Goodbye, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Hello, Josiah Henson Museum of African-Canadian History.
One of Southwestern Ontario’s most prominent Black history landmarks, named for the title character of a 19th-century anti-slavery novel, is getting a new name that better reflects the legacy of book’s inspiration — an escaped Kentucky slave who settled near Dresden — and abolitionist history.
As museum officials said several weeks ago, it was “to reclaim Josiah Henson and his story.”
In the works now for a few years, the name change is billed as a positive step forward as the Dresden museum moves away from the negative connotations associated with the term “Uncle Tom” while providing a more appropriate recognition to a key figure in the abolitionist movement.
“It’s fantastic,” museum manager Steven Cook said. “I think it’s the next chapter in the natural evolution of the site that we’ve been working towards for a long time now.”
Henson, a conductor of the Underground Railroad, led 118 people escaping slavery to freedom in Canada, where he helped establish a driving community for refugees.
His 1849 autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, was later used by Harriet Beecher Stowe as inspiration for her immensely popular 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Beecher Stowe stated that Henson’s life had provided her with “concepts and incidents” for the character of Tom. Her book became an international bestseller and helped to propel the American Civil War and the end of slavery.
Cook called Henson a leader who embodied the qualities of bravery and perseverance, but suggested his remarkable real-life story became overshadowed by the character in Beecher Stowe’s novel.
“It’s going to be a teaching moment, I think, over the next while,” Cook said of the name change that will be officially unveiled during Saturday’s Emancipation Day celebrations at the site.
“It’s going to allow us to expand the narrative a little bit more. There’s a bigger story being told here.”
The two-hectare museum complex in Chatham-Kent is the site of Henson’s last home — a two-storey wooden cabin — as well as a sawmill and the church where he preached.
Also at the historic site is the Josiah Henson Interpretive Center that houses a collection of artifacts associated with the abolitionist era and educational materials on the impact of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Henson founded the Dawn Settlement near Dresden in the mid-1830s and helped establish the British American Institute, where the free Black population and recently settled refugees from slavery were provided an education and taught skilled trades.
The Ontario Heritage Trust, an agency of the provincial government, acquired the museum in 2005.
“Josiah Henson is not well known in Canadian history. He should be,” Beth Hanna, chief executive of the Ontario Heritage Trust, stated in a release.
“His story sheds light on the realities of slavery and on those who fought for freedom for themselves and others. He worked to provide a place of safety, where Black refugees from slavery could thrive and build lives based on the opportunities provided by community, education, land and personhood.”
The renaming is part of the trust’s larger efforts to review all of its properties and programs through an inclusive and anti-racist lens.
The trust, which maintains the museum as an agency of the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries, had voiced serious concerns about associating “Uncle Tom” — a term typically used as a derogatory epithet for a Black person who is overly submissive or servile to white people—with Henson.
Cook, who began working at the site in the late 1980s as a summer student, said there were instances in the past where some visitors didn’t want to get off their tour bus when they saw the name.
“They thought we were promoting that whole narrative of an Uncle Tom being a sellout and a derogatory term,” he said. “With this new name, it’s going to let them know who we’re focusing on.”
Saturday’s Emancipation Day event features speakers, entertainment and activities. Several of Henson’s descendants, hailing from Canada and the US, will be in attendance for the ceremony.
“It’s going to be really a remarkable and memorable event,” said Cook, adding he’s especially pleased the event will take place in person, given the pandemic restrictions of the past two years.
The museum’s name change follows Chatham-Kent council’s decision to rename Uncle Tom’s Road at the request of the Ontario Heritage Trust. This roughly one-kilometre rural road officially became Freedom Road in early July.
The Josiah Henson Museum of African-Canadian History is open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10 am to 3 pm It will close for the season Oct. 21. Tours will be available by appointment only from Nov. 1 of this year through April 30, 2023.