Henry Box Brown

Henry Box Brown (Template:Circa – June 15, 1897)Template:Sfn was an enslaved man from Virginia who escaped to freedom at the age of 33 by arranging to have himself mailed in a wooden crate in 1849 to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

For a short time, Brown became a noted abolitionist speaker in the northeast United States. As a public figure and fugitive slave, Brown felt extremely endangered by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which increased the pressure to capture escaped slaves. He moved to England and lived there for 25 years, touring with an anti-slavery panorama, and becoming a magician and showman.Template:Sfn

Brown married and started a family with an English woman, Jane Floyd. Brown's first wife, Nancy, remained in slavery. Brown returned to the United States with his English family in 1875, where he continued to earn a living as an entertainer. He toured and performed as a magician, speaker, and mesmerist until at least 1889. The last decade of his life (1886–97) was spent in Toronto, where he died in 1897.Template:Sfn

Biography

Childhood and slavery

In 1815, Henry Brown was born into slavery on a plantation called Hermitage in Louisa County, Virginia.Template:Sfn Henry was religious from an early age, stating that his mother was the one to instill Christian values into him. He is believed to have had at least two siblings, because he mentioned a brother and a sister in his autobiography.Template:Sfn At age 15 he was sent to work in a tobacco factory in Richmond.<ref name="pbs.org">Template:Cite report</ref>

In his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, Brown describes his owner: "Our master was uncommonly kind, (for even a slaveholder may be kind) and as he moved about in his dignity he seemed like a god to us, but not with standing his kindness although he knew very well what superstitious notions we formed of him, he never made the least attempt to correct our erroneous impression, but rather seemed pleased with the reverential feelings which we entertained towards him."Template:Sfn

Escape

Template:Stack Brown was hired out by his master in Richmond, Virginia, and worked in a tobacco factory. In the twelve years that followed, he married a female slave named Nancy and rented a house in which he lived with his wife and their three children.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Brown had been paying his wife's master to not sell his family, but the latter betrayed Brown by selling Nancy, who was pregnant at the time, and their three children to a different slave owner,Template:Sfn a minister in North Carolina.Template:Sfn

In 1849, with the help of James C. A. Smith, a free black man,<ref name="pbs.org" /> and a sympathetic white shoemaker named Samuel A. Smith (no relation), Brown devised a plan to have himself shipped in a box to a free state by the Adams Express Company, known for its confidentiality and efficiency.Template:Sfn Brown paid Template:US$, which was more than half of his savings of Template:US$, to Samuel Smith.Template:Sfn

Smith went to Philadelphia to consult members of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society on how to accomplish the escape, meeting with minister James Miller McKim, William Still, and Cyrus Burleigh. He corresponded with them to work out the details after returning to Richmond. They advised him to mail the box to the office of Quaker merchant Passmore Williamson, who was active with the Vigilance Committee.Template:Sfn

To get out of work the day he was to escape, Brown burned his hand to the bone with sulfuric acid. The box in which Brown was shipped was Template:Convert and displayed the words "dry goods" on it. It was lined with baize, a coarse woolen cloth. He carried only a small portion of water and a few biscuits. A single hole was cut for air, and it was nailed and tied with straps.<ref name="pbs.org" /> Brown later wrote that his uncertain method of travel was worth the risk: "If you have never been deprived of your liberty, as I was, you cannot realize the power of that hope of freedom, which was to me indeed, an anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast."Template:Sfn

On Template:Start date and age, the trip finally began.Template:Sfn Over the next 27 hours, Brown's box was transported by wagon, railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon. Despite the instructions on the box of "handle with care" and "this side up", carriers often placed the box upside-down or handled it roughly. Brown remained still, however and avoided detection.Template:Citation needed

The following day, on Template:Start date and age, the box was received by Williamson, McKim, William Still, and other members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, attesting to the improvements in express delivery services.Template:Sfn When Brown was released, one of the men remembered his first words as: "How do you do, gentlemen?" He sang a song modeled after Psalm 40, which he had earlier chosen to celebrate his release into freedom.Template:Sfn

In addition to celebrating Brown's inventiveness, Hollis Robbins noted: "The role of government and private express mail delivery is central to the story and the contemporary record suggests that Brown's audience celebrated his delivery as a modern postal miracle." The government postal service had dramatically increased communication and, despite southern efforts to control abolitionist literature, mailed pamphlets, letters, and other materials reached the South.Template:Sfn

Cheap postage, Frederick Douglass observed in The North Star, had an "immense moral bearing". As long as federal and state governments respected the privacy of the mails, everyone and anyone could mail letters and packages; almost anything could be inside. In short, the power of prepaid postage delighted the increasingly middle-class and commercial-minded North and increasingly worried the slave-holding South.Template:Sfn

Brown's escape highlighted the power of the mail system, which used a variety of modes of transportation to connect the East Coast. The Adams Express Company, a private mail service founded in 1840, marketed its confidentiality and efficiency. It was favored by abolitionist organizations and "promised never to look inside the boxes it carried".Template:Sfn

Life in freedom

Template:Slavery Brown became a well-known speaker for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and got to know Frederick Douglass. He was nicknamed "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. The first, written with the help of Charles Stearns and conforming to expectations of the slave narrative genre,Template:Sfn was published in Boston in 1849. The second was published in Manchester, England, in 1851, after he had moved there. While on the lecture circuit in the northeastern United States, Brown developed a moving panorama with his partner James C. A. Smith which detailed both Brown's journey as well as the daily life of free and enslaved people.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They separated in 1851.Template:Sfn

Douglass wished that Brown had not revealed the details of his escape, so that others might have used it. When Samuel Smith attempted to free other slaves in Richmond in 1849, they were arrested.Template:Sfn The year of his escape, Brown was contacted by his wife's new owner, who offered to sell his family to him. Brown declined the offer.Template:Sfn This was an embarrassment within the abolitionist community, which tried to keep the information private.Template:Sfn

Brown is known for speaking out against slavery and expressing his feelings about the state of America. In his Narrative, he offers a cure for slavery, suggesting that slaves should be given the vote, a new president should be elected, and the North should speak out against the "spoiled child" of the South.Template:Sfn

After passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which required cooperation from law enforcement officials to capture refugee slaves even in free states, Brown moved to England for safety, as he had become a known public figure. He toured Britain with his antislavery panorama for the next ten years, performing several hundred times a year. To earn a living, Brown also entered the British show circuit for 25 years, until 1875, after leaving the abolitionist circuit following the start of the American Civil War.Template:Sfn

In 1857, as Cutter documented in her book, The Illustrated Slave (2017), Brown acted in several plays written expressly for him by a British playwright – E.G. Burton – but his acting career appears to have been short-lived.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the 1860s, he began performing as a magician with acts as a mesmerist and conjuror, under the show names of "Prof. H. Box Brown" and the "African Prince".Template:Sfn

While in England in 1855, Brown married Jane Floyd, a White Cornish tin worker's daughter, and began a new family.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1875, he returned with his new family to the U.S., with a group magic act. A later report documented the Brown Family Jubilee Singers.Template:Sfn

Last years, possible return to England, and death

Brown returned to the US in 1875, and ultimately settled in Canada in the Toronto area, where he lived and worked for over a decade. Tax and housing records indicate that he still may have been performing in the last years of his life.Template:Sfn

As the scholar Martha J. Cutter first documented in 2015, Henry Box Brown died in Toronto on June 15, 1897.Template:Sfn The last known performance by Brown is a newspaper account of a performance with his daughter Annie and wife JaneTemplate:Sfn in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, dated February 26, 1889.Template:Sfn

Martha Cutter also recently (2022) found two possible performances by Box Brown in England in 1896, one of which was at the Varteg School in England:;<ref name="pennpress">{{cite web [url=https://www.pennpress.org/9780812254051/the-many-resurrections-of-henry-box-brown/ |title=England |publisher=Pontypool Free Press |location=Wales |date=1896-03-20 |work=British Newspaper Archives }}</ref>

The Varteg Board School was close to overflowing on Thursday evening, when one of the grandest of entertainment was given on behalf of Mr. George Selby. . . . The programme was as follows:—Pianoforte solo, Miss Jessie Pope; duet, Misses Esse Short and A. Brace; dialogue, “Mrs. Pert and visitors,” by nine friends; organ recital, Professor Box Brown. . . . The organ recital by Prof. Box Brown has left a marked impression on the minds and ears of the people.<ref name="pennpress"/>

This information is not definitive, however, because passenger records in this period of ships returning to Canada contain few specific details about their occupants beyond first and last name and gender.Template:Citation needed

If the performance by Brown at the Varteg school is valid, this would have been the last known performance by Brown, since he died just one year later..Template:Citation needed

Legacy

Samuel Alexander Smith attempted to ship more enslaved people from Richmond to liberty in Philadelphia, but was discovered and arrested. As for James C. A. Smith, he too was arrested for attempting another shipment of slaves.<ref name="pbs.org"/>

• 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 three known originals is preserved in the collection of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.Template:Citation needed
• A monument to Henry "Box" Brown is located along the Canal Walk in downtown Richmond, Virginia; it is a metal reproduction of the box in which Brown escaped.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• At Aquia Landing, on the Potomac River in Stafford Co., Virginia, and the 19th Century rail head from Richmond, there is a marker about the journey of Brown. At Aquia, the crate would have been transferred from a railroad car to a steamboat, then on to Washington, where the shipping process would be reversed.Template:Citation needed
• In 2012, Louisa County set a historical marker honoring Henry Box Brown and his escape from slavery.<ref>Template:Cite web

</ref>

• Ellen Levine wrote a children's picture book entitled Henry's Freedom Box (2007) based upon Brown's life. It was illustrated by Kadir Nelson and was awarded the Caldecott Honor.<ref>Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938–Present | Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). Ala.org. Retrieved December 7, 2013.</ref>
• Tony Kushner wrote a play entitled Henry Box Brown, which premiered in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Doug Peterson wrote a historical novel based on Henry Brown called The Disappearing Man (2011).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Sally M. Walker wrote a children's book, Freedom Song: The Story of Henry "Box" Brown (2012), illustrated by Sean Qualls.<ref>Qualls, Sean. (March 5, 2012) News from Sean Qualls: Another *Starred Review (BCCB) for Freedom Song. Seanqualls.blogspot.com. March 5, 2012.</ref>
• Brown is the subject of a 2012 film, Box Brown, by director Rob Underhill.<ref>Box Brown Template:Webarchive, Robunderhill.wix.com. Retrieved on December 7, 2013.</ref>
• Playwright Mike Wiley wrote a one-man show about the life of Henry Box Brown entitled One Noble Journey.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• In 2014, Illustrator and historian Joel Christian Gill published a comic novel called Strange Fruit, Volume I: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, which included Brown's story.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• On the song "Diasporal Histories" by Professor A.L.I. released on the XFactor album in 2015, he interweaves the slave narratives of Henry "Box" Brown, Solomon Northup, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and the fictionalized narrative of Eliza who escapes slavery through an icy river. He says of Brown, "Henry Brown, boxed himself up to Boston! (a reference to the north)".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Brown is the subject of a sequence of poems in Olio (2016) by Tyehimba Jess. The poems are adapted from John Berryman's The Dream Songs.
• Brown and his story is featured on the 2019 Kevin Hart Netflix Original “Kevin Hart’s Guide To Black History”.
• Brown was portrayed by Ade Otukoya in the Dickinson episode "Forbidden Fruit a Flavor Has."<ref name="Dickinson">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Jarrett King wrote a play entitled Box, which premiered on June 23, 2023, at Penfold Theatre in Austin Texas.
• As part of Black History Month celebrations, a Lane in Toronto was named after Brown on February 1, 2024 . “Henry Box Brown Lane” is situated in the Corktown area of Toronto between Bright Street and St. Paul Street.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• He is portrayed in Sanctuary Road by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell as an oratorio and opera. Sanctuary Road is based on the writings of abolitionist William Still and is based on the astonishing stories to be found in his book, titled The Underground Railroad, which is a documentation of the network of secret routes and safe houses used by African American slaves to escape into free states and Canada during the early- to mid-1800s. The oratorio premiered at Carnegie Hall in May, 2018. An opera version of Sanctuary Road premiered in Raleigh, North Carolina, in March 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A recording is available. A video of the opera can be viewed here.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Psalm

Song (modeled after Psalm 40), sung by Mr. Brown on being removed from the Box:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn

See also

• List of slaves
• Ellen Craft
• Slavery in the United States
• Abolitionism in the United States
• Fugitive slaves in the United States
• Fugitive slave laws in the United States

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book
• Chater, Kathleen Untold Histories: Black People in England and Wales During the Period of the British Slave Trade, c. 1660-1807 Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010.
• Chater, Kathleen Henry Box Brown: From Slavery to Show Business McFarland & Company, Inc, Jefferson, NC, 2020.
• Cutter, Martha J. The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022.
• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite web
• Template:Cite book

External links

• African American Voices, Digital History website
• African American History; Henry Box Brown webpage, African American Registry
• "Henry Box Brown", Virginia Historical Society
• Henry "Box" Brown Wax Figure at The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
• "When special delivery meant deliverance for a fugitive slave", New York Times blog, February 26, 2010
• "Henry Box Brown" in Union or Secession: Virginians Decide, at Library of Virginia
• NEH's EDSITEment lesson plan Henry "Box" Brown's Narrative: Creating Original Historical Fiction
• NPR interview with Brown biographer Jeffrey Ruggles