Truth Stranger Than Fiction

Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life stands as a remarkable narrative on its own merits, but even more significant is its relationship to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It is strange that the inspiration for a character whose name is a contemporary curse is based on an escaped slave, one-time soldier, preacher, founder of an independent black settlement, and slave-narrative writer. Unlike Stowe’s derivative character, Henson seized his freedom, made a life for himself in Canada, and freed fellow slaves before publishing his life story and taking the cause of the slaves and fugitives to England and before Queen Victoria herself.