r/todayilearned • u/MyOtherRideIsTheRoci • 4h ago

TIL of Henry "Box" Brown, an enslaved man who attained freedom by mailing himself from Virginia to Philadelphia in a wooden crate. It took 27 hours and he travelled by wagon, railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Box_Brown
8.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

148 comments sorted by

1.3k

u/Choppergold 4h ago

I believe Frederick Douglass was mad at him for breaking the news about how he did it, as it could have been used for others

423

u/commanderquill 3h ago

I would be mad too if I was Douglass. That sucks.

597

u/MostlyWong 3h ago

And probably his wife, too.

"Brown was hired out by his master in Richmond, Virginia, and worked in a tobacco factory. In the twelve years that followed, he married an enslaved woman named Nancy and rented a house in which he lived with his wife and their three children. Brown had been paying his wife's master to not sell his family, but the latter betrayed Brown by selling Nancy, who was pregnant at the time, and their three children to a different slave owner, a minister in North Carolina.

The year of his escape, Brown was contacted by his wife's new owner, who offered to sell his family to him. Brown declined the offer. This was an embarrassment within the abolitionist community, which tried to keep the information private.

He moved to England and lived there for 25 years, touring with an anti-slavery panorama, and becoming a magician and showman.

Brown married and started a family with an English woman, Jane Floyd. Brown's first wife, Nancy, remained in slavery. Brown returned to the United States with his English family in 1875, where he continued to earn a living as an entertainer. He toured and performed as a magician, speaker, and mesmerist until at least 1889."

My dude escaped, left his wife enslaved, refused to buy her freedom (or his 4 children), married an English woman and just forgot about her. Could have waited to break the news on your escape before you got your wife out of there. Kind of a dick.

172

u/Woodchuck251 3h ago

The year of his escape, Brown was contacted by his wife's new owner, who offered to sell his family to him.

I wonder how the exchange was supposed to work. If Brown was expected to go North Carolina, I'm guessing they could have just grabbed him and put him back into slavery.

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u/MostlyWong 2h ago

This was actually more common than you would think. We have several examples of slaves who got their freedom, then bought their family's freedom as well. Lunsford Lane was a slave from Raleigh, North Carolina who bought his own freedom, then saved up the money over 18 years to buy his wife and children. The Wiki on him explains the process:

"Eventually he had saved enough money to purchase his own freedom for $1000. He married Martha Curtis in May 1828, and they had seven children. He would spend another 18 years purchasing his family. He was still legally a slave in North Carolina since the law required a slave to have done "meritorious service" to become a free man. Lane instead traveled with a friend to New York in 1835, where he was granted freedom.

...

In 1842 he returned to Raleigh to buy the rest of his family. Despite prior assurances, he was arrested for delivering abolitionist lectures in the North. He was released, but taken by a mob to the gallows in the wood and tarred and feathered. His local white friends rescued him and helped him escape on a train with his family. He was also given his mother by Mrs. Haywood. They settled in Philadelphia, later joined by his father."

So that guy ended up tarred and feathered for coming back to get his family, but was able to escape due to friends in the area. It definitely wasn't a risk-free proposition for someone to do.

There's also William Ellison from South Carolina. He bought his own freedom and his family's, but he was also one of the wealthiest property owners in the state and owned around 170 slaves which made him one of the largest slave owners in the region. He and his sons supported the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, sending money and supplies to the army. His sons tried to enlist, but were refused based on their race. He offered 53 of his slaves to the Confederate Army for labor.

Turns out, this is a very complex topic with a lot of nuance.

26

u/RPO777 1h ago

You could get an agent to negotiate and conduct the release on your behalf tho. Power of Attorney was established in common law well before the 1800s (even pre-independence) so granting an abolitionist attorney or someone trustworthy to travel on your behalf to arrange for the release was the safest way to go.

Assuming

A) You had the money to purchase your family.
B) YOu could pay for someone to travel half way across the country
C) YOu could afford an attorney to draft the Power of Attorney.

All those things obviously cost a lot of money. You'd certainly need help from donors or save money for a long time.

14

u/queerhistorynerd 1h ago

and thats assuming they wouldnt simply rob your agent then tar and feather him for helping abolistionists

•

u/RPO777 7m ago

I mean, simply being

A) White
B) Educated and a Law Degree
C) In a suit

Gives you dramatically more protection, then as now. Sure, it wasn't without risk (see: Mississippi Burning), but if a white attorney shows up to negotiate a deal in a suit and a briefcase, the chances of things going seriously sideways are gonna be WAY, WAY lower.

9

u/M4xP0w3r_ 1h ago

I guess I am more ignorant about US slavery than I thought, but how did slaves manage to save money and buy their own freedom? Where they paid for the work they did as slaves?

•

u/ThePrussianGrippe 59m ago

Some slaves were able to start small businesses doing work separate from what their owners required of them and allowed to keep money that they earned through that. It wasn’t common practice, but it wasn’t unheard of.

•

u/DConstructed 53m ago

I think if the “owner” allowed it sometimes they could do side jobs if they had the time.

It didn’t happen all the time.

•

u/MostlyWong 8m ago

Pretty much what the other two people said. But to give an example from the two slaves I was referring to earlier; William Ellison (born with the name April) was trained in a very specialized trade by his owner at a young age. He apprenticed from the age of 10 with a cotton gin maker, and became very skilled at making cotton gins.

"April Ellison completed his apprenticeship after six years and continued to work at the shop as a hired hand. Most of his earnings went to his master, as April was a slave who was "hired out." But, it appears April was allowed to keep a portion of his fees, as he later purchased his freedom from Ellison. It was common practice, according to Black Codes of South Carolina and Louisiana, to pay slaves for any labor performed on Sunday. April continued to learn the variety of complex skills related to cotton-gin making and repair."

This is actually touched on in 12 Years A Slave.

For Lunsford Lane, it was a little different and not a skilled trade per se:

"He earned his first money by selling a basket of peaches his father had given him. This was the start of a varied entrepreneurial career. Lane sold marbles and saved money he was given by guests visiting the house. From his father he had learnt to prepare smoking tobacco. Lane improved on it, and made a tobacco with an especially sweet and pleasant taste. He made it by night when he was free from the house work. He also made a pipe with reeds, a hot wire and clay, which he sold in the early part of the night, and produced in the latter. Many of the local legislators became his customers, and he was able to expand his business and have others sell the products on commission. He became known as a tobacconist while doing his work as a house slave in daytime. He also sold firewood, worked as a handyman and as a messenger in governor Edward B. Dudley's office."

On top of that, slaveowners would occasionally "rent out" their slaves to other people, and sometimes they would allow them to keep a portion of the wages. That's also what happened with Lunsford:

"Sherwood Haywood died and his widow had to rent out Lane. This was lucky for him, since he was able to rent himself for about $100 to $120 per year."

This was not universal, though, and varied depending on the slaveowner and the state laws at the time.

•

u/TheVisage 6m ago

Slavery wasn't as simple as "Me hit you with stick and you do work". Slavery was very normalized, very established, and very routine. By the time a slave owner was in charge, they had likely spent 30 years on a first name basis with their slaves, who themselves were raised being told it was normal.

Because of this, a slave with a unique skill had a great deal of trust and privilege, and was (almost) a sort of business partner, and could leverage that to their advantage. There are records of blacksmiths being lent to other plantations, or taking on side jobs with permission.

The southern cope about there being an overlap between the best off slave and the worst off free black was not completely false, but this was few and far between. Slaves did not make money. The Ferrier, blacksmith, carpenter, and mason could make money.

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u/Boxofcookies1001 2h ago

100%. That happened quite often. Once you set foot in the south you're basically a slave.

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u/RPO777 1h ago

I mean, the Confederate Army would indiscriminately round up African Americans in the North as "escaped slaves" then sell them at auction as contraband to fund their activities.

During the Gettysburg Campaign alone, Lee's army rounded like something like 30-40 African Americans (not 100 % sure about the number, speaking from memory but I think this is correct ballpark) during the relatively short campaign.

300

u/Dull-Geologist-8204 3h ago

That wasn't the only time he was promised things by slave owners they didn't followed through on. They just kept lying and lying and lying to him. By the time he freed himself I wouldn't have believed them. It's the boy that cried wolf. How many times can people lie to you before you stop believing them? He didn't believe that this was finally the time they were telling the truth.

•

u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 48m ago

Yeah it's nigerian prince shit, no really this time I found the guy who has your family, I just need you to come back.

Shit, it's an existing trope already. Common Korean trope anyway, paying for an investigator to find their lost family members in NK.

•

u/Great-Trifle2810 44m ago

Also for many slaves marriage and children were not a choice, they were often paired up by masters for the purpose of breeding more slaves to use or sell. It is entirely possible that he simply never had strong positive feelings for this person or the children.

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u/Dull-Geologist-8204 4m ago

In his case it was a choice. He actually asked them to promise not to sell his family if he got married and they agreed. There is actually a really good episode about him on the podcast Stuff You Missed in History class. Funny enough I just listened to this one the other day. I had known about him before but it had a lot more details about the situation.

13

u/Zanos 1h ago

He was known among abolotionists, though. It's not like he had zero help. The fact that the abolitionist movement tried to conceal that this occured leads me to believe the guy really did not try all that hard.

•

u/raknor88 37m ago

That wasn't the only time he was promised things by slave owners they didn't followed through on.

True, but after getting out he had to have had the resources and connections to be able to get his wife and children free. Instead he ditches them to go live in England and gets a new English wife.

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u/awry_lynx 3h ago

Fucked up as it is, I get it. He literally was paying for her to not be sold, and then she was sold. Why TF would he pay up again? Sure, that was a different owner, but I wouldn't be shocked he wasn't inclined to trust any.

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u/favorite_time_of_day 2h ago

It also doesn't say how much the other guy was asking. I'm sure there was a heavy premium, and it's not like an escaped slave would have had any money.

15

u/x2040 1h ago

Also it seems like marriage while enslaved has its own ethical problems. “Hey we have another female your age that you can marry”

Would be have married her if he wasn’t a slave?

•

u/DConstructed 49m ago

Also he wasn’t freed he escaped so they definitely would try to get him back and punish him to discourage other enslaved people.

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u/Wesselton3000 3h ago

Right. Because the last slave owner he tried to bribe for his family’s safety was so reliable /s

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u/Conexion 2h ago edited 2h ago

Don't worry, the redditors who just found out this guy existed while sitting on the toilet almost certainly understand enough context to judge every facet of this guy's life.

5

u/HumanPea1140 2h ago

I'm not judging every facet of his life, just that one decision.

-1

u/queerhistorynerd 1h ago

with zero context or understanding. Thus the exact person who deserves to be mocked

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u/iHateThisPlaceSoBad 3h ago

Lol it just kept getting worse.

5

u/South-Capital6388 2h ago

Imagine finding out your husband left you behind as a slave to go marry a white woman after gaining his freedom. She probably held out hope that he would save her until the end

-5

u/magnament 3h ago

Bit selfish

-6

u/123LetsJamDUDUDUHT 1h ago

The most likely outcome of him agreeing to pay to free his family would have been that when he arrived with the payment. The owner of his family would have taken the money and then beat him to death to make an example of him.

But also 7 children.

Gyat.

He beat the pussy

Up

Up

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24

u/hookem549 2h ago

Probably, in his first Autobiography written pre civil war Douglas does not say how he escaped, he says he is intentionally leaving it out so that other may use the same method. After the civil war was over and the 13th amendment was ratified, he told how he did it and it’s just super boring anyways. He borrowed some paper from a free black friend that kind of looked like him and just took the train

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u/Sunbythemoon 2h ago

I think that he learned how to read by working in the shipyards, which helped with the whole thing too.

5

u/Dafhel 1h ago

I can understand that if the method stayed secret it might have helped someone else escape later

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u/Chrono_Convoy 4h ago

And he still beat my friggin Grey Hound

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u/MyOtherRideIsTheRoci 4h ago

Crate-Hound next time!

7

u/No_Internal9345 2h ago

It's sad that scanners have ruined the tradition.

18

u/Constant-Sub 3h ago

The bus or... were you trying to catch him?

4

u/K_Linkmaster 2h ago

Leave your mom out of this.

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u/weeddealerrenamon 4h ago

Read the page, and apparently it was also celebrated as a triumph of the postal system. Getting from VA to PA in 27 hours, and no one opening up the box to potentially steal shit, was a huge deal on its own. In terms of slavery, more and more abolitionist material was being successfully mailed to the South despite efforts to censor it.

17

u/b1ak3 2h ago

steal shit

Speaking of shit... how did he shit?

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u/WHATYEAHOK 2h ago

It’s 27 hours. Just… don’t shit?

11

u/boringestnickname 1h ago

I'm more concerned about his farting schedule, being that there were probably people near the crate pretty much at all times.

7

u/keekah 1h ago

Just pull your butt cheeks apart. No sound.

4

u/boringestnickname 1h ago

Would you bet your life on it?

•

u/keekah 41m ago

Probably. I'd be more worried I'd poop myself doing that after being in there over 24 hours.

•

u/boringestnickname 29m ago

I mean, pooping could have the same end result.

•

u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 31m ago

As someone who's gone days/weeks before without eating you pretty much stop farting altogether. The majority of the gas in our intestines comes from the bacteria/enzymes breaking down food.

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u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 33m ago edited 28m ago

I feel like there are entirely too many people that don't realize that after you stop eating and your intestines clear out that you also stop shitting because there's nothing to shit out.

edit: I just remembered that "stop eating" is probably a foreign concept to a lot of redditors...

3

u/VenomBlood4 2h ago

ever been constipated? he probably didnt lol

•

u/WhatAYolk 54m ago

Yeah thats not guaranteed today even

201

u/SarcasticBench 4h ago

27 hours and this was before Amazon Prime

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u/Excelius 3h ago

It's like a four hour drive today from Louisa County in Virginia to Philly.

Still pretty impressive that logistics in the part of the country was sophisticated enough at that time to make the trip in just 27 hours. Especially with so many intermodal transfers, they really weren't letting the shipment sit for any significant amount of time.

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u/YuriLR 4h ago

And in 1913 a bank's building made of bricks was dismantled and shipped in 50 pound boxes. It was cheaper to ship it that way

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u/VexImmortalis 4h ago

What was the alternative method of shipping?

78

u/Technical-Outside408 4h ago

Migratory swallows.

41

u/VexImmortalis 4h ago

African or European?

12

u/redyellow2 3h ago

I, I don't know that!

3

u/cylonfrakbbq 3h ago

How do you know so much about swallows?

•

u/Bale_the_Pale 43m ago

You need to know these kinds of things when you're king, you know?

15

u/MCSimplexONE 4h ago

They'll be whatever you want, if the price is right

5

u/OCPyle 3h ago

A five-ounce bird could never carry a one-pound brick

18

u/YuriLR 4h ago

Bulk train freight I guess

3

u/Nazamroth 2h ago

Giant rocket.

1

u/CurryMustard 1h ago

Flatbeds?

•

u/drislands 45m ago

Cheaper than...what, exactly? Picking up the whole building and putting it on a train?

•

u/YuriLR 44m ago

Than shipping the bricks separately on a train...

21

u/MrTheDoctors 4h ago

This would make a great plot for some “whacky off the rails screwball adventure road trip” comedy à la Walter Mitty or something.

Ya know, apart from the slave thing.

13

u/fox_tamere 3h ago

27 Hours a Box

1

u/Deaffin 1h ago

Make it literally just 27 hours of darkness with muffled ambient noises. Maybe the occasional fart.

2

u/chamberx2 1h ago

90s sitcoms wore this trope out. I think Drew Carey did it, for one. Ended up in China.

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u/Jim_Nills_Mustache 4h ago

Never going to complain on my 16 hour international flights ever again

37

u/TheMightyTywin 4h ago

As a slave, this journey was probably a nice rest for him

17

u/xSeppuku 4h ago

lmao greyhound's logistics team has some serious explaining to do

14

u/Dull-Geologist-8204 3h ago

He almost died a couple of times because he was sat upside down a few times along the way for hours. Apparently people don't pay attention to this end up when delivering packages.

He also earned a pretty decent living giving talks about this for years. Glad he got out though. Just sorry more people didn't.

27

u/ihvnnm 4h ago

Professional Boxer

9

u/JustMyTwoCopper 3h ago

If he had used the Belgian Postal Service, he'd be arriving somewhere next week.

5

u/bradeena 3h ago

He was loaded, travelled, and unloaded on 8 different vehicles in 27 hours? That seems incredibly fast. Especially when we're including 3 trains and a steamboat.

1

u/Hector_P_Catt 2h ago

It's likely they had to use carts to move him between the trains, and such, so adding up the pure numbers, it's not that weird. Pick up > cart > Train > cart >boat > cart > train > cart > train > cart > final delivery.

•

u/bradeena 40m ago

Even with that interpretation you're missing a boat. So

Pick up > cart > train > cart > boat > cart > train > cart > boat > cart > train > cart > final delivery

If it's true I'm extremely impressed, but I'm guessing the story has drifted a bit from the original. I'm impressed with the escape either way, of course.

4

u/lrodhubbard 4h ago

I went to the Magic Castle in Hollywood a while back and IIRC they have a little plaque referring to him as an important African American magician.

4

u/PersonalTrick6900 2h ago

27 hours inside a wooden crate is absolutely insane. The determination and courage it must have taken to attempt something like that is hard to even imagine

12

u/Familiar_Kale_7357 4h ago

Per the law of the day, he was a criminal and a fugitive, and anyone who assisted him also a criminal.

Laws are only as good as the people who write them, and criminals are sometimes the most admirable people of their era.

3

u/OePea 3h ago

A poverous criminal is referred to as an "innovator" in anthropology.

4

u/commanderquill 3h ago

Actually, per the law, he was a slave.

7

u/Several-Author-1030 3h ago

"The year of his escape, Brown was contacted by his wife's new owner, who offered to sell his family to him. Brown declined the offer." YIKES

14

u/AML86 3h ago

Would you trust them?

•

u/ClappedUrMomsCheeks 15m ago

I’d like to think I’d give it a shot lmao

11

u/Crisp_Volunteer 3h ago

Sell his family to him... That's some special level of evil right there, damn.

11

u/Monteze 3h ago

I wonder if he was afraid it was a lie to get him more exposed or trap him or a scam?

6

u/doegred 2h ago

'man who grew up within an institution that systematically debased and destroyed familial bonds for the purposes of exploitation, turns out to in fact not be able to sustain picture-perfect familial bonds'

2

u/MyOtherRideIsTheRoci 3h ago

Yeah, that part always bothered me, as it's said that his "owner" selling his wife and kids away was the impetus for Brown's escape, but he never made any attempt to free them and just started another family.

6

u/MostlyWong 3h ago

It's especially egregious when you realize he came back to the US in 1875, after slavery was abolished, and just...didn't try to find them or anything. He toured around the US for over a decade after with his new family, and never bothered. I wonder if his kids ever tracked him down and what they said to each other, it's not like he was hiding who he was.

-1

u/ihaveaverybigbrain 3h ago

So he escaped the ol' ball and chain twice.

5

u/The_Parsee_Man 4h ago

I don't see any mention of John Candy accompanying him.

2

u/alterego1984 3h ago

That’s faster than all my Amazon packages

2

u/TheWingus 2h ago

"I'm gonna wrap myself in paper, I'm gonna dab myself with glue! Stick some stamps on top of my head; I'm gonna mail myself to you!"

2

u/PulinOutMyPeter 2h ago

Our Fake History Podcast does a great job going over this!

2

u/BigEd369 1h ago

That must have sucked, but dude did what he had to do to escape, no notes. Mr. Brown, I hope you found a better life in Philly!

2

u/Away_Needleworker6 3h ago

Thats pretty fast considering the fact that horse was the main method of transportation.

1

u/missinglinksman 3h ago

How did he pee or poop?

6

u/Punch_A_Police_Horse 3h ago

I suspect that's not the inspiring part of the story.

1

u/Punch_A_Police_Horse 3h ago

Hope he brought a book.

1

u/ScamperingSnail 2h ago

I can't imagine having gone through that much rough travel and then, near the end, get loaded onto a ferry.

1

u/Jeremizzle 2h ago

Sounds like the Velvet Underground song ‘The Gift’

1

u/Thank_You_Aziz 2h ago

Why did they call him Box? Oh.

1

u/Angry_Walnut 2h ago

Wonder if this was partial inspiration for The Gift

1

u/reallyreally1945 2h ago

All those different conveyances in 27 HOURS ??!!

1

u/aazxv 1h ago

Is Carlos Ghosn related to him?

1

u/rexuspatheticus 1h ago

Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit

1

u/-_-0_0-_0 1h ago

What can Brown, do you for?

•

u/ghallway 30m ago

I wanna see this movie. I am not being sarcastic.

•

u/TragicallySalacious 22m ago

First case of blackmail

•

u/Ameph 19m ago

He would then play a minor role in Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

•

u/Long_Nectarine_5708 2m ago

The craziest detail is that despite the crate being labeled handle with care, he spent a huge chunk of that trip positioned TOTALLY upside down on his head. He wrote later that he felt his eyes swelling and nearly passed out from the pressure, but he had to stay completely silent or he would have been caught. It is honestly wild that he survived all those transfers between the steamboat and the railroad without someone accidentally killing him or realizing there was a full grown man inside a box that was only 3 feet long.

1

u/Appropriate_Ad2342 4h ago

There's no movie about this?

3

u/Doustin 3h ago

Best I can offer

-5

u/Appropriate_Ad2342 3h ago

This story would be such a good movie but you made fun of me?

6

u/Doustin 3h ago

I wasn’t making fun of you. I don’t know any movies like this so I shared the most similar thing I knew of

•

u/watery_tart_ 54m ago

There's an immersive animated version of this story and also the story of Ellen and William Craft (who escaped by Ellen, who was white passing, posing as an ailing man and William posing as her personal servant) on exhibition at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.

1

u/jokul 3h ago

Okay weird question, but did he have to hold it in for 27 hours? I imagine that if he urinated or defecated during this time, it would have potentially revealed him through the smell? 27 hours in a crate sounds rough enough, but holding it in the whole time sounds like otherworldly constitution.

6

u/waitwuh 3h ago

Men have the advantage of being able to more easily urinate into a jar or bottle (and then put the lid on it).

5

u/Fratil 3h ago

At 27 hours urine is really the only challenge if you prepare properly, and assuming he drank very little water inside the crate and/or simply had a container of some sort to urinate in it wouldn't give him away.

1

u/Kazooo100 2h ago

Why did he declinethe mjnisters offer to buy his wife and kids?

1

u/Secret_Account07 1h ago

Hmmm the lack of info here is driving me mad.

Did he not drink/pee for 27 hours?

0

u/rillip 3h ago

You won't believe this one simple trick slave owners hate!

0

u/No2178 2h ago

I've been on flights longer than that, lucky bastard had his own box, they call that first class these days.

-3

u/Juanbolastristes 2h ago

Slaves still around at that time? Argentina had already abolished slavery by then... and then the gringos act like they're morally superior...

-10

u/Future_Green_7222 4h ago

Fighting for your freedom by avoiding customs must be the most American thing ever 🦅🇺🇸

5

u/commanderquill 3h ago

It was the same country, bro.

1

u/imlulz 3h ago

Yea that guys comment smells suspiciously like ai.

-3

u/Future_Green_7222 2h ago

My point is to redefine what American means and to paint Confederates and slaveowners as un-American traitors

3

u/commanderquill 2h ago

O...kay. That's even weirder. Good luck with that.

9

u/thomasrat1 4h ago

That is crazy delivery time tbh.