Henry "Box" Brown

The Underground Railroad was not only an example of a way that slaves could attain their freedom but also one example of a representation for the abolition of slavery. Through the bravery of Harriet Tubman and other blacks and whites who courageously made the journey, they gave hope and fueled even more of a desire for blacks to achieve equality and abolish slavery. Henry Brown or most known as Henry “Box” Brown was also a man who achieved freedom in a peculiar way. His unorthodox method and the legacy he left behind inspired numerous blacks and shocked those who were pro slavery because it showed the determination and how far the blacks would go for their rights.

Henry was born in 1815 in Virginia. Little is known about his immediate family but Henry was sent to work on a tobacco factory at the age of fifteen where he remained before his grand escape. There, he married a woman and had four children. Unfortunately, his wife at the time was owned by a different slave master which meant limited contact. In 1848, his wife and children were sold to another master located in North Carolina. Devastated at his loss, Henry turned towards God and recounted that God was truly wha guided him towards freedom and the one who gave him the courage to follow through with the shocking plan. He was a member of the first African Baptist Church and there, he met James Caesar. Caesar was a free black who knew of a white sympathizer by the name of Samuel Alexander Smith. While Smith wasn’t an incredibly reputable man, he did enjoy gambling and agreed to help Henry if he followed through with the idea he had devised. The plan mean that Henry would have to be shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia in a box only three feet long, three feet high and two feet wide and labelled as “dry goods”. Henry was willing to try anything so on March 23, 1849, he was shipped by the Henry Adams Express Company.

Henry’s journey lasted a total of twenty seven hours and was by no means necessary. During the trip, he was upside down seven times and at one point, described how he had been in such a horrible state that he felt as though his eyes were going to “burst from their sockets” and he swore he felt a blood clot forming. While this was the closest call he had to death, he was luckily saved by two men who threw his box right side up to sit on it. Eventually, Henry was passed on to William Still, James Miller McKim and Lewis Thompson. Upon his arrival, Henry recited a psalm to them that he would later recount multiple times.

While many were inspired by Henry’s journey and wanted to publicize it to fantasize and bring support to the movement, abolitionist Stephen Douglass felt that if his story was passed on, others would attempt the same. Already, Smith had tried to ship multiple more slavs but was arrested and sentenced to six and a half years in a state penitentiary. Henry was condemned by not trying hard enough to find his family yet this didn’t seem to phase him. For the rest of his life, Henry’s source of income and his life long obsession was him talking about his amazing feat. In May of 1849, he appeared before the New England Anti Slavery Society Convention and convinced the audience that slaves were thinking people who desired freedom. IN September of 1849, the Henry Box Brown Narrative was published and spread across Europe and the US by author Charles Stearns and in 1849, Henry hired artists to create a panorama depicting his experience with slavery. Unfortunately, by 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act put Henry at risk of being returned back to his owners. He escaped to London and there, his panorama was displayed for the first time.

Henry resided in England for the net twenty five years and settled down and had a child. He returned to the US in 1875 and continued to proclaim his story through his job of being a magician. The last record of him was found Canada in 1889 but nothing is known after that. Henry Box Brown became a crucial part of American History because of how fantastical his story was. Some argue it was stupidity and that it is shown in the way that Brown lived the remainder of his life while another argues that it was a step in the right direction for representation. Brown’s legacy still lives on though.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brownbox/brownbox.html

https://www.biography.com/people/henry-box-brown-21325341

http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/shows/list/underground-railroad/stories-freedom/henry-box-brown/