Born into slavery in 1789, Josiah Henson was purchased as a child by Adam Robb and transferred to the Riley plantation in 1795. The Riley family enslaved him for more than 30 years until he escaped with his wife and children from Kentucky to Canada. In 1849, he published a narrative of his life in slavery, recounting the labor and suffering he endured there. Henson later became internationally known, traveled widely to share his story, and worked to build a better life for former slaves from the U.S. living in his Dawn Settlement in Ontario. Harriet Beecher Stowe began writing Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1849, and later identified Henson, whom she called "the venerable Josiah Henson" raised in Maryland, as one inspiration for Uncle Tom; she also wrote the preface to the 1858 version of his expanded narrative.
