Jim Henson | |
|---|---|
 Henson in 1888 | |
| Born | Maryland |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | farmer |
| Known for | escaped slavery and dictated a memoir |
Jim Henson was an African man who was enslaved in Maryland, U.S. [1] [2] [3] Henson escaped slavery, and made his way to Canada, where his slave narrative, entitled Broken Shackles , was published in 1889.
Henson settled in Owen Sound, on Georgian Bay. [1] [2]
Henson's maternal grandmother, Chandesia, was the daughter of a chieftain of the Bagirmi people, in what is now Chad, when she was kidnapped. [2]
In his review future poet-laureate of Canada George Elliot Clarke cheered the 2002 republication of Henson's memoirs, characterizing it as "one of the humble wellsprings of what we now proudly term African-Canadian literature." [2]
He traveled through Pennsylvania and New York State on his way to Canada. [4]
Henson had seven different masters while he was a slave. [2] His first master's widow had promised to free all of her slaves when they reached the age of 35, but she died before he reached 35. At the time he escaped he needed only to make his way to Pennsylvania in order to be free. He lived there for several years and then decided to make his home in Canada after the passage of a law that allowed bounty hunters to seize any African Americans inside the United states which they suspected were fugitive slaves.
In 1889, when John Frost wrote Henson's memoirs, based on his oral account of his life, the book's publication led to Henson reuniting with his long-lost wife. [5] Henson was able to join her in Philadelphia, and they were able to spend their final months of life together.
The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved Africans, particularly in the Americas. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as separate books or pamphlets. In the United States during the Great Depression (1930s), more than 2,300 additional oral histories on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. Most of the 26 audio-recorded interviews are held by the Library of Congress.
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada. The network, primarily the work of free African Americans, was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the "Underground Railroad". Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".
Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery, in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Upper Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden, in Kent County, Upper Canada, of Ontario. Henson's autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), is believed to have inspired the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Following the success of Stowe's novel, Henson issued an expanded version of his memoir in 1858, Truth Stranger Than Fiction. Father Henson's Story of His Own Life. Interest in his life continued, and nearly two decades later, his life story was updated and published as Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (1876).
George Elliott Clarke, is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015, and as the 2016–2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known largely for its use of a vast range of literary and artistic traditions, its lush physicality and its bold political substance. One of Canada's most illustrious poets, Clarke is also known for chronicling the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that he has coined "Africadia".
William Still was an African-American abolitionist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a conductor of the Underground Railroad and was responsible for aiding and assisting at least 649 slaves to freedom towards North. Still was also a businessman, writer, historian and civil rights activist. Before the American Civil War, Still was chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, named the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia. He directly aided fugitive slaves and also kept records of the people served in order to help families reunite.
Slavery in Canada includes historical practices of enslavement practiced by both the First Nations during the pre-Columbian era, and by colonists during the period of European colonization.
Henry Box Brown was a 19th-century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom at the age of 33 by arranging to have himself mailed in a wooden crate in 1849 to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freedom seekers to avoid implying that the enslaved person had committed a crime and that the slaveholder was the injured party.
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown, who escaped from slavery in 1834 at the age of 20, published the book in London. He was staying after a lecture tour to evade possible recapture due to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Set in the early nineteenth century, it is considered the first novel published by an African American and is set in the United States. Three additional versions were published through 1867.
Captivity narratives are usually stories of people captured by enemies whom they consider uncivilized, or whose beliefs and customs they oppose. The best-known captivity narratives in North America are those concerning Europeans and Americans taken as captives and held by the indigenous peoples of North America. These narratives have had an enduring place in literature, history, ethnography, and the study of Native peoples.
Jane Johnson was an African-American slave who gained freedom on July 18, 1855, with her two young sons while in Philadelphia with her master and his family. She was aided by William Still and Passmore Williamson, abolitionists of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and its Vigilance Committee.
The Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, played a major role in the abolition movement against slavery in both the United Kingdom and in the United States. Quakers were among the first white people to denounce slavery in the American colonies and Europe, and the Society of Friends became the first organization to take a collective stand against both slavery and the slave trade, later spearheading the international and ecumenical campaigns against slavery.
The pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping into slavery in the United States occurred in both free and slave states, and both fugitive slaves and free negroes were transported to slave markets and sold, often multiple times. There were also rewards for the return of fugitives. Three types of kidnapping methods were employed: physical abduction, inveiglement of free blacks, and apprehension of fugitives. The enslavement, or re-enslavement, of free blacks occurred for 85 years, from 1780 to 1865.
Henry Walton Bibb, was an American author and abolitionist who was born into slavery. Bibb told his life story in his Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, which included many failed escape attempts followed finally by success when he escaped to Detroit. After leaving Detroit to move to Canada with his family, due to issues with the legality of his assistance in the Underground Railroad, he founded the abolitionist newspaper, Voice of the Fugitive. He lived in Canada until his death.
The Bondwoman's Narrative is a novel by Hannah Crafts who claimed to have escaped from slavery in North Carolina. The manuscript was not authenticated and properly published until 2002. Some scholars believe that the novel was written between 1853 and 1861. It is one of the very first books by an African-American woman, others including the novel Our Nig by Harriet Wilson, published in 1859, and the autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, published in 1861.
John Hill Wheeler (1806–1882) was an American attorney, politician, historian, planter and slaveowner. He served as North Carolina State Treasurer (1843–1845), and as United States Minister to Nicaragua (1855–1856).
The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself is a slave narrative written by Josiah Henson, who would later become famous for being the basis of the title character from Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Life of Josiah Henson, published in 1849, is Henson's first work but was dictated to Samuel A. Eliot, who was a former Boston Mayor known for his anti-slavery views. Although Henson was an accomplished orator, he had not yet learned to read and write. The narrative provides a detailed description of his life as a slave in the south.
Ann Maria Jackson was an enslaved woman with nine children who ran away from her enslaver in November 1858 after two of her eldest children had been sold. Her husband became mentally ill and died in a poor house. After finding out that four more of her children were about to be sold, she gathered the seven children who were with her and traveled along the Underground Railroad for Canada. She went through the way of Wilmington, then to Philadelphia, later to St.Catherines, and then to Toronto. This was rare as she had brought her seven children with her through the Underground Railroad. It was difficult for women to run away secretly. The Jacksons established new lives for themselves in Toronto. Her two eldest children later reunited with the family, and the youngest, Albert Jackson, became the first African American to work as a letter carrier in Toronto.
In From Quill to Ballpoint, 1591 - 1988, Dorothy Vick wrote that 'The publication of his (John Frost) book led to the reuniting of Jim Henson and his wife in Philadelphia.'
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