00:00He was desperate to leave his city and start a new life. So when he was praying and he heard
00:05the
00:05words go and get a box and put yourself in it, he took it as a divine call and he
00:10listened. He
00:10hired a carpenter to build the box and the box was lined with woolen cloth for comfort and had
00:15small air holes drilled in one side so that he wouldn't suffocate. Then he paid $86 to cover
00:21the shipping. On the day he climbed in with water and a few biscuits and with the help of a
00:25couple
00:25friends the box was sent to Philadelphia. However even though the box was labelled fragile and this
00:32side up, the shipping company ignored the instructions and Henry ended up spending most of
00:37the 27-hour journey upside down with his full body weight pressing on his head and neck. The crate
00:44travelled by wagon, railroad and steamboat each step of the way relentlessly tossing Henry around
00:50inside the box. It turned out to be far more painful than he had anticipated and the torch
00:55of being crammed into such a small space, along with the terror of potentially being caught,
01:01started tearing away at his sanity. Until finally on March 24th 1849, after travelling about 350 miles,
01:10the box finally arrived at the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia.
01:16The abolitionists opened the box, Henry climbed out and he started singing. After being born into 33
01:22years of slavery, Henry Brown was finally free.
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