Josiah Henson was born into slavery on June 15, 1789, in Port Tobacco, Maryland, currently known as Port Tobacco Village in Charles County, Maryland. All things considered, he maintained a cordial relationship with his various slave masters which deemed him trustworthy and earned him certain liberties. One such liberty included becoming a preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1928. Utilizing this mean, he was able to earn money and eventually attempted to buy his freedom. His master, however, took the money, and raised the buyout price to $1,000.
Tired of being enslaved, in October of 1830, Henson and his family fled slavery settling in Dresden, Ontario where he worked as a farm laborer and preacher in the area. Henson charged his oldest son with the task of teaching him how to read and write. Henson became an integral part of the Underground Railroad, leading over 200 slaves to freedom. In 1842, he developed his own Afro-Canadian community that taught practical skills to his fugitives. In 1849, Henson published his autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself.
Henson’s autobiography is believed to have been Harriet Beecher Stowe's inspiration for the main character in Uncle Tom's Cabin published in 1852 as a fictional portrayal of slavery in America. Beecher eventually revealed Josiah Henson’s autobiography as the inspiration for her book, listing Henson as the muse for the book’s main character, Uncle Tom. As a result, Henson later toured the country signing books and giving lectures as the "real Uncle Tom." Henson died on May 5, 1883.
Josiah Henson. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 07:57, Feb 02, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/josiah-henson-541392
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