The Life of Josiah Henson: An Inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Born into slavery on a Maryland farm, Josiah Henson (1789–1883) was a foreman, preacher, and a leader in the Afro-Canadian community. His memoirs, The Life of Josiah Henson Formerly a Slave Now an Inhabitant of Canada as Narrated by Himself (1849), influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Henson recounts his bondage, attempts to buy his freedom, and escape to Ontario with his family, aided by Native Americans and boatmen. Henson's story reveals the horrors of slavery and one family's triumph over injustice and inhumanity.
Read lessDescription
Born into slavery on a Maryland farm, Josiah Henson (1789-1883) worked as a foreman, married, and became a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Faced with the prospect of separation from his family, Henson fled with his wife and children to Ontario where he became a leader in the Afro-Canadian community.
The Life of Josiah Henson Formerly a Slave Now an Inhabitant of Canada as Narrated by Himself first appeared in 1849. The book's avid readers included Harriet Beecher Stowe, who later acknowledged its influence on her own masterwork, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Henson's story tells of his time in bondage, his conversion to Christianity, and his fruitless attempts to buy his freedom. The Henson family risked starvation, exposure, and recapture as they walked from Kentucky to Ohio. Native Americans and sympathetic boatmen aided the struggling family, ferrying them across Lake Erie. In their new country, Henson established himself as a tenant farmer and clergyman, taking an active role in organizing a self-sufficient community. His memoirs helped alert his contemporaries to the horrors and heartbreak of slavery, and they offer modern readers an authentic account of one family's triumph over injustice and inhumanity.
Information
Subject: Language Arts
Brand: Dover Publications
Publisher Date: 01/14/2016
Author: Josiah Henson
Dimensions: 8.00 x 5.00
UPC: 9780486800455
Pages: 96
