The Escape of Henry “Box” Brown

In the late 1840s, the brilliant Henry Brown found a way to escape slavery.

Sensing, probably correctly, that travel by conventional means would result in recapture, he decided to seal himself into a box and be express-mailed to freedom.

After twenty-six hours of rough handling by deliverymen, he was pried from his [box] and — being a deeply religious man — sung a song of thanksgiving he had written, based on Psalm 40.

As we often like to say in New Escapologist, an escape is best affected with a sense of showmanship and aplomb.

Additionally, there is no more satisfying way to make a living than by turning one’s entrapment (or escape story) into something lucrative. It’s all about the irony of using the machine’s burdensome weight against itself. “Indeed,” says The Public Domain Review,

in the months directly following his escape, Brown took “Box” as his middle name; published The Narrative of Henry Box Brown, who Escaped from Slavery Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide, Written From a Statement of Facts Made By Himself; and went on tour in New England, telling his story and singing songs of his own composition.

Superb.

Here’s a little more from Humanities journal:

Appearing in cities across New England and, later, Britain, Brown attained a form of nineteenth-century celebrity on the strength of his astonishing tale and flair for showmanship. He rode between speaking engagements inside a box identical to the one that had carried him from Virginia, accompanied by marching bands and American flags, before emerging onstage from the cramped conveyance and presenting scenes from his “Mirror of Slavery,” a painted canvas of one hundred scenes mounted on two enormous spools. Various iterations of the act, which evolved into a kind of vaudeville routine following the end of slavery, were performed in the United States, England, and Canada for decades.

Fifty years before Houdini first escaped a box, Henry Brown escaped in a box.

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For some arguably more practical ways to escape, try my book I’m Out.

Also still available are bundles of New Escapologist in print (1-7 and 8-13) or PDF (1-7 and 8-13).