Henry
Box Brown was
born a slave Louisa County, Virginia, in 1815. He married
a local slave but in 1849 his wife and children were sold to a plantation
owner in North Carolina.
Soon afterwards Brown decided to escape and with the help of a sympathetic
tobacconist, he arranged to be sent in a box
to James
McKim, an anti-slavery campaigner
in Pennsylvania and a member of the Underground
Railroad.
Brown survived the journey and as well as becoming a well-known speaker
for the Anti-Slavery Society, he
wrote his autobiography, Narrative
of the Life of Henry Box Brown
(1851).
James McKim (right) receives
Henry Box Brown in Pennsylvania
(1)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown
(1851)
My master's
son Charles, at one time, became impressed with the evils of slavery,
and put his notion into practical effect by emancipating about forty
of his slaves, and paying their expenses to a free state. Our old
master, about this time, being unable to attend to all his affairs
himself, employed an overseer whose, disposition was so cruel as to
make many of the slaves run away. The change in our treatment was
so great, and so much for the worse, that we could not help lamenting
that the master had adopted such a change. There is no telling what
might have been the result of this new method amongst slaves, so unused
to the lash as we were, if in the midst of the experiment our old
master had not been called upon to go the way of all the earth. As
he was about to expire he sent for my mother and me to come to his
bedside; we ran with beating hearts and highly elated feelings, not
doubting, in the, least, but that he was about to confer upon us the
boon of freedom - for we had both expected that we should be set free
when master died - but imagine our deep disappointment when the old
man called me to his side and said, Henry yon, will make a good plough-boy,
or a good gardener, now you must be an honest boy and never tell an
untruth.
I have given you to my son William, and you must obey him; thus the
old gentleman deceived us by his former kind treatment and raised
expectation in our youthful minds which were doomed to be overthrown.
If there is any thing which tends to buoy up the spirit of the slave,
under the pressure of his severe toils, more than another, it is the
hope of future freedom: by this his heart is cheered and his soul
is lighted up in the midst of the fearful scenes of agony and suffering
which he has to endure. I have known many slaves to labour unusually
hard with the view of obtaining the price of their own redemption,
and, after they had paid for themselves over and over again, were
- by the unprincipled tyranny and fiendish mockery of moral principle
in which their barbarous masters delight to indulge - still refused
what they had so fully paid for, and what they so ardently desired.
Indeed a great many masters hold out to their slaves the object of
purchasing their own freedom - in order to induce them to labor more
- without at the same time, entertaining the slightest idea of ever
fulfilling their promise.
(2)
William Box Brown,Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown
(1851)
My father and mother were left on the plantation; but I was taken
to the city of Richmond, to work in a tobacco manufactory, owned by
my old master's son William, who had received a special charge from
his father to take good care of me, and which charge my new master
endeavoured to perform. He told me if I would behave well he would
take good care of me and give me money to spend; he talked so kindly
to me that I determined I would exert myself to the utmost to please
him, and do just as he wished me in every respect. He furnished me
with a new suit of clothes, and gave me money to buy things to send
to my mother. One day I overheard him telling the overseer that his
father had raised me - that I was a smart boy and that he must never
whip me. I tried exceedingly hard to perform what I thought was my
duty, and escaped the lash almost entirely, although I often thought
the overseer would have liked to have given me a whipping, but my
master's orders, which he dared not altogether to set aside, were
my defence; so under these circumstances my lot was comparatively
easy.
Our overseer at that
time was a coloured man, whose name was Wilson Gregory; he was generally
considered a shrewd and sensible man, and, after the orders which
my master gave him concerning me, he used to treat me very kindly
indeed, and gave me board and lodgings in his own house. Gregory acted
as book-keeper also to my master, and was much in favour with the
merchants of the city and all who knew him; he instructed me how to
judge of the qualities of tobacco, and with the view of making me
a more proficient judge of that article, he advised me to learn to
chew and to smoke which I therefore did.
(3)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown
(1851)
About eighteen months after I came to the
city of Richmond, an extraordinary occurrence took place which caused
great excitement all over the town. I did not then know precisely
what was the cause of this excitement, for I could got no satisfactory
information from my master, only he said that some of the slaves had
plotted to kill their owners. I have since learned that it was the
famous Nat Turner's insurrection. Many slaves were whipped, hung,
and cut down with the swords in the streets; and some that were found
away from their quarters after dark, were shot; the whole city was
in the utmost excitement, and the whites seemed terrified beyond measure.
Great numbers of slaves were loaded with irons; some were half hung
as it was termed --that is they were suspended from some tree with
a rope about their necks, so adjusted as not quite to strangle them--and
then they were pelted by men and boys with rotten eggs. This half-hanging
is a refined species of punishment peculiar to slaves! This insurrection
took place some distance from the city, and was the occasion of the
enacting of that law by which more than five slaves were forbidden
to meet together unless they were at work; and also of that, for the
silencing all coloured preachers.
(4)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life
of Henry Box Brown (1851)
About
this time Wilson Gregory, who was our overseer, died, and his place
was supplied by a man named Stephen Bennett, who had a wooden leg;
and who used to creep up behind the slaves to hear what they had to
talk about in his absence; but his wooden leg generally betrayed him
by coming into contact with something which would make a noise, and
that would call the attention of the slaves to what he was about.
He was a very mean man in all his ways, and was very much disliked
by the slaves. He used to whip them, often, in a shameful manner.
On one occasion I saw him take a slave, whose name was Pinkney, and
make him take him off his shirt; he then tied his hands and gave him
one hundred lashes on his bare back; and all this, because he lacked
three pounds of his task, which was valued at six cents.
(5)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life
of Henry Box Brown (1851)
The name of our new overseer was
John F. Allen, he was a thorough-going villain in all his modes of
doing business; he was a savage looking sort of man; always apparently
ready for any work of barbarity or cruelty to which the most depraved
despot might call him. As a specimen of Allen's cruelty I will mention
the revolting case of a coloured man, who was frequently in the habit
of singing. This man was taken sick, and although he had not made
his appearance at the factory for two or three days, no notice was
taken of him; no medicine was provided nor was there any physician
employed to heal him. At the end of that time Allen ordered three
men to go to the house of the invalid and fetch him to the factory;
and of course, in a little while the sick man appeared; so feeble
was he however from disease, that he was scarcely able to stand. Allen,
notwithstanding, desired him to be stripped and his hands tied behind
him; he was then tied to a large post and questioned about his singing;
Allen told him that his singing consumed too much time, and that it
hurt him very much, but that he was going to give him some medicine
that would cure him; the poor trembling man made no reply and immediately
the pious overseer Allen, for no other crime than sickness, inflicted
two-hundred lashes upon his bare back.
(6)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life
of Henry Box Brown (1851)
I now began to think of entering the matrimonial state; and with that
view I had formed an acquaintance with a young woman named Nancy,
who was a slave belonging to a Mr. Leigh a clerk in the Bank, and,
like many more slave-holders, professing to be a very pious man. We
had made it up to get married, but it was necessary in the first place,
to obtain our masters' permission, as we could do nothing without
their consent. I therefore went to Mr. Leigh, and made known to him
my wishes, when he told me he never meant to sell Nancy, and if my
master would agree never to sell me, I might marry her. He promised
faithfully that he would not sell her, and pretended to entertain
an extreme horror of separating families. He gave me a note to my
master, and after they had discussed the matter over, I was allowed
to marry the object of my choice.
When Nancy became my wife she was living with a Mr. Reeves, a minister
of the gospel, who had not long come from the north, where he had
the character of being an Anti-slavery man; but he had not been long
in the south when all his anti-slavery notions vanished and he became
a staunch advocate of slave-holding doctrines, and even wrote articles
in favour of slavery which were published in the Richmond Republican.
My wife was still the property of Mr. Leigh and, from the apparent
sincerity of his promises to us, we felt confident that he would not
separate us. We had not, however, been married above twelve months,
when his conscientious scruples vanished, and he sold my wife to a
Mr. Joseph H. Colquitt, a saddler, living in the city of Richmond,
and a member of Dr. Plummer's church there. This Mr. Colquitt was
an exceedingly cruel man, and he had a wife who was, if possible,
still more cruel. She was very contrary and hard to be pleased she
used to abuse my wife very much, not because she did not do her duty,
but because, it was said, her manners were too refined for a slave.
At this time my wife had a child and this vexed Mrs. Colquitt very
much; she could not bear to see her nursing her baby and used to wish
some great calamity to happen to my wife.
Eventually she was so much displeased with my wife that she induced
Mr. Colquitt to sell her to one Philip M. Tabb, for the sum of 450
dollars; but coming to see the value of her more clearly after she
tried to do without her, she could not rest till she got Mr. Colquitt
to repurchase her from Mr. Tabb, which he did in about four months
after he had sold her, for 500 dollars, being 50 more than he had
sold her for.
(7)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life
of Henry Box Brown (1851)
I had not been many hours at my work, when I was informed that my
wife and children were taken from their home, sent to the auction
mart and sold, and then lay in prison ready to start away the next
day for North Carolina with the man who had purchased them. I cannot
express, in language, what were my feelings on this occasion.
I received a message, that if I wished to see my wife and children,
and bid them the last farewell, I could do so, by taking my stand
on the street where they were all to pass on their way for North Carolina.
I quickly availed myself of this information, and placed myself by
the side of a street, and soon had the melancholy satisfaction of
witnessing the approach of a gang of slaves, amounting to three hundred
and fifty in number, marching under the direction of a Methodist minister,
by whom they were purchased, and amongst which slaves were my wife
and children.
I stood in the midst of many who, like myself, were mourning the loss
of friends and relations and had come there to obtain one parting
look at those whose company they but a short time before had imagined
they should always enjoy, but who were, without any regard to their
own wills, now driven by the tyrant's voice and the smart of the whip
on their way to another scene of toil, and, to them, another land
of sorrow in a far off southern country.
These beings were marched with ropes about their necks, and staples
on their arms, and, although in that respect the scene was no very
novel one to me, yet the peculiarity of my own circumstances made
it assume the appearance of unusual horror. This train of beings was
accompanied by a number of waggons loaded with little children of
many different families, which as they appeared rent the air with
their shrieks and cries and vain endeavors to resist the separation
which was thus forced upon them, and the cords with which they were
thus bound; but what should I now see in the very foremost waggon
but a little child looking towards me and pitifully calling, father!
father! This was my eldest child, and I was obliged to look upon it
for the last time that I should, perhaps, ever see it again in life;
if it had been going to the grave and this gloomy procession had been
about to return its body to the dust from whence it sprang, whence
its soul had taken its departure for the land of spirits, my grief
would have been nothing in comparison to what I then felt; for then
I could have reflected that its sufferings were over and that it would
never again require nor look for a father's care.
(8)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life
of Henry Box Brown (1851)
I was well acquainted with a store-keeper in the city of Richmond,
from whom I used to purchase my provisions; and having formed a favourable
opinion of his integrity, one day in the course of a little conversation
with him, I said to him if I were free I would be able to do business
such as he was doing; he then told me that my occupation (a tobacconist)
was a money-making one, and if I were free I had no need to change
for another. I then told him my circumstances in regard to my master,
having to pay him 25 dollars per month, and yet that he refused to
assist me in saving my wife from being sold and taken away to the
South, where I should never see her again. I told him this took place
about five months ago, and I had been meditating my escape from slavery
since, and asked him, as no person was near us, if he could give me
any information about how I should proceed. I told him I had a little
money and if he would assist me I would pay him for so doing.
The man asked me if I was not afraid to speak that way to him; I said
no, for I imagined he believed that every man had a right to liberty.
He said I was quite right, and asked me how much money I would give
him if he would assist me to get away. I told him that I had $I66
and that I would give him the half; so we ultimately agreed that I
should have his service in the attempt for $86. Now I only wanted
to fix upon a plan. He told me of several plans by which others had
managed to effect their escape, but none of them exactly suited my
taste.
One day, while I was at work when the idea suddenly flashed across
my mind of shutting myself up in a box, and getting myself conveyed
as dry goods to a free state.
(9)
In his book, Narrative of the Life of
Henry Box Brown , William Box Brown described his journey in his
box.
The next place at which we arrived was the city of Washington, where
I was taken from the steam-boat, and again placed upon a waggon and
carried to the depôt right side up with care; but when the driver
arrived at the depôt I heard him call for some person to help
to take the box off the waggon, and some one answered him to the effect
that he might throw it off; but, says the driver, it is marked "this
side up with care;" so if I throw it off I might break something,
the other answered him that it did not matter if he broke all that
was in it, the railway company were able enough to pay for it. No
sooner were these words spoken than I began to tumble from the waggon,
and falling on the end where my head was, I could bear my neck give
a crack, as if it had been snapped asunder and I was knocked completely
insensible.
The first thing I heard after that, was some person saying, "there
is no room for the box, it will have to remain and be sent through
to-morrow with the luggage train; but the Lord had not quite forsaken
me, for in answer to my earnest prayer He so ordered affairs that
I should not be left behind; and I now heard a man say that the box
had come with the express, and it must be sent on. I was then tumbled
into the car with my head downwards again, but the car had not proceeded
far before, more luggage having to be taken in, my box got shifted
about and so happened to turn upon its right side; and in this position
I remained till I got to Philadelphia, of our arrival in which place
I was informed by hearing some person say, "We are in port and
at Philadelphia." My heart then leaped for joy, and I wondered
if any person knew that such a box was there.
Here it may be proper to observe that the man who had promised to
accompany my box failed to do what he promised; but, to prevent it
remaining long at the station after its arrival, he sent a telegraphic
message to his friend, and I was only twenty seven hours in the box,
though travelling a distance of three hundred and fifty miles.
I was now placed in the depôt amongst the other luggage, where
I lay till seven o'clock at which time a waggon drove up, and I heard
a person inquire for such a box as that in which I was. I was then
placed on a waggon and conveyed to the house where my friend in Richmond
had arranged I should be received.
A number of persons soon collected round the box after it was taken
in to the house, but as I did not know what was going on I kept myself
quiet. I heard a man say, "let us rap upon the box and see if
he is alive" and immediately a rap ensued and a voice said, tremblingly,
"Is all right within?" to which I replied - "all right."
The joy of the friends was very great;
when they heard that I was alive they soon managed to break open the
box, and then came my resurrection from the grave of slavery. I rose
a freeman, but I was too weak, by reason of long confinement in that
box, to be able to stand, so I immediately swooned away. After my
recovery from the swoon the first thing, which arrested my attention,
was the presence of a number of friends, every one seeming more anxious
than another, to have an opportunity of rendering me their assistance,
and of bidding me a hearty welcome to the possession of my natural
rights, I had risen as it were from the dead.
(10)
William Box Brown, Narrative of the Life
of Henry Box Brown (1851)
I was then taken by the hand and welcomed to the houses of the following
friends: Mr. J. Miller, Mr. McKim, Mr. and Mrs. Motte, Mr. and Mrs.
Davis, and many others, by all of whom I was treated in the kindest
manner possible. But it was thought proper that I should not remain
long in Philadelphia, so arrangements were made for me to proceed
to Massachusetts, where, by the assistance of a few anti-slavery friends,
I was enabled shortly after to arrive.
I went to New York, where I became acquainted with Mr. H. Long, and
Mr. Eli Smith, who were very kind to me the whole time I remained
there. My next journey was to New Bedford, where I remained some weeks
under the care of Mr. H. Ricketson, my finger being still bad from
the effects of the oil of vitriol with which I dressed it before I
left Richmond. While I was here I heard of a great anti-slavery meeting
which was to take place in Boston, and being anxious to identify myself
with that public movement, I proceeded there and had the pleasure
of meeting the hearty sympathy of thousands to whom I related the
story of my escape.
I have since attended large meetings in different towns in the states
of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania,
and New York, in all of which places I have found many friends and
have endeavoured, according to the best of my abilities, to advocate
the cause of the emancipation of the slave; with what success I will
not pretend to say - but with a daily increasing confidence in the
humanity and justice of my cause.
(11)
Samuel Fielden,
Autobiography
of Samuel Fielden (1887)
There appeared in Todmorden at different times,
several colored lecturers who spoke on the slavery question in America.
I went frequently to hear them describe the inhumanity of that horrible
system, sometimes with my father, and at other times with my sister.
One of these gentlemen called himself Henry Box Brown; the gentleman
brought with him a panorama, by means of which he described places
and incidents in his slave life, and also the means of his escape.
He claimed that he had been boxed up in a large box in which were
stowed an amount of provisions, the box having holes bored in the
top for air, and marked, "this side up with care." This
he was shipped to Philadelphia via the underground railroad, to friends
there, and this was why he called himself Henry Box Brown. He was
a very good speaker and his entertainment was very interesting.
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