Performing Slavery and Freedom, 1875–1897: The Return of Henry Box Brown to North America
2023; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5406/19405103.56.1.04
ISSN1940-5103
Autores Tópico(s)American History and Culture
ResumoOn March 23, 1849, an enslaved man named Henry Brown was nailed into a large wooden postal crate marked “this side up with care” and mailed from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, a two hundred and fifty mile voyage. The box was transported by railroad, steamboat, ferry, and delivery wagon; it was tumbled around several times and sometimes turned upside down so that Brown rode on his head and eventually even fainted. However, after twenty-seven hours Brown emerged from this box singing a psalm of thanksgiving, and he would never again be enslaved.1This dramatic escape made Brown famous in 1849, and he became a noted abolitionist speaker in the U.S. and in England, where he fled in 1850 due to fear of recapture. Yet Brown quickly fell into disfavor with the abolitionist movement, in part for his showy dress and his stunts. Performances in England sometimes entailed having his box transported with a parade to a show's location, where he would ceremoniously jump out of it on stage and perform acts involving conjuration, magic, and hypnosis. As Brown fell out of favor with the abolitionist movement, he also to some extent fell out of abolitionist history. Daphne Brooks argues in a trenchant analysis of Brown's career that he successfully engineered “multiple ruptures in the cultural arm of midcentury transatlantic abolitionism” leading him to embark on a performance circuit of his own making, without the help of abolitionists (white and Black).2 Therefore, with a few notable exceptions, Brown was ignored by the abolitionist movement after his great escape.Brown's 1849 escape has been studied by scholars, as well as the decades of 1849–1875 that Brown spent in the U.S. and England performing a panorama about enslavement (large painted scrolls that he would unfurl and narrate). However, the last epoch of his life (1875–1897)—when he returned to the U.S. and then eventually made his home in Canada—has received scant scholarly attention.3 Indeed little was known about Brown's whereabouts in the last decades of his life until (in 2015) my scholarship documented his death in Toronto in 1897.4 As I demonstrate here, Brown continued to perform in the later part of the nineteenth century, and his presentation modes expanded to include not only magic and hypnosis, but also jubilee singing, some forms of healing, ventriloquism, and even dark séances. As late as 1878, Brown still had the symbol of his enslavement and freedom—his box—with him and was said to use it in his stage shows.What does it mean that Brown was able to take an item that was part of his enslavement—the box in which he confined himself and labelled himself as a piece of property to be shipped to freedom—and use it for so many years as part of his performances? Brown did not so much overcome traumatic memories of his enslavement via his performances but over time he learned to stage-manage them, giving them radical political content about the everlasting nature of slavery. I focus in this article on the last decades of his life not only because they are understudied but also because they demonstrate just how much performance was woven into Brown's life as a mechanism for his survival and for socio-political critique. Brown must be understood as a radical African American performance artist who fractured dictates about the representation of enslavement and therefore should be re-inserted into the history of Black art in North America in the latter part of the nineteenth century.5On July 14, 1875, Henry Box Brown, his white, British spouse Jane Brown, and their two children (Edward and Annie) landed at New York harbor aboard the ship Algeria, arriving from Liverpool. The passenger manifest lists the following details: Henry H. Brown (50 years of age, professor); Jane Brown (44, wife); Edward Brown (10, child); and Annie Brown (5, child).6 Although Brown had left the U.S. in 1850, the U.S. public had not forgotten entirely about his story during his twenty-five-year sojourn in England. On June 9, 1870, for example, Brown was lauded (in absentia) at a celebration in Philadelphia of the ratification of the 15th Amendment, and his escape-by-box was still remembered by the press as late as 1888.7Moreover, before Brown landed in the U.S., he had arrived by way of a refurbished visual presence in one extremely influential publication. In 1872, the famous activist William Still, who had helped countless individuals to freedom through his work on the Underground Railroad, published his memoir, which contained a drawing of Brown exiting his box and an extensive account of his 1849 escape. In some earlier chronicles of Brown's unboxing, he was said to faint when first unboxed, but in Still's account Brown stands up boldly to sing a song he had chosen to commemorate his freedom: Rising up in his box, [Brown] reached out his hand, saying, “How do you do, gentlemen?”. . . Very soon he remarked that, before leaving Richmond he had selected for his arrival-hymn (if he lived) the Psalm beginning with the words: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He heard my prayer.” And most touchingly did he sing the psalm. . . . As he had been so long doubled up in the box he needed to promenade considerably in the fresh air . . . and while Brown promenaded the yard flushed with victory, great was the joy of his friends.This is a triumphant arising from the living death of slavery, one in which Brown (even a showman upon his exit from the box, in Still's recounting) promenades the yard, rosy with his triumph.8The lithograph in Still's book encapsulates this sense of wonder and marvel that Brown's spectacular unboxing engendered, even in 1872 (figure 1). In this illustration, Brown seems to be pushing himself up and out of the box; the position of his left arm suggests activity and mobility. The box is also turned at an angle, and Brown looks more like a jack-in-the-box beginning to pop up than an exhausted fugitive. Still's book was widely reviewed from 1872 onwards and reprints from it appeared in many newspapers, often featuring excerpts from Brown's story or drawings of his box; it therefore reintroduced Brown's heroic story to members of the U.S. public, three years before his arrival stateside.9Upon his arrival in the U.S., Brown rapidly began carving out a performance career. Newspaper reports indicate that Brown lived and performed in the U.S. (in New England and Michigan) until 1881 or 1882, at which point he migrated to Canada, living first in London, Ontario, and performing in small towns, until settling into Toronto in 1886, where he resided until his death in 1897. Carving out a life as a performer was always arduous, however. In the first early years in New England, Brown struggled to make his performances relevant to a changed U.S. public. In 1870s New England Brown had stiff competition; audiences could take their pick among plays, operas, lectures on Africa, mesmerists, veteran phrenologists, comedy shows, jugglers, circuses, pantomimes, and professional magicians. Jeffrey Ruggles contends that Brown mainly functioned as a magician or conjurer in the U.S. in this period,10 but given the popularity of all these different art forms it makes sense that Brown would move between different performance genres.The first U.S. performance that I have located occurred in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 21, 1875, just five weeks after he had disembarked with his family in New York, at Howard Hall, and the reviewer was not kind: “Professor Box Brown gave his entertainments the past week to two-dollar houses, which was more than he deserved.” Yet a performance just a few months later (October 18, 1875) in Salem, Massachusetts, appears to have been greeted with more enthusiasm. This article states that Brown is arranging for several entertainments in Salem that will occur in the following week, and notes that Brown visited Salem previously (presumably in 1849–50) and garnered large audiences; therefore, he should be “cordially welcomed.”11 Another 1875 newspaper notice of the Salem show—this time in the Lowell Daily Citizen and News—goes even further in trying to create enthusiasm for his show: The Salem Gazette mentions that Mr. Henry Box Brown, whose middle name is a continual commemoration of his memorable escape from Virginia to Philadelphia in a box, is arranging for an entertainment in Salem. Mr. Brown was formerly a lecturer on slavery in this country, but for a number of years has been giving entertainments in England, which are referred to in the English papers in a very appreciative manner.12Like the report in the Salem Register, the Lowell newspaper notes that Brown's “middle name is a continual commemoration of his memorable escape from Virginia to Philadelphia in a box”; in other words, Brown is still defined by his box. The article also refers to his 1849–1850 performances: “Box Brown, though long absent, would be recognized by many Massachusetts people who in days of yore listened to his ready wit, shown in his comic style of narrating the manner of his escape, swimming rivers, lurking in cornfields by day and journeying like Nocodemus [sic.], in the night.” In comparing Brown to Nikodemus, a leader of the Jews who in John 3:1–21 journeyed to visit Jesus in the night to learn about resurrection into eternal life, the writer alludes to the notion of Brown's much earlier rebirth by box into freedom, from the living death of slavery. It is intriguing that the reporter recalls Brown's description of swimming rivers and lurking in cornfields—events that never happened to Box Brown, but that he might have incorporated into his performances to create drama and excitement.Brown also began testing diverse performance modes to try to ascertain what shows his New England audience might relish. For example, on January 10, 1877, he gave a magic show in Mechanics Hall, Portland, which was given very favorable notice. Referring to Brown as a “genius” who gave “entertainments” in Old City Hall twenty-six years ago, the reviewer calls his new show “novel” and states that the “tricks performed were very cleverly done”; it also focuses a great deal on the box in which he escaped, present on stage during this show.13 This article mentions Brown giving another show on January 11 in which his daughter Annie (now seven years old) will “perform several feats of sleight of hand.” In this era, it was not unusual for magicians—such as Robert-Houdin and Robert Anderson—to perform with their sons and daughters, but the Portland public might also be titillated by the fact that Annie was a mixed-race child.Brown appeared to enjoy performing in Maine and he gave several other shows there.14 By fall 1877, Brown was in Vermont, where his shows involved magic, but also a new performance mode: the debunking of spiritualism. A long critique of one of his shows published in a prominent American spiritualistic journal—the Religio-Philosophical Journal on November 3, 1877—gives Brown's show a detailed description: Mr. Henry Box Brown gave an entertainment at the town hall here. The first part of the performance consisted of a number of very fair tricks in legerdemain, and were performed in a manner which was satisfactory. We now come to the next announcement on the bills, which is set in heavy capitals, and reads thus: “Prof. H. Box Brown in an entirely new entertainment! SPIRITUALISM EXPOSED! Mr. Brown will introduce and expose the mediumistic Spiritualism as given by the Davenport Brothers and the Eddy Brothers. Rope-tying, instrument playing, tambourine floating, ringing of bells, etc.” Next comes the “wonderful sack feat by Miss Annie Brown, to conclude with the mysterious Second Sight performance by Madame Brown.”. . . Yet, no doubt, there were many who went away that night thinking that Spiritualism was exploded in a grand manner. But what authority must a person be who distinctly affirms in his performance that there is no such thing as Spiritualism, and who, at the close, states that he is a believer?15Brown engages in performances that entail mystical communication between individuals, such as second sight, while also debunking spiritualistic practices, such as communication with the dead via spirit bells. So, in these shows, Brown plays both sides of a spiritualist coin, so to speak.Previous notices have shown Brown performing with his daughter Annie, but here we have a specific reference to one of her magic tricks—the “wonderful sack feat.” This trick might reference a popular nursery rhyme for children—“The Wonderful Sack” (1869) by John Townsend Trowbridge. In this story, a mysterious stranger produces magical items from a small sack, including a lighted fire, a sofa, pitchers of milk, and a fully cooked meal that includes soup, two plates of fish, bread for twenty, and a roasted goose, to say nothing of utensils, tables, chairs, and even a small waiter to serve the sumptuous repast.16 Annie's stunt might have entailed a mysterious provision of numerous items from a simple everyday entity (a sack); she might have stood stand at a covered table pulling out these items from her sack while an assistant (perhaps her brother Edward, cleverly concealed beneath the table) handed them up through a large hole in the table and sack. Symbolically, her trick within Brown's act may have had religious or spiritualistic overtones via a veiled reference to Christ's ability to turn two fish and five loaves of bread into enough food to feed a multitude. This trick might also echo Brown's own endowment (during his escape) of a simple everyday item—a postal crate—with miraculous overtones of escape and rebirth.His shows in this period often trafficked in implied metaphors of enslavement and freedom, over which Brown might now seem to have extraordinary control. For example, in a performance in Danvers, Massachusetts, in May 1878 he gave an “exposé of spiritualism” or more specifically of the “rope-tying part” of this act.17 Spiritualists would be tied up in ropes and locks and then appear miraculously free later in the show. Brown's reenactment of this trick of being fettered and then escaping his bonds would no doubt resonate in his audience's minds with his original “magical” resurrection from slavery.Brown had performed a second sight act in England for five months (from October 1864 to March 1865) with a woman named Miss Pauline. In the U.S., we find Brown's spouse Jane, as early as November 1877, taking on the role of the psychic in second sight performances. In such performances, Jane would be blindfolded with her back turned away from the spectators, while Brown would go out into the audience and they would (silently) proffer specific objects to him, which Jane would then guess without seeing them. The trick entails a code that both partners must carefully memorize, so that a question by Brown to Jane such as “What do I hold in my hand?” (instead of, for example, “My, what an interesting object. What is it, Jane?”) would be decoded alphabetically or alphanumerically to spell out the object. Yet this was all done in a flash with innocuous questions, so that it might seem like Jane and Henry had some sort of telepathic communication with each other or that Jane could see past the physical world into a second (hidden or invisible) one. Both Annie's and Jane's acts—second sight and the “Wonderful Sack Feat”—therefore had mysterious and supernatural overtones as well as spiritual ones. About a performance in Leominster, Massachusetts, on November 10, one newspaper notes: “Prof. H. Box Brown, who escaped from slavery in 1849 in a box, gave a very good entertainment in the town hall, last Saturday. He will give another, this (Wednesday) evening, in the same hall, where mirth, magic, and mystery will be shown.”18 Although Brown's history of enslavement is mentioned, the focus on “mirth, magic, and mystery” implies that mesmerism and magic, atemporal planes of performance with mystic overtones, are the main acts being displayed.He gave several more performances in Massachusetts at the end of 1877. In the Millbury Town Hall, Brown and his family performed a show that entailed exposing spiritualism and miscellaneous other entertainments; Brown would “exhibit the box he escaped in and get into it before the audience.” As late as 1877, then, Brown was still climbing into and out of his box.19 Ruggles postulates that over the twenty-five years during which Brown performed in Britain, from 1850 to 1875, he appears to have “emancipated himself, in a sense, from his personal history of enslavement.”20 Yet I would argue that rather than releasing him from his history of enslavement, performance, magic, and mesmerism gave Brown a type of dominion over this history, transforming it into art while not abandoning its essential political content. Brown's climbing back into his box, for example, delineates the afterlives of slavery, of living in the wake of being property, of being a thing, and his invocation of the slave-as-thing implies that the larger socio-political logic that undergirds not only slavery, but also racial debasement and discrimination, remains intact. Brown's act implies that slavery is still an unfinished tale and freedom remains elusive. In turning these facts into art, Brown creates a radical content for this imaging. In a more atemporal and non-material register, magic and mesmerism, which give Brown authority over an unseen world beyond the audience's comprehension, might also shift power away from the audience and into the figuration of enslaved and formerly enslaved subjectivity. Brown places this material artifact of enslavement (his box) into a present tense moment while asserting his management over trauma and the horror of enslavement via magic, mesmerism, and other modes of atemporal performance.Another avenue through which Brown managed and stage-managed the trauma of enslavement was through the creation of various personae. From 1878 until 1880 Brown had multiple performances in Massachusetts (Worcester, Danvers, Brookline), Maine (Portland and Bangor), Vermont (Guildhall, Montpelier, and others) and Rhode Island (Woonsocket). While it cannot be said that he ever had large audiences in New England in this era, he continued to multiply the identities he manifested on stage. His multiple personae are highlighted in posters from this time used to advertise his shows (figure 2). If we watch Brown carefully as he “moves” temporally across this poster, we can see that he has at least three distinct identities that will be brought into being as he performs: Box Brown (the escaped slave of the past); Professor H. B. Brown (perhaps a present tense version of himself); and the “African Prince” (perhaps an allusion to his presumed royal past in Africa or to an imagined future in which he has transcended the legacy of enslavement). These three identities—or temporal planes—signal the larger psychic problem of slavery, of the ex-fugitive, continually haunted by the trauma of slavery, and who has multiple identities as (for example) the individual undergoing this trauma (a past-tense subjectivity), the individual writing about it or performing it (in the present-tense moment) and a future self who still may not be free from this legacy. Across the space of the poster Brown floats chronologically and geographically via these shifting personae.In a discussion of memory and slavery, W. J. T. Mitchell writes that although the public and verbal narrating of a sequence of events may provide autobiographers with a sense of dominion over the material of their lives, such a practice is fraught with danger because it may activate “an uncontrollable technology” as memories threaten to come alive, to be re-membered and resurrected “as ghosts who act upon the material world and the body of the narrator.” This recalling of events may be so traumatic that it threatens identity, causing a “strategic amnesia, a selective remembering, and thus a selective dis(re)membering of experience.”21 It is, of course, possible that Brown's repeated re-enactments of his boxing and unboxing are a dis-remembering of the trauma of this experience. It may also be, however, that Brown has learned to mediate the memory of the trauma of enslavement via performance. The embodied incarnation in the box (“Box Brown”) wears the trauma, while his other identities (as Professor Brown and as an African Prince) embody a retelling and manipulation of traumatic experiences.It is also fascinating, given Brown's history of his escape via a miraculous crate, that his magic act involves playing with specific symbolism involving boxes; as the poster in figure 2 states, Brown will perform “the wonderful flying card and box feat” as well as “passing a watch through a number of boxes.” Once again Brown is in touch with mysterious and unseen forces—as a magician he can make money and boxes fly, pass material objects through each other, and (as the poster claims) make flowers bloom instantaneously. The single, solid object of the postal crate symbolically expresses the plurality inherent in it via Brown's magic; a box will appear and disappear in his act, and become multiple, as he passes a watch through several boxes. Time itself is referenced in this trick—the watch, used to measure time, is passed through boxes (physical spaces). Brown could be here referencing his own history of passing through multiple boxes, in many spaces and temporal phases of his life. Once again, a box has mystical and marvelous overtones, as it represents not just a physical object but something that Brown could play with, resurrect, and reinvent.No doubt this poster—printed first in Worcester, most likely in 1875 as it contains an endorsement by the mayor of Lynn dated November 7, 1875—was used by Brown to advertise many of his shows, over a three- to five-year period. A scholar's ticket from this era indicates that Brown's show was widely exhibited in Massachusetts, Maine, and possibly New Hampshire (Manchester and Concord are towns in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire) (figure 3). The ticket states that “all the schools from Boston, Lynn, Salem, Marblehead, Biddeford, Saco, Portland, Bath, Lewiston, Bangor, Belfast, Franklin, Fishersville, Concord, Manchester, Groton, Leominster, Fitchburg, Clinton, and many other places have recently attended this Entertainment in large numbers.” This list indicates that Brown was earning decent revenue performing the African Prince's Drawing-Room Entertainment in schools all over New England.The Browns continued to perform in New England until 1880; they then moved on to Michigan and Ontario, Canada. The last performance notices from the years in New England indicate, however, that although their act was well done, it did not receive a large attendance. On August 20, 1878, The Portland Daily Press (Maine) notes that “the well known sleight-of-hand performer, Prof. H. B. Brown, better known as Box Brown” will be giving an entertainment at Lancaster Hall for three days, assisted by Mrs. Brown. “They give a very interesting performance,” the reviewer notes vaguely. The Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, on October 17, 1878, also lists two performances by Brown, but no details are given.22After a summer and fall spent in Maine, the Browns moved on to Vermont, where they were less than well received: “Not a very large audience attended the entertainment given by Box Brown in Association Hall last week,” notes the Essex County Herald (from Island Pond, Vermont) on December 5, 1879; “our people seem to want something better and of a higher nature than shows of this kind, and we are glad to note the fact.”23 During spring 1880, the Browns continued to try to eke out a living through their shows, with limited success. For example, in early April 1880, the Rutland Daily Herald reports that Box Brown is “advertised to give an entertainment in the town hall this evening, consisting of legerdemain, ventriloquism, and a spiritual séance” and notes that Brown is “the person who escaped from slavery many years ago in a box.” Brown performs ventriloquism and even séances at this point to gain a stronger audience. Yet he is unsuccessful, as the same newspaper (Rutland Daily Herald) reports just a day later, on April 2, 1880: “‘Box’ Brown performed some clever sleight-of-hand feats at the town hall last evening. The audience was small.” On April 30, 1880, the Vergennes, Vermont, Enterprise and Vermonter notes that “The entertainment by ‘Box Brown’ at the School House Hall, Wednesday evening, though slimly attended was very good.”24In the past, New England was a refuge and home to Brown—the place in 1849 where he began his speaking and performing career, had many successful shows of his panorama, and found sympathetic friends among abolitionist speakers and supporters. But by 1880, it was clear that the people of New England had grown weary of Box Brown. Ever the opportunist and pragmatist, Brown made the decision to leave New England, sometime after May 28, 1880, perhaps never to return, to try his luck in other parts of the U.S. and even outside the U.S., where he might once again be viewed in a fresh light.The Brown family moved to Canada—and more specifically to London, Ontario—in 1881, where Box Brown lived and performed until at least 1883, although in this era he also continued to perform in Michigan. The London Advertiser on November 29, 1881, lists Brown as a “promising candidate for aldermanic honors in No. 3 Ward.” In Canada, the term “alderman” was used for persons elected or sometimes (in the case of aldermanic honors being conferred) appointed to a municipal council to represent the wards; for Brown to be considered as an alderman in Ward 3 of London, Ontario, he would have to be living there. Brown's son Edward also lists (on his marriage certificate from October 30, 1883) London, Ontario, as his place of residence.25 In addition, Brown performed frequently in London, including on July 19 and November 29, 1881; on November 16, 1882; and on February 22 and March 1, 1883.Most importantly for establishing the Brown family's residency in London, Ontario, the London City Directory for 1883 lists Mr. H. B. Brown as a proprietor of the Victoria Restaurant at 88 Dundas Street and a professor of phrenology, residing at 326 Hill Street. The 1883 London City Directory also lists Brown's son, Edward Brown, as the manager of the Victoria Restaurant.26 Taken together, these pieces of information document that the family was living in London, Ontario, from July 1881 until at least late October 1883, after which they appear to have lived in Kingston for a few years before moving to Toronto in 1886.Intriguingly, in the early 1880s many shows by Brown alone or with his family also occurred in an unusual place: Cheboygan, Michigan. Brown had never performed in Michigan before, so perhaps he had some relatives with whom he lived for short periods of time. In any case, from 1881 until 1883 Brown crossed back and forth over the U.S.-Canadian border (between London, Ontario, and Cheboygan, Michigan, a 350-mile voyage) with some degree of ease. And Brown's shows seem to have been popular in Michigan. For example, Brown put on a magic show on February 21, 1882, in Indian River (near Cheboygan), as the Northern Tribune notes: “Our opera house (school house) was opened Wednesday evening to the first show for Indian River. The great Prof. Box Brown, Prestidigitatuer [sic.] &c. gave a very interesting entertainment, and distributed some very unique if not valuable presents. He was well patronized and no doubt has visited Cheboygan before this.”27 The term “prestidigitator” is used here—“sleight of hand magic”—but more intriguing is the idea that Brown had been in the Cheboygan area before. Another article in the same newspaper on February 25 comments that Prof. H. Box Brown gave a “slight-of-hand, legerdemain, animal magnetism, and electro biology, etc. entertainment at the Town Hall last night to a pretty good sized crowd” in Cheboygan.28 Brown performs magic and mesmerism but also “electro biology.” Electrobiology—which purported to produce a form of electricity that led to the healing of various medical ailments—was part of mesmeric shows, although its powers were highly disputed. In 1868 in England, Brown had claimed to have cured a “rheumatic lady” via his electrobiology and maintained that it was “highly effective as a medical agent.”29 Whether Brown cured anyone in the Cheboygan area by way of this method is unclear. Yet, as we shall see, this was not his only foray into healing.In late 1883 Brown appears to have refashioned himself once again, this time via music. Due to the popularity of the Fisk Singers, as Adrienne Shadd has documented, several African American and African Canadian groups like the Ball Family Jubilee Singers and the O'Banyoun Jubilee Singers performed in this mode, often singing songs from the days of enslavement and spirituals.30 In 1883, Brown and his family joined the rising tide of interest in jubilee singing, as they would also do as late as 1889 in Canada. On August 16, 1883, the Brockway Centre, Michigan, Weekly Expositor comments that “Henry Box Brown with his troupe of jubilee singers visited this place and gave an entertainment in Duffle's Hall last Friday evening.”31 The “troupe” likely consisted of Brown, his wife Jane, daughter Annie, and son Edward, and these shows may represent one of the rare occasions in which we see Edward performing on stage with his family. The Northern Tribune lists a performance on December 1, 1883, by “Professor Box Brown's Troubadour Jubilee Singers”: The AuSable Saturday Night thus sketches a familiar subject: A week ago Friday an antiquated antiquity in the shape of an aged “cullud” man struck town. He was accompanied by three younger members of the human family. Saturday and Sunday evening, they held forth at [the] Opera
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