The Escape of Henry Brown

It was March, 1849. Henry Brown, a slave working in a tobacco factory in Richmond, Virginia, was 33 years old. He had it better than most other slaves it was true, but he was still a slave all the same. Besides, there was no telling how long that relative comfort would last. He'd watched too many of his companions whipped and humiliated by their masters and the overseers, then grow into old, broken men, with any potential they had had wasted.

Henry resolved not to suffer that same fate, and was determined to escape, or die trying. He could bear the burden no longer – it was now or never.