{"id":32,"date":"2017-03-02T12:55:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T11:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/?p=32"},"modified":"2017-03-02T12:55:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T11:55:34","slug":"slave-escaped-19th-century-literally-mailing-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/slave-escaped-19th-century-literally-mailing-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"This slave escaped in the 19th century by literally mailing himself to freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

It goes without saying that slavery\u2014whether in the 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-century Americas with Africans and Native Americans, or present-day human trafficking in places like India\u2014has always been, and will always be, an atrocity. Indeed, it marked\u00a0one of the darkest periods\u00a0of history in America\u00a0in particular, as countless human beings were treated like property with whom their owners could\u00a0do as they pleased.<\/p>\n

From the beginning of the practice in the early days of America\u2019s colonization to its official end in 1865, the vast majority of slaves suffered terrible fates. Yet there were a few stories of those who were able to escape their terrible situations and do spectacular things.<\/p>\n

Henry Brown was just one of those people. While his story was certainly an unusual one, it also displayed incredible ingenuity and resilience!<\/p>\n

Henry Brown was\u00a0born into slavery in Virginia around 1816. Despite the circumstances, he showed promise from a young age; he worked at a tobacco factory at age 15 and displayed a skill with the trade, as well as remarkable intelligence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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He was even given the responsibility of relaying messages and running errands, which provided\u00a0him\u00a0with valuable glimpses into the outside world. Nonetheless, he feared beatings as much as any other slave, and was regularly subjected to intense verbal abuse. He was devastated\u00a0when his expecting wife and three children were sold to a North Carolina plantation, despite his owner\u2019s assurances that this would never happen. \u201cI began to get weary of my bonds,\u201d Henry\u00a0said, \u201cand earnestly panted for liberty\u2026 which, by the cruel hand of tyranny, I, and millions of my fellow-men, had been robbed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, Henry had a connection in Samuel Smith, the white owner of a local shop. The slave had $166 in savings, and paid $86 to Samuel for his help in literally mailing himself to the shopkeeper\u2019s friends in Philadelphia. The ingenious plan that followed, however, can be\u00a0entirely credited\u00a0to\u00a0Henry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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LibertyBison \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Henry was able to excuse\u00a0himself from work\u00a0for a day on March 29, 1849 when he\u00a0\u201caccidentally\u201d burned his hand right down to the bone with sulfuric acid. He then squeezed himself into a box that was about three feet\u00a0long,\u00a0two feet wide, and two-and-a-half feet deep with nothing but a few biscuits, a full waterskin, and\u00a0a small drill just in case he\u2019d need more ventilation than the three holes that were already in the box. Though the box read \u201cThis Side Up With Care,\u201d nobody paid those instructions much mind as he was jostled to and fro. At one point, the box was turned upside-down so all of his weight was applied to his head and neck. \u201cI felt my eyes swelling as if they would burst from their sockets,\u201d wrote Henry later, \u201cand the veins on my temples were dreadfully distended with pressure of blood upon my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, a whopping 27 hours and 350 miles later, Henry reached his destination at the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. \u201cIs all right within?\u201d asked the members of the society. \u201cAll right,\u201d replied Henry weakly, before they released him. He stood up\u2014and promptly fainted.<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Samuel W Rowse \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

After being housed in different places throughout a few states, Henry\u00a0co-wrote a book about his experiences with ghostwriter Charles Stearns; his story sold 8,000 copies in two months and earned him the moniker of Henry \u201cBox\u201d Brown. He also became quite an entertainer, performing a panoramic live show on stage that recounted his journey and displayed 49 canvas scrolls that told tales of slavery from the horror of slave ships to the brutality of plantations.\u00a0\u201cThe real life-like <\/em>scenes presented in this panorama, are admirably calculated to make an unfading impression on the heart and memory, such as no lectures, books, or colloquial correspondence can produce,\u201d wrote attendee Justin Spaulding.<\/p>\n

Sadly, things didn\u2019t have quite the happy ending.\u00a0Samuel and John C.A. Smith, who helped him escape, were sent to prison for their part, forcing\u00a0Henry to emigrate to England in fear of\u00a0the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. He married an Englishwoman and continued to live there for 25 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Monumenteer2014<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Henry once again found a life in the theater, performing his \u201cMirror on Slavery\u201d show while also developing personas like the \u201cAfrican Chief,\u201d wearing extravagant jewelry and clothing while pretending to be descended from African royalty. It was as much about politics as it was about entertainment, magic, and spectacle, performing Houdini-like feats of escape. He brought the act back to the United States with him in 1875, touring the U.S. and Toronto, where he passed away\u00a0in 1897.<\/p>\n

What an unbelievably eventful and interesting life that Henry \u201cBox\u201d Brown lived. While his story certainly was not typical, it\u2019s great to see at least one story of slavery that ended triumphantly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It goes without saying that slavery\u2014whether in the 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-century Americas with Africans and Native Americans, or present-day human trafficking in places like India\u2014has always been, and will always be, an atrocity. Indeed, it marked\u00a0one of the darkest periods\u00a0of history in America\u00a0in particular, as countless human beings were treated like property with whom… Read More »This slave escaped in the 19th century by literally mailing himself to freedom<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breakchaser.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}