On This Day in History: October 28

The Life of Josiah Henson

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My Life is the most boring of titles for an autobiography. Looking at you, Bill Clinton. But how about The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself? That’s a fucking title, and it became the inspiration for Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: October 28, 1830--

Henson was born into slavery on a Maryland plantation in 1789, and life sucked because enslavers were fucking dicks. He witnessed his father receive a hundred lashes and get his ear cut off for standing up to an overseer, then sold to another enslaver far away in Alabama. Josiah himself was once punished by having his arms broken. His sisters were sold away. Eventually, he said fuck this I’m going to Canada.

He attempted to buy his freedom from slavery, raising the money to do so, but got fucked over because big surprise, enslavers are immoral dicks. He took his wife and children through Ohio to New York then across the river to what was called Upper Canada, arriving on October 28, 1830, a free man. Continues below …

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Years later, not yet having been taught to read or write, Henson dictated his life story to Samuel Eliot, a former mayor of Boston, and his autobiography was published in 1849. It sold reasonably well (6,000 copies). Then a few years later Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin to great acclaim and confirmed that Henson’s book had been a major source of information and inspiration for her novel. Sales of The Life of Josiah Henson climbed to 100,000 copies.

Josiah became a farmer and earned enough to send his son Tom to school. Tom returned the favor by teaching his father to read. Henson became a leader in Canada of those who had escaped slavery, growing his land holdings and becoming a Methodist preacher. He later traveled to Britain to raise funds for helping the enslaved escape to freedom in Canada, and even met Queen Victoria.

After the end of slavery in the U.S., many former enslaved chose to leave Canada to return to the U.S., but not Josiah and his family. They remained there for the rest of their lives. Henson lived to be 93. He was the first Black person to have his face on the image of a postage stamp in Canada.

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