The Great American History Blog: Henry "Box" Brown's Spectacular Escape from Slavery

One of the most spectacular escapes from slavery made before the American Civil War was that of Henry Brown. Henry Brown was born into slavery in Louisa County in 1815. A clever lad, Henry was leased out to a tobacco factory in Richmond at the age of fifteen. The life of an urban slave was very different than that of a country slave. With the expansion of the industrial sector in Richmond changes in slave living conditions occurred. Separate slave housing was common by the 1840s. Monitoring slave activities would have required constant supervision, and thus was not done. Urban slave workers took to “losing time” when no one was watching. This practice was akin to rural “running away” and was a similar form of resistance. Many owners offered rewards as incentives not to “lose time” and even gave slaves an opportunity to pursue their own entrepreneurial ventures. Thus, Henry Brown was able to accumulate some money of his own.

Unfortunately, human greed continued to plague Henry Brown’s existence. Henry had fallen in love and married a woman named Nancy who lived on a country plantation near the one on which he was born. The couple had three children. Nancy’s owner, aware that Henry was making money in Richmond began to extort money from him in order to guarantee the “well being” of Nancy and the children on his plantation. In 1848, when Nancy was pregnant with the couples fourth child, Henry got the bad news. Nancy and the children were to be sold to a plantation in North Carolina. He would never see them again. With tears in his eyes, Henry watched as three hundred and fifty chained slaves, including his wife and children, walked by him. “My agony was now complete, she with whom I had traveled the journey of life in chains ... and the dear little pledges God had given us I could see plainly must now be separated from me forever, and I must continue, desolate and alone, to drag my chains through the world,” Henry Brown later wrote.

After months of despair and desolation, Henry Brown hit on a desperate scheme to win his freedom. Through his faith in God, Brown later said, he was given the inspiration and courage to put together a creative plan of escape. I conceived of a plan of “of shutting myself up in a box and getting myself conveyed as dry goods to a free state,” Brown wrote. Enlisting the help of a free black friend and a white sympathizer, Samuel Smith, Henry Brown set about executing his plan.

Smith contacted James McKim, a white abolitionist and member of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. The abolitionists assured Smith that they were ready to receive Henry Brown in Philadelphia. Smith then procured a box three feet long by two feet eight inches deep by two feet wide, and marked the box as “dry goods.” The box had only three small air holes.

On the morning of March 29, 1849, Henry Brown crammed himself into the box carrying only an awl, in case he needed to drill more air holes, and a small flask of water. Brown’s co-conspirators nailed the box shut, marked “This Side Up With Care," and carried the box to the Adams Express Company. Henry Brown’s journey got off on its rocky way. Brown traveled by a variety of wagons, railroads, steamboats, and ferries on the way to Philadelphia. The box was often roughly handled, and at one point the box was turned upside down. Brown wrote that he, “…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.” At one point, Brown relates, “I felt a cold sweat coming over me that seemed to be warning that death was about to terminate my earthly miseries.” Fortunately two men needed a place to sit down and, “so perceiving my box, standing on end, one of the men threw it down and the two sat upon it. I was thus relieved from a state of agony which may be more imagined than described.”

After twenty seven hours, the box arrived at its destination in Philadelphia. When the box was opened, a very much alive Henry Brown popped out and said to four astonished abolitionists, “How do you do, Gentlemen?” He then recited a psalm: “I waited patiently on the Lord and He heard my prayer.” Unable to contain his euphoria, Brown began to sing the psalm, to the delight of the abolitionists, who dubbed him Henry “Box” Brown.

Henry “Box” Brown became a sensation. He went on tour and thrilled audiences with the story of his daring escape. In May 1849, he appeared before the New England Anti-Slavery Society Convention in Boston, where he passionately made the case that the enslaved wanted freedom. He often recited the psalm he uttered when he emerged from his famous box when addressing audiences. In September 1849, the story of Henry “Box” Brown was published in Boston. Late in 1849 Brown had a moving panorama about slavery made. The panorama consisted of large vertical spools painted with scenes of enslavement and freedom, and was called “Henry Box Brown’s Mirror of Slavery.”

Henry Brown sailed to England in October 1850. His panorama was exhibited all over England. At this point, Brown, a natural performer, left the abolitionist circuit and totally embraced show business for the next forty years, performing as an actor, singer and magician in England, the United States, and Canada. Brown’s last performance took place in Brantford, Ontario, Canada on February 26, 1889. Henry “Box” Brown died in Toronto on June 15, 1897.