Josiah Henson (1789-1883) was an author, abolitionist, and minister born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland. In 1830, he escaped to Upper Canada (now Ontario), where he later founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves. His autobiography is a tense, gripping account of how he escaped from his owners, a pair of sadistic, cruelly duplicitous brothers. Henson's life story is said to have inspired the character of the fugitive slave, George Harris, in Uncle Tom's Cabin.