BLACK HISTORY

Remember Henry Brown, The Man Who Shipped Himself To Freedom?

Here's how Henry 'Box' Brown shipped himself to Philadelphia

“When there's a will, there's a way," the old English proverb says, reminding us that determination is powerful. And what better example can be found than Black abolitionists who, against all odds, found unique paths to freedom? For instance, a Black man named Henry "Box" Brown shipped himself from Virginia, where he worked on a plantation and tobacco factory, to the free state of Pennsylvania. The post office unknowingly delivered Brown, hidden in a "three feet long, two and half feet deep, and a foot wide" wooden crate to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Henry "Box" Brown became a well-known abolitionist, public speaker, and performer, but none of that would have been possible without his determination to be free.

While Henry "Box" Brown risked his life by traveling in a wooden crate, it was a risk he was willing to take. What sparked this feeling? John Barret, the former mayor of Richmond, Virginia, enslaved Henry's parents, siblings, and himself. He worked as a skilled tobacco laborer and was allowed to earn some money, which he used to rent a home and marry an enslaved woman, Nancy, who was owned by a nearby enslaver. Together, they had three children. However, after Barret died and Nancy's enslaver sold her, along with her children, while she was pregnant with Henry's fourth child for $1,050, Henry decided to self-liberate himself.

“Both our hearts,” Henry recalled, “were so overpowered with feeling that we could say nothing, and when at last we were obliged to part, the look of mutual love which we exchanged was all the token which we could give each other…I was obliged to turn away in silence.”

People often forget that slavery not only deprived Black people of pay for their labor but also the right to create and maintain familial relationships. Family separation was always a possibility for enslaved people, but knowing that didn't soften the blow of wives and husbands, fathers and mothers, and children stripped away from one another. Enslaved Black men and women had heartbreak written into their wedding vows — "until death or *distance* do you part," pastors read instead of the traditional "until death do you part," White couples heard. The heartbreak of this forced separation set Henry's plan into motion because it made slavery unbearable to him. "My son, as yonder leaves are stripped off the trees of the forest, so are the children of slaves swept away from them by the hands of cruel tyrants."

Henry's plan to free himself using the postal service may have never worked without help from his co-conspirators, James Caesar Anthony Smith, a free Black man whom he met in the choir at the First African Baptist Church, and Samuel Alexander Smith, a White shoemaker he knew who agreed to help in exchange for every dollar Henry had saved, which amounted to fifty dollars. Finding help was necessary. After all, it's not like someone can seal themselves in a box from the outside. The Smiths "commissioned a carpenter to build a wooden box" that Brown could fit inside, and both agreed to help him achieve his goal of shipping him from Virginia to the free state of Pennsylvania. It was such an unusual plan, to be sure, and yet, it was Henry Brown's only hope for a life as a free man.

On March 23rd, 1849, at approximately 8 o'clock in the morning, Henry Brown began his journey towards freedom. As you would expect, traveling in a box came with significant discomfort. While the crate was marked "this side up with care," Brown said it was almost immediately flipped over, and he experienced pain and feared for his life. "When I began to feel of my eyes and head, and found to my dismay, that my eyes were almost swollen out of their sockets." During this ordeal, Brown had to be careful not to cry, shout, or moan in pain for fear that his plan would be foiled. In his narrative, Brown describes his horrors. "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." At some points, the positioning of the box made his pain unbearable, while at other times, when the box was held right side up without any boxes on top, the pressure was relieved. By March 24th, at around 5 o'clock in the morning, Brown arrived, and this hellish experience was finally over.

J. Miller McKim, a White abolitionist and leader of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, who agreed to accept the package, feared that Henry wouldn't survive the journey but was pleased to discover he survived the ordeal, earning him the nickname Henry "Box" Brown. As he stepped out of the crate, he said, "Good Morning, Gentlemen." Vermont's Burlington Courier was the first publication to publish his story, although McKim and others encouraged Henry to document his experiences in a book, which he did. However, the entire abolitionist community was not pleased with his public tour, where he shared his story. For instance, Fredrick Douglas noted, "Had not Henry Box Brown attracted slaveholding attention to the manner of his escape, we might have had a thousand Box Browns per annum." Perhaps Douglas' critique was fitting, given that Samuel Smith attempted to receive another shipment of enslaved people from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia in the spring of 1849 "but was discovered and arrested."

Publically flaunting his freedom angered enslavers, who sought to prevent any mass moment of sending Black people to free states through the postal service. So, Douglas made an important point about saying the quiet part out loud. Telling enslavers how he escaped ensured they could prevent others from doing the same. However, historically speaking, it's helpful to have Henry "Box" Brown's story in his own words, which we wouldn't have if he kept the details under wraps. After the Fugitive Slave Law passed, Brown fled the country in fear he would be re-enslaved and began touring throughout Europe. Unfortunately, Brown never got an opportunity to reunite with his family, but he did remarry and perform magic acts with his second wife and daughter later in life.

When we think about the Underground Railroad, we must realize that this network of abolitionists and enslaved people came in many shapes and sizes. There wasn't one standard way for enslaved people to seek their freedom. Some escaped on foot and horseback, while others fled along the Maritime Underground Railroad. And one very determined enslaved Black man from Virginia bravely shipped himself in a wooden crate in pursuit of freedom. May we never forget the determination and will of Henry "Box" Brown.

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