M[artin] R. Delany to Frederick Douglass, April 15, 1853
Uncle Tom.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.: DEAR SIR:—I "throw in" this note, between the three
letters which I promised you in regular suc-
cession.
It is now certain, that the Rev. JOSIAH
HENSON, of Dawn, Canada West, is the real
Uncle Tom, the Christian hero, in Mrs.
Stowe's far-famed book of "Uncle Tom's
Cabin." Mr. Henson is well known to both
you and I, and what is said of him in Mrs. S.'s
"Key," as far as we are acquainted with the
man, and even the opinion we might form of
him from our knowledge of his character,
we know, or at least believe, to be true to the
letter.
Now, what I simply wish to suggest to you,
is this: Since Mrs. Stowe and Messrs. Jewett
& Co., Publishers, have realized so great an
amount of money from the sale of a work
founded upon this good old man, whose liv-
ing testimony> has to be brought to sustain
this great book—and believing that the pub-
lishers have realized five dollars to the author-
ess' one—would it be expecting too much to
suggest, that they—the publishers—present
Father Henson—for by that name we all
know him—with at least five thous.—know, I
won't name any particular sum—but a por-
tion of the profits? I do not know what
you may think about it; but it strikes me
that this would be but just and right.
I have always thought that George and
Eliza were Mr. Henry Bibb and his first wife,
with the character of Mr. Lewis Hayden, his
wife Harriet and little son, who also effected
their escapte from Kentucky, under the au-
spices of Delia Webster, and that martyr
philanthropist, Calvin Fairbanks, now incar-
cerated in a Kentucky States' prison dun-
geon. I say the person of Bibb with the
character of Hayden; because, in personal
appearance of stature and color, as well as
circumstances, Bibb answers precisely to
George; while he stood quietly by, as he tells
us in his own great narrative—and it is a
great book—with a hoe in his hand, begging
his master to desist, while he stripped his
wife's clothes off (!!!) and lacerated her
flesh, until the blood flowed in pools at her
feet! To the contrary, had this been Hay-
den—who, by the way, is not like Bibb near-
ly white, but black—he would have buried
the hoe deep in the master's skull, laying
him lifeless at his feet.
I am of the opinion, that Mrs. Stowe has
draughted largely on all of the best fugitive
slave narratives—at least on Douglass'
Brown's, Bibb's, and perhaps Clark's, as well
as the living Household of old Father Hen-
son; but of this I am not competent to judge,
not having as yet read "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
my wife having told me the most I know
about it. But these draughts on your narra-
tives, clothed in Mrs. Stowe's own language,
only makes her work the more valuable, as
it is the more truthful.
The "negro language," attributed to Uncle
Tom by the authoress, makes the character
more natural for a slave; but I would barely
state, that Father Josiah Henson makes use
of as good language, as any one in a thou-
sand Americans.
The probability is, that either to make the
story more effecting, or to conceal the
facts of the old man's still being alive, Mrs
Stowe closed his early career in New Or-
leans; but a fact which the publishers may
not know: Father Henson is still a slave by
the laws of the United States—a fugitive
slave in Canada. It may be but justice to
him to say, that I have neither seen nor
heard directly or indirectly from Father
Henson since September, 1851—then, I was
in Toronto, Canada.
The person of Father Henson will increase
the valuation of Mrs. Stowe's work very
much in England, as he is well known, and
highly respected there. His son, Josiah
Henson, Jr., is still in England, having ac-
companied his father there in the winter of
1850.
I may perhaps have made freer use of
your and the other names herein mentioned,
than what was altogether consonant with
your feelings; but I didn't ask you—that's
all.
Yours for God and Humanity,
M. R. DELANY.
PITTSBURGH, April 15, 1853.