may, I should have my freedom or die in the attempt.
One day, while I was at work, and my thoughts were eagerly feasting upon the idea of freedom, I felt my soul called out to heaven to breathe a prayer to Almighty God. I prayed fervently that he who seeth in secret and knew the inmost desires of my heart, would lend me his aid in bursting my fetters asunder, and in restoring me to the possession of those rights, of which men had robbed me; when the idea suddenly flashed across my mind of shutting myself up in a box, and getting myself conveyed as dry goods to a free state.
Being now satisfied that this was the plan for me, I went to my friend Dr. Smith and, having acquainted him with it, we agreed to have it put at once into execution not however without calculating the chances of danger with which it was attended; but buoyed up by the prospect of freedom and increased hatred to slavery I was willing to dare even death itself rather than endure any longer the clanking of those galling chains.
It being still necessary to have the assistance of the storekeeper, to see that the box was kept in its right position on its passage, I then went to let him know my intention, but he said although he was willing to serve me in any way he could, he did not think I could live in a box for so long a time as would be necessary to convey me to Philadelphia, but as I had already made up my mind, he consented to accompany me and keep the box right all the way.
My next object was to procure a box, and with the assistance of a carpenter that was very soon accomplished and taken to the place where the packing was to be performed. In the meantime, the storekeeper had written to a friend in Philadelphia, but as no answer had arrived, we resolved to carry out our purpose as best we could.
It was deemed necessary that I should get permission to be absent from my work for a few days, in order to keep down suspicion until I had once fairly started on the road to liberty; and as I had then a gathered finger I thought that would form a very good excuse for obtaining leave of absence; but when I showed it to one overseer, Mr. Allen, he told me it was not so bad as to prevent me from working, so with a view of making it bad enough, I got Dr. Smith to procure for me some oil of vitriol in order to drop a little of this on it, but in my hurry I dropped rather much and made it worse than there was any occasion for, in fact, it was very soon eaten in to the bone, and on presenting it again to Mr. Allen I obtained the permission required, with the advice that I should go home and get a poultice of flax-meal to it, and keep it well poulticed until it got better.
I took him instantly at his word and went off directly to the storekeeper who had by this time received an answer from his friend in Philadelphia and had obtained permission to address the box to him, this friend in that city, arranging to call for it as soon as it should arrive. There being no time to be lost, the storekeeper, Dr. Smith, and myself, agreed to meet next morning at four o'clock, in order to get the box ready for the express train.
The box which I had procured was three feet one inch wide, two feet six inches high, and two feet wide: and on the morning of the 29th day of March, 1849, I went into the box – having previously bored three gimlet holes opposite my face, for air, and provided myself with a bladder of water, both for the purpose of quenching my thirst and for wetting my face, should I feel getting faint. I took the gimlet also with me, in order that I might bore more holes if I found I had not sufficient air.
Being thus equipped for the battle of liberty, my friends nailed down the lid and had me conveyed to the Express Office, which was about a mile distant from the place where I was packed. I had no sooner arrived at the office than I was turned heels up, while some person nailed something on the end of the box. I was then put upon a wagon and driven off to the depot with my head down, and I had no sooner arrived at the depot, than the man who drove the wagon tumbled me roughly into the baggage car, where, however, I happened to fall on my right side.
The next place we arrived at was Potomac Creek, where the baggage had to be removed from the cars, to be put on board the steamer; where I was again placed with my head down, and in this dreadful position had to remain nearly an hour and a half, which, from the sufferings I had thus to endure, seemed like an age to me, but I was forgetting the battle of liberty, and I was resolved to conquer or die.
I felt my eyes swelling as if they would burst from their sockets; and the veins on my temples were dreadfully distended with pressure of blood upon my head. In this position I attempted to lift my hand to my face but I had no power to move it; I felt a cold sweat coming over me which seemed to be a warning that death was about to terminate my earthly miseries, but as I feared even that, less than slavery, I resolved to submit to the will of God, and under the influence of that impression, I lifted up my soul in prayer to God, who alone, was able to deliver me.
My cry was soon heard, for I could hear a man saying to another, that he had travelled a long way and had been standing there two hours, and he would like to get somewhat to sit down; so, perceiving my box, standing on end, he threw it down and then two sat upon it. I was thus relieved from a state of agony which may be more easily imagined than described. I could now listen to the men talking and heard one of them asking the other what he supposed the box contained; his companion replied he guessed it was "THE MAIL." I too thought it was a mail but not such a mail as he supposed it to be.
The next place at which we arrived was the city of Washington, where I was taken from the steam-boat, and again placed upon a wagon and carried to the depot right side up with care; but when the driver arrived at the depot, I heard him call for some person to help to take the box off the wagon, and some one answered him to the effect that he might throw it off; but, says the driver, it is marked "this side up with care;" so if I throw it off I might break something, the other answered him that it did not matter if he broke all that was in it, the railway company were able enough to pay for it.
No sooner were these words spoken than I began to tumble from the wagon, and falling on the end where my head was, I could hear my neck give a crack, as if it had been snapped asunder and I was knocked completely insensible. The first thing I heard after that, was some person saying, "there is no room for the box, it will have to remain and be sent through to-morrow with the luggage train; but the Lord had not quite forsaken me, for in answer to my earnest prayer He so ordered affairs that I should not be left behind; and I now heard a man say that the box had come with the express, and it must be sent on.
I was then tumbled into the car with my head downwards again, but the car had not proceeded far before, more luggage having to be taken in, my box got shifted about and so happened to turn upon its right side; and in this position I remained till I got to Philadelphia, of our arrival in which place I was informed by hearing some person say, "We are in port and at Philadelphia." My heart then leaped for joy, and I wondered if any person knew that such a box was there.
Here it may be proper to observe that the man who had promised to accompany my box failed to do what he promised; but, to prevent it remaining long at the station after its arrival, he sent a telegraphic message to his friend, and I was only twenty-seven hours in the box, though travelling a distance of three hundred and fifty miles.
I was now placed in the depot amongst the other luggage, where I lay till seven o'clock, P.M., at which time a wagon drove up, and I heard a person inquire for such a box as that in which I was. I was then placed on a wagon and conveyed to the house where my friend in Richmond had arranged I should be received.
A number of persons soon collected round the box after it was taken into the house, but as I did not know what was going on I kept myself quiet. I heard a man say, "let us rap upon the box and see if he is alive;" and immediately a rap ensued and a voice said, tremblingly, "Is all right within?" to which I replied–"all right."
The joy of the friends was very great; when they heard that I was alive they soon managed to break open the box, and then came my resurrection from the grave of slavery. I rose a freeman, but I was too weak, by reason of long confinement in that box, to be able to stand, so I immediately swooned away.
After my recovery from the swoon, the first thing which arrested my attention was the presence of a number of friends, every one seeming more anxious than another, to have an opportunity of rendering me their assistance, and of bidding me a hearty welcome to the possession of my natural rights. I had risen, as it were, from the dead…
