SLAVES NARRATIVES - Josiah Henson (1796-1883)

Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson

Josiah Henson was born a slave on 15th June, 1789 in Charles County, Maryland. He was sold three times before he reached the age of eighteen. By 1830, Henson had saved up $350 to purchase his freedom. After giving his master the money he was told that the price had increased to $1,000.

Cheated of his money, Henson decided to escape with his wife and four children. After reaching Canada, Henson formed a community where he taught other ex-slaves how to be successful farmers. His autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson (1849) was read by Harriet Beecher Stowe and inspired her best-selling novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Four years later he founded the Dawn community near Dresden, UC, for American fugitive slaves. Aided by a white American missionary, Hiram Wilson, he and his associates organized a manual-labour school, the British-American Institute. He was active on the executive committee until the institute closed in 1868.

Although a poor administrator constantly engaged in disputes over finance and management, Henson served as Dawn's spiritual leader and patriarch and made numerous fundraising trips in the US and England.

Throughout his life, he saw the way masters and overseers treated slaves and he studied their reactions towards different types of behavior. By watching the actions of the other slaves, Henson soon learned that if he was loyal and provided diligent service to his master, he would not get into very much trouble and he might even become fairly successful. Henson followed his plan and became successful on the plantation where he lived. He was an outstanding worker,supervisor, and in 1828, he became a preacher. By learning about religion, Henson learned that his way of life, slavery, was bad. ( Henson was Methodist. Methodists did not promote slavery, in fact, they spoke out against it. Until members of other religions started harassing Methodists, African-American and White Methodists worshipped in churches together.) Henson ran away to Canada to escape slavery.

By and by, Harriet Beecher Stowe started interviewing slaves to get backround for the book she was writing. Fate brought her to Josiah Henson. Henson ended up being the main inspiration for the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book was an instant hit in the North. Copies were sold all over the world. Henson went to England and lectured on his life as "Uncle Tom," the slave. He published his autobiography, My life as Uncle Tom three times. "Father" Josiah Henson preached, lectured and wrote until his death in 1883.

Josiah Henson and his Wife Josiah Henson and his wife Nancy

"We lodged in log huts, and on the bare ground. Wooden floors were an unknown luxury. In a single room were huddled, like cattle, ten or a dozen persons, men, women, and children. All ideas of refinement and decency were, of course, out of the question. We had neither bedsteads, nor furniture of any description. Our beds were collections of straw and old rags, thrown down in the corners and boxed in with boards; a single blanket the only covering. Our favourite way of sleeping, however, was on a plank, our heads raised on an old jacket and our feet toasting before the smouldering fire. The wind whistled and the rain and snow blew in through the cracks, and the damp earth soaked in the moisture till the floor was miry as a pig- sty. Such were our houses. In these wretched hovels were we penned at night, and fed by day; here were the children born and the sick- - neglected." Josiah Hanson

In his autobiography, Josiah Henson described how as a child he saw his father punished for attempting to protect his wife against the plantation overseer.
"The day for the execution of the penalty was appointed. The Negroes from the neighbouring plantations were summoned to witness the scene. A powerful blacksmith named Hewes laid on the stripes. Fifty were given, during which the cries of my father might be heard a mile away, and then a pause ensured. True, he had struck a white man, but as valuable property he must not be damaged. Judicious men felt his pulse. Oh! he could stand the whole. Again and again the throng fell on his lacerated back. His cries grew fainter and fainter, till a feeble groan was the only response to the final blows. His head was then thrust against the post, and his right ear fastened to it with a tack; a swift pass of a knife, and the bleeding member was left sticking to the place. Then came a hurrah from the degraded crowd, and the exclamation, "That's what he's got for striking a white man." Josiah Hanson

"Previous to this affair, my father, from all I can learn, had been a good-humoured and light-hearted man. His banjo was the life of the farm. But from this hour he became utterly changed. Sullen, morose, and dogged, nothing could be done with him. He brooded over his wrongs. No fear or threats of being sold to the far south - the greatest of all terrors to the Maryland slave - would render him tractable. So off he was sent to Alabama. What was his fate neither my mother nor I have learned." Josiah Hanson

Slaves Narratives - Federick Douglass
return to American Slavery Exhibit - Part 3

References:
Josiah Hanson: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAShenson.htm
Image credit: Slavery in America http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/scripts/sia/gallery.cgi?collection=ugrr
Josiah Henson: http://library.thinkquest.org/10854/jhenson.html