BROWN, Henry Box 1816(?)-(?)

PERSONAL: Born c. 1816, in Louisa County, VA; death date unknown; immigrated to England, c. 1850; son of slaves; married a slave c. 1836 (sold away c. 1848); married second wife; children: three.

CAREER: Abolitionist and lecturer. Held as a slave in VA, 1815–49.

WRITINGS:

(With uncredited coauthor Charles Sterns) Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, Brown and Stearns (Boston, MA), 1849, 2nd revised edition, with an introduction by Richard Newman, foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Henry Box Brown, who was born of slave parents near Richmond, Virginia, adopted "Box" as his middle name following his escape to freedom in 1849 by being shipped to an abolitionist in a crate. His excruciating experience of being sold away from his family as a child and later, as an adult, of having his wife and three children sold away from him, became the fulcrum for his escape and the subject of his autobiographical Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself.

After attaining his freedom and moving north, Brown became a well-known lecturer for the Anti-Slavery Society and produced a successful autobiographical panorma titled "Mirror of Slavery," which included some forty scenes painted by J. Wolcott. Such scenes as "The Seizure of Slaves," "Interior of a Slave Ship," "The Nubian Family at Auction," and "Whipping Post and Gallows at Richmond, Va." highlighted the history of the slave trade. The exhibition played well in Boston and other New England towns, until after the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. Brown took the exhibition to England, where he became a respected speaker and entrepreneur. He married an English woman and was reported to be living in Wales as late as 1864; Brown's date of death was never reported.

First published in 1848, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself like others in the genre, "documented the harsh reality of slavery, the desire for personal and economic freedom, and the relationships between blacks and whites," to quote Library Journal reviewer Kathleen M. Conley. During the nineteenth century the book went through three editions, yet few of these copies are extant. After moving to England to escape slave catchers, Brown revised the work, which had been ghostwritten in the inflated rhetoric of abolitionist Charles Stearns. The second edition, published in England, formed the basis for the 2002 edition. At the H-Net Reviews Web site, Andre M. Fleche praised Brown's narrative for "providing a powerful indictment of slavery and the Southern social system that grew up around it" and applauded Richard Newman and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for making it available to the public again. "The foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the introduction by Richard Newman," Fletcher wrote, "do an invaluable service by placing Brown's text in this wider contest of slave narratives and antislavery lecture circuit rallies." Although Fleche found that "the information provided in the introduction does a good job of highlighting the complexities that surround Brown and his narrative," it also begs several questions that could offer fertile areas for further research. Among these is the possible influence of Brown's work on that of other abolitionist writers; as Fleche wrote, "Brown's themes and styles provide a strikingly obvious and undeniable influence for Harriet Beecher Stowe's later and more famous Uncle Tom's Cabin."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Brown, Henry Box, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Biography, summer, 2003, Darryl Pinckney, review of Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, pp. 518-519.

Booklist, February 15, 2002, Jay Freeman, review of Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself p. 1000.

Columbus Times (Colombus, OH), February 23, 1999, Petra Gertjegerdes, "Lest We Forget: The Man Who Was Shipped to Freedom," p. A1.

Library Journal, March 15, 2002, Kathleen M. Conley, review of Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself p. 88.

Massachusetts Review, spring, 1996, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, "Passing beyond the Middle Passage: Henry 'Box' Brown's Translations of Slavery," pp. 23-44.

ONLINE

American Abolitionist Web site, http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/ (December 13, 2004), "Henry 'Box' Brown."

Documenting the American South Web site, http://docsouth.unc.edu/ (September 10, 2002), "Henry Box Brown."

H-Net Reviews, http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/ (December 20, 2005), Andre M. Fleche, review of Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself.