Josiah Henson

LIFE AND NARRATIVE

The Life of Josiah Henson (1789-1883)

Josiah Henson is best known for having inspired aspects of the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Born into slavery in Maryland in 1789 and was later relocated to Kentucky, Henson ran away with his wife and children from their enslaver to Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1830. He established himself there as a farmer, preacher, and community leader.

Together with other fugitives, he founded Dawn, a Black settlement near Dresden, to facilitate Black economic independence through yeoman farming and education. He also founded a manual labor school there, called the British American Institute of Science and Industry. Henson published his first autobiography to great acclaim in 1849. Two years later he traveled to the United States and Britain to seek donations to support the colony.

He made a second journey to Britain in 1876 to alert audiences to the ongoing struggles of the formerly enslaved and capitalise on his international popularity by updating his autobiography with subsequent editions.

The Narrative of Josiah Henson

His autobiography was first published in 1849 as The Life of Josiah Henson and was later released under other titles including Uncle Tom’s Story in 1876. As one of the earliest transborder slave narratives, it tells his life story as a tale of salvation and gives valuable evidence of the social, economic, and political struggles that African American immigrants to Canada faced in their new environment.

In his narrative, Henson connects his personal experiences to those of the Black community. Arguing that it was the duty of all African Canadians to help others out of slavery in the United States, he tells how he led not only his own family but also other African Americans from slavery in Kentucky to freedom in Canada. He further charts the development of Dawn and explains his motivation to play a leading role in the settlement and the school.

Observing the steady growth of Upper Canada’s Black community, he addresses the difficulties newcomers faced here, resulting from economic hardships and a lack of education. White racism also played a role, Henson points out, as many white schools and churches rejected Black students and congregation members.

To prove that African Americans could pursue a path to success in Canada, Henson fashioned himself as a self-made man who had risen from slavery in the USA being a free farmer in Canada through faith and hard work. He describes how he built his followers’ economic, intellectual and spiritual independence by teaching them agriculture and entrepreneurship and promoting Bible study. His story connects Christian values to a secular work ethic. This made him a sympathetic narrator and mitigated the threat that Black male resistance to slavery represented in the eyes of North American and British white readers.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Primary Sources

Henson published four versions of his narrative during his lifetime:

    • The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, Narrated by Himself (1849)
    • Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life (1858)
    • ‘Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life’: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’), from 1789 to 1876 (1876)
    • An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (‘Uncle Tom’), from 1789 to 1881 (1881)

The last two editions cover all of his chapters about Henson’s life in Canada. Scholarly editions of the two versions are these:

    • Henson, Josiah. ‘Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life’: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’), from 1789 to 1876. 1876. 2nd ed. London: Cass, 1971.
    • Henson, Josiah. An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (‘Uncle Tom’), from 1789 to 1881. 1881. Introd. Robin W. Winks. 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969.

Online editions accessible for free are these:

    • Henson, Josiah. The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself. Boston: Arthur D. Phelps, 1849. Documenting the American South (DocSouth). Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina, 2001. Henson_Life_of_Josiah_Henson
    • Henson, Josiah. Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co., 1858. Documenting the American South (DocSouth). Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina, 2000. Henson_Truth_Stranger_Than_Fiction
    • Henson, Josiah. ‘Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life’: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’), from 1789 to 1876. Ed. John Lobb. London: ‘Christian Age’ Office, 1876. Documenting the American South (DocSouth). Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina, 2000. Henson_Uncle_Toms_Story
    • Henson, Josiah. An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (‘Uncle Tom’), from 1789 to 1881. Ed. John Lobb. London, Ontario: Schuyler, Smith, & Co., 1881. Documenting the American South (DocSouth). Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina, 2006. Henson_Autobiography

Selected Research Literature

    • Andrews, William L. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of African American Autobiography. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
    • MacLean, Alyssa Erin. Canadian Migrations: Reading Canada in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Phil. Diss., University of British Columbia, 2010. Vancouver: UBC Theses and Dissertations Collection, University of British Columbia, 2011.  MacLean_Diss
    • Murray, Hannah-Rose. Advocates of Freedom: African American Transatlantic Abolitionism in the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
    • Otele, Olivette. “Resisting Imperial Governance in Canada: From Trade and Religious Kinship to Black Narrative Pedagogy in Ontario.” The Promised Land: History and Historio­graphy of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent’s Settlements and Beyond, ed. Boulou Ebanda de b’Béri, Nina Reid-Maroney, and Handel Kashope Wright. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. 131-148.
    • Siemerling, Winfried. The Black Atlantic Reconsidered: Black Canadian Writing, Cultural History, and the Presence of the Past. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2015.
    • Winks, Robin W. “Introduction: Josiah Henson and Uncle Tom.” An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson by Josiah Henson. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969. v-xxxiv.

ONLINE RESOURCES AND LINKS

Biography

Speeches

General Interest and Educational Resources

 

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