The story begins with a trivial offense, really, and the offender was no more than a youngster. But because the youngster was also an African-American slave, born on a Maryland plantation in 1789, his punishment was governed neither by laws nor by any particular morality. The fate of young Josiah rested solely in the hands of his owner.
And this is what the owner decided: the youth would be flogged—beaten until it seemed he should not be beaten anymore. And considering the licentious disposition of his master, the punishment could easily go on for a very long time.
It did.
Other slaves could hear Josiah screaming from two plantations away. His flesh was shredded quickly under the biting iron points of the overseer’s whip. Then the bones beneath began to splinter and break. By the time the plantation owner was satisfied, his young slave had collapsed in a lake of his own blood, his body contorted, shoulder bones shattered. As long as Josiah lived, both arms would remain crippled by that beating.
But the overseer’s whip never cut deep enough to annihilate the spirit of that young man.
For this is the rest of the story:
Josiah Henson bided his time. He was nearly 30 when he fled to Canada—nearly 30 and completely illiterate. And yet, by 1850, he was world-renowned. In what is now the town of Dresden, Ontario, he opened a sawmill, established a school to educate young people of all races—Black, White, and Indigenous—and in his spare time, he plotted the successful escape of more than a hundred United States slaves, whom he welcomed into Canada to a life of free enterprise.
Josiah’s business grew. He purchased shiploads of fine lumber for his mill, traveling to Boston and even to England to wheel and deal. On a trip to London, he was greeted by every imaginable dignitary. Queen Victoria personally applauded him. The Archbishop of Canterbury was so impressed by his eloquence and depth of knowledge that he asked what university Josiah had attended.
His reply was, “The University of Adversity.”
Until the day he died, Josiah Henson often preached in Methodist churches. “Father Henson,” he was sometimes called. And indeed, his Christian faith lifted him high enough even to pray for the men who had abused him.
But you would never have known him were it not for one business trip to Boston, during which he was a guest in the home of a man named Edward. It was Edward’s sister who was visiting at the same time. You see, Father Henson was there, recounting the true stories that you have just heard, and his host’s sister was moved to tears—and moved even more than that.
It was one autumn, in the parlor of Edward Beecher, that Josiah Henson held a woman spellbound and inspired that woman to honor his goodness in a story about American slavery. The world now recognizes Edward Beecher’s sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, as the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
But if you always thought of Uncle Tom himself as an obsequious sellout, well—you’ll never make that mistake again. For now, you’ve met the real Uncle Tom.
Now you know the rest of the story.
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