Henry Box Brown was born a slave in 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. 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 member of the Underground Railroad. The box was only three feet long and two feet wide. Brown survived the 26-hour-long journey.

As well as becoming a well-known speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society , Brown wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown (1851) ISBN 0195148533.

In 1997, Brown was the subject of a Tony Kushner play entitled Henry Box Brown or the Mirror of Slavery.

See also

• List of African-American abolitionists
• Slave narrative

External link

• Henry Box Brown, b. 1816 Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself fulltext of the Narrative