Josiah Henson helped free over 100 slaves and was an inspiration for the book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Guelph author and filmmaker Jared Brock had two goals in mind when he and his wife Michelle immersed themselves into a three-year project on a little-known hero who helped end slavery named Josiah Henson.

Henson, born a slave in 1789 in Maryland, eventually escaped to Ontario and would help over 100 slaves escape from the United States to Canada.

Yet few know his name.

Henson was also a key inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the anti-slavery novel that was one of the world’s most popular books of its day that helped fuel anti-slavery sentiment that led to the U.S. Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln is said to have once joked that it was the book that helped start the war.

On Saturday Brock spoke at a screening of his documentary Josiah, which traces Henson’s journey through slavery and eventually freedom.

The event was put on by the Guelph Black Heritage Society at Heritage Hall and was hosted by Reighan Grineage, an eigth generation Canadian whose ancestors lived at the settlement started by Henson.

Later he signed copies of his book The Road to Dawn: Josiah Henson and the Story That Sparked the Civil War.

“I wanted to reintroduce Henson to his rightful place,” said Brock to roughly 80 people who packed in to Heritage Hall for the event.

The second reason, said Brock, was to help lift the term “Uncle Tom” from its twisted meaning as a derogatory term for black people who are subservient to white people.

That couldn’t be further from the real meaning of Uncle Tom as it was meant in the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Brock said, but rather a distorted version used by future plays and books that presented a noble character as something quite opposite.

“I would love us to raise our boys, white or black, to be an Uncle Tom,” Brock said. “It means courageous and it means brave.”

Henson, who couldn’t read until he was 41 and never did learn to write, dictated his memoirs to a friend in the emancipation movement in Boston. That pamphlet, later updated and expanded, was read by the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and later credited by her as one of the main inspirations.

Henson was more than a freed slave helping others.

Brock’s documentary is riveting and telling.

It tracks Henson’s journey in great detail, showing a smart and brave man who endured and helped others. It also shows some warts, like when Henson passed up an opportunity to allow some slaves he was shepherding to Kentucky from Maryland to go free.

After 40 years of being a slave was tricked into thinking he was close to buying his own freedom. That wasn't the case and the thought that his family might be split up, sold to other slave owners, led to the realization he had to escape.

Henson, with his wife and four children, left their Kentucky plantation, travelling at night and eventually making it to Buffalo where they crossed Lake Erie before finally setting foot on land a free man.

He set up a community in Dresden, Ont., he called Dawn, hence the title of Brock’s book.

Henson would make many friends and many trips to the United States to help rescue other slave families and bring them to Canada.

He was helping people gain their freedom before the Underground Railroad officially existed.

“He was really an early conductor on the Underground Railroad,” Brock said.

He started a lumber business in Dresden and won a medal at the World’s Fair in London, England. He met Queen Victoria, visited the White House and was a noted preacher.

This is Brock’s third documentary and fourth book.

This summer Brock will screen his documentary for 200 people at a Henson family reunion. PBS in the United States will be broadcasting it and TVO Ontario is interested.

He also wants to get it shown, and the book read, in schools so that Henson’s role and legacy can be part of the curriculum.

“It’s all about stewardship,” Brock said. “Am I using my freedom well? Are we using our freedom well?”