Henry 'Box'
Former Slave, Actor and Entertainer
by Hannah-Rose Murray
PhD student, University of Nottingham
Henry Brown earned the nickname 'Box' Brown after his infamous and miraculous escape attempt from slavery. Born enslaved in Richmond, Virginia in 1816, Brown endured numerous hardships at the hands of his slaveholding family. One day, he returned from work to find his wife and children were sold away, never to be seen again, and it was this event that acted as a catalyst in Brown's decision to flee slavery in 1849. Collaborating with a free black man in the city of Richmond, a box was constructed measuring 3 feet long by 2 feet 8 inches, and 2 feet wide for Brown to squeeze into. On the chosen day of his escape, Brown burned his hand with acid to ensure the day off and prepared for his 27-hour long journey in the prepared box, which was mailed from Richmond to Virginia. Upon reaching Philadelphia, abolitionists from the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee (who had been pre-warned of Brown's escape) received Brown's box and opened the lid. Brown clambered out and sung a freedom hymn: he was finally free. Brown published the first edition of his Narrative in 1849, with another edition following in 1851 in England. You can read it here.
His residence in the Northern states of America however, proved to be short. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 (which legally gave Southern slaveholders and slavecatchers the sanction to drag back their former fugitive slaves from the North back to the South) Brown moved to Britain for safety. He toured around the country for over a quarter of a century, visiting large cities to small villages. According to one local newspaper report, Brown performed in the Music Hall in Hull:
"Mr. Henry Box Brown, proprietor of the great moving American tableaux or panorama of African and American slavery, comprising upwards of one hundred magnificent views, representing 'slavery as it is' painted on canvas, illustrative of many vivid and interesting incidents depicted in Mrs. Stowe's universally admired work". Uncle Tom's Cabin. (The Hull Packet and East Riding Times, 26 November, 1852)
Henry 'Box' Brown
Brown was a savvy businessman, and capitalized on Harriet Beecher Stowe's infamous 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin to ensure the success of his panorama. Stowe's book sold over one and a half million copies in Britain, which inspired other literary works and numerous performances across the country. By including images or references to the novel, Brown not only highlights something that would resonate in popular culture but also uses the novel as a spring board to argue the brutality of slavery referred to in the novel was nothing compared to the reality of slavery.
Brown also discussed the brutality of slavery and the destruction of the family by white slaveholders:
"There is no man, I care not who he be, black or white, has felt the loss of his wife and children more than I. I have borne the galling chains, the tyrant's threats and more than that, I have seen my wife sold and bartered from one villain to another, and still clung to her and my children as long as they remained in Richmond. At length a fatal hour arrived, my wife is sold off to a wretch not to work in a cotton field or rice plantation but as she was handsome, for a purpose I cannot here name, but leave you and the public to judge. Bereft of my wife and children, and all the comfort that even the hapless slave enjoys I resolved to be free. I obtained my liberty." (The Bradford Observer, December 23 1852, p.3)
Whilst Brown's heartbreak is palpable here, this narrative is complicated by the notion that once free, he had the chance to purchase his wife from slavery and according to records, refused to do so, although we do not know the exact reason why.
Throughout his time in Britain, Brown refused to conform to the mould of antislavery lecturer and even performed as a magician, mesmerist and actor during the late 1850s. From 1857, he turned to the performance stage and starred in a play based on his own life. According to one review, Brown, "in his career as slave and freeman, has exhibited talents and displayed heroism of no ordinary character, and with the same cordiality with which we greet all worthy aspirants for fame, no doubt Mr. Brown will receive the success and honour that his merit and perseverance demand." (The Era, London, October 4 1857) Occasionally, he also paraded the streets of some English towns in traditional African wear, and as a result styled himself as an "African Prince." Brown married an English woman, who accompanied him on his return to America, and he continued performing in various capacities until his death in 1897.