Josiah Henson

Josiah Henson. . , Born into slavery in 1789, Josiah Henson was purchased as a child by Adam Robb and transferred here to the Riley plantation in 1795. The Rileys enslaved him for over 30 years until he escaped with his wife and children from Kentucky to Canada. In 1849, he published a written narrative of his life in slavery, describing in detail the labor and suffering endured here. Henson became an internationally known celebrity who traveled the world to share his story and build a better life for the former slaves from the U.S. who lived in his Dawn Settlement in Ontario., Henson and Uncle Tom's Cabin , The same year that Henson published his narrative, 1849, Harriet Beecher Stowe began work on Uncle Tom's Cabin, a fictional account of slavery, releasing it one chapter at a time. As she later noted in her A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), her sources included personal interviews and observations as well as written accounts. In the Key, she revealed that "the venerable Josiah Henson" who was "'raised' in the State of Maryland" was one of the inspirations for the character Uncle Tom. Later, Stowe wrote the preface to the 1858 version of Henson's expanded narrative., [Sidebar:] , Slavery in Maryland , From its foundation as a colony in 1634 until the state abolished the institution in 1864, chattel slavery was legal in Maryland. During those 230 years, the labor of enslaved people of African descent provided the foundation for Maryland's economy. Changes in early 1800s agricultural practices diminished dependence on slavery, resulting in a drop in the state's enslaved population. Marylanders participated in the lucrative domestic slave trade, splitting enslaved families as they were sold to plantations in the Deep South. This scenario occurred among the enslaved people held here by the Riley family.