In 1830, Josiah an his family escaped to Upper Canada (Ontario) by the Underground Railroad. The family’s first home was near Fort Erie, Ontario. His first job was working for a local farmer.

The family’s moved onto Colchester, in Essex County where they settled on cleared lots. After seven years he wanted to have his own land and in 1841 he moved his family to Dresden and helped to establish the Dawn Settlement. The settlement offered a refuge and a new beginning for former slaves.

One of Canada’s first industrial schools, the British American Institute was founded through Josiah Henson’s leadership. The school specialized in the advancement of fugitive slaves.

His name became famous with the central character “Uncle Tom” in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabinn. The novel raised awareness to the brutality of slavery, having sold 300,000 copies in the first year. Abraham Lincoln saw the book as a catalyst of the Civil War. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a white abolitionist, and her novel was the first major American book to feature an African-American hero. It became one of the most prominent works to stir anti-slavery convictions by shining a light on the inhumane state of slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, and the second best-selling novel of the century, with the bible still being number one. The book was originally published in the abolitionist periodical, The National Era. Harriet Beecher Stowe relied on interviews of slaves, slave masters and books, for she never traveled to the deep South. In 1849 Josiah Henson’s autobiography, “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself” is believed to have inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s character, Uncle Tom.

In 1983 Josiah Henson was the first African-American to be featured on a Canadian Stamp.

In 1999, a plaque was erected designating him as a Canadian of National Historical Significance by the Government of Canada. In the Henson family cemetery a plaque stands today.

JOSÉ PROTACIO RIZAL MERCADO Y ALONSO REALONDA was born on June 19, 1861, in the town of Calamba, Laguna. He was the seventh child in a family of 11 children (2 boys and 9 girls). A son of a Filipino father and a Chinese mother, both his parents were educated and belonged to distinguished families.

His father, Francisco Mercado Rizal, an industrious farmer whom Rizal called “a model of fathers,” came from Biñan, Laguna; while his mother, Teodora Alonzo y Quintos, a highly cultured and accomplished woman whom Rizal called “loving and prudent mother,” was born in Meisic, Sta. Cruz, Manila. Rizal was a polyglot conversant in twenty two languages, these include Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Malayan, Portuguese, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Tagalog, and other native dialects.

He was educated at the Ateneo de Manila and the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. In 1882, he went to study medicine and liberal arts at the University of Madrid. A brilliant student, he soon became the leader of the small community of Filipino students in Spain and committed himself to the reform of Spanish rule in his home country, though he never advocated Philippine independence. The chief enemy of reform, in his eyes, was not Spain, which was going through a profound revolution, but the Franciscan, Augustinian and Dominican friars who held the country in political and economic paralysis.

Rizal continued his medical studies in Paris and Heidelberg. In 1886, he published his first novel in Spanish, Noli Me Tangere, a passionate exposure of the evils of the friars rule, comparable in its effect to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A sequel, El Filibusterismo, 1891, established his reputation as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement. He annotated an edition in 1890 on Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, which showed that the native people of the Philippines had a long history before the coming of the Spaniards.

He became the leader of the Propaganda Movement, contributing numerous articles to its newspaper, La Solidaridad, published in Barcelona. Rizal’s political program, as expressed in the newspaper, included integration of the Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), the replacement of the Spanish friars by the Filipino priests, freedom of assembly and expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.

Against the advice of his parents and friends, Rizal returned to the Philippines in 1892. He found a nonviolent reform society, La Liga Filipina, in Manila, and was deported to Dapitan, in northwest Mindanao, an island south of the Philippines. He remained in exile for four years, doing scientific research and founding a school and hospital. In 1896, the Katipunan, a nationalist secret society, launched a revolt against Spain. Although he had no connections with that organization or any part in the insurrection, Rizal was arrested and tried for sedition by the military. Found guilty, he wa publicly executed by a firing squad in Manila. His martyrdom convinced Filipinos that there was no alternative to independence from Spain. On the eve of his execution, while confined in Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote Mi Ultimo Adios (”My Last Farewell”), a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse. Although the poem was untitled, this title served as an artifice useful as a quick reference. This poem was one of the last notes he wrote before his execution. Another that he had written before his death was found in his shoe but because the text could not be read it remains a mystery.

All of  us have, in one way or another, lost someone special in our lives — be it friends, parents, grandparents, and partners.  Some of them are taken from us so suddenly, we often fail to tell them how much they mean to us.  Sometimes there are messages we need to convey to them, but we no longer can.

It would have been easier to accept if they left us naturally.  At least, we have time to prepare ourselves and make them feel that they made a mark in our lives.  Unfortunately, there are times when people encounter unexpected events.  Accidents happen and there are some people who are just born with bad blood in their veins, they cause mischief and grief to others.  Some are just plain evil.

Tough to accept, but that is part of life.  Death is inevitable; some perish ahead of others.

Therefore, we should at least let the people we love know how valuable they are to us before it’s too late.  Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, said that “the bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone,” so tell someone you love him or her.  Make someone feel special today.

            The celebrated American historian Sydney Ahlstrome was a convinced supporter of the theory that the fact of the existing of slavery in South America was the main prerequisite of the Civil War. However, it cannot be stated that the war started merely because South was implementing slavery and North considered it inappropriate to have slaves. It should be mentioned that the question of advantages and disadvantages of slavery was not illuminated until the time the war has started. It can be explained with the fact that the majority of Southern farmers could not afford maintenance of slaves and the majority of Northern farmers have never even seen a slave. In the modern perception such positioning can be viewed as an anomaly, because the society of the XXI century condemn slavery and consider it, first of all, from the moral point of view. However, in the nineteenth century slavery was a typical activity and statesmen regarded it as an economic issue, not moral (Beale). Therefore, we can conclude that causes of the Civil War are really complicated and significantly deeper than the mere censure of slavery. To visualize the full picture of the American society at the edge of the Civil War it would be appropriate to estimate main events, which took place in the period from 1848 to 1860.

            First of all, in 1848 America has finished the Mexican campaign and it leaded to the arousal of the question about separating the newly obtained territories in order to spread slavery (Beale). It should be stated that this question was always very relevant for Southern and Northern politicians. In all ages countries were fighting for land expansion and it is not surprising that the same problem occurred in America. The problem of land separation was tried to be solved by conducting Missouri Compromise in 1820, which prohibited the expansion of slavery in Northern States and in the newly received territories, namely obtained from the Louisiana Purchase and Mexican War. However, Southern side violated the Compromise, by implementing Kansas-Nebraska act, which denied the prohibition of the expansion of slavery (Foner). The announcement of Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was developed by Southern democrats and allowed the spreading of slavery in any territory, worried Northern statesmen, who did not want to share their territory with someone else (Etcheson).

            These were main politic events that leaded to the Civil War. Regarding the social events, there should be mentioned release of Uncle’s Tom Cabin or Life among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This book described the horrors of slavery and cruel attitude towards slaves. It had an enormous impact on the northerners’ perception of slavery and has become the main catalyst of the developing abolitions’ movement (Etcheson).  Among other events that occurred before the Civil War, there was election of Abraham Lincoln, who was determined not to let the slavery to expand on Northern territory, Lecompton Constitution Rejection and Dred Scott decision (Etcheson).

            The main direct reason for the Civil War is, definitely, economic issue. South’s prosperity was based on the cotton production. All Southern States had large plantations of cotton and concentrated their agriculture on cultivating exactly this plant. It should be mentioned that this branch was really profitable, because Southern lands were perfect for cotton cultivation and all world’s countries required cotton for their manufactures. Thus, the agricultural South had numerous consumers in industrial countries. Among those consumers of cotton were Northern States, which bought cotton and made finished production (Beale). However, it was very inconvenient and expensive to buy cotton in order with Southern prices and the only way was to start the predatory war and obtain all rights on seizing cotton production. Regarding economic reasons for the Civil War it should be stated that the essence of all economic disagreements between South and North lied in the fact that Southern politicians were absorbed in the problem of expanding territory of slavery and obtaining more power and Northern politicians, on the other hand, were immersed in the issue of preventing southerners from seizing their territory and spreading their political and economic influence on South territory (Foner).

            The main political reason for the Civil War was the fact of separation of thirteen Southern States from the Union and creation of the Confederation. Definitely, this fact was negatively perceived by Northern government, because it meant that it has lost control over the big and prosperous territory (Beale). From the Southern point of view, the act of separation from the Union meant that South needs to create appropriate military organization to protect the newly created state unit and prevent Northern government from seizing power again. This contradiction, for sure, leaded to the military actions.

            As it was stated above, the main social reason for the Civil War was the development of the abolitions movement. Northerners were outraged with the information about horrors of slavery and inhumane methods of Southern farmers. Definitely, their perception of this problem was highly subjective, because the majority of them had never been to any of Southern States and had never seen the relations between landlords and slaves with their own eyes. However, the mere existence of such gossips provoked the organization of abolition movement. Moreover, such aggressive attitude towards slavery was really beneficial for Northern statesmen, because they could use it to start the war and reach their main objective, namely to protect their lands from slavery expansion (Etcheson).

            So, judging from the above information the Civil War has started due to economic reasons (land expansion, cotton trade), political reasons (separation of Southern States from the Union) and social reasons (northerner’s perception of slavery, abolition movement). Among these three reasons the most important is, definitely, economic issue.

            To conclude, it should be stated that the Civil War ended 145 years ago, but people still argue about the reasons that caused the war. In overall, it was possible to avoid the military actions and politicians from both sides were trying to solve the problem peacefully. However, the majority was disposed to more aggressive attitude. Southern side claimed that North is trying to violate their Right and ruin their original way of living. Northern side stated that South’s system of slavery threatens the democracy of Northern States (Foner). However, the Civil War, which was intended to be represented as a protection or condemnation of slavery, indeed had absolutely different objections. Like any other war, the Civil War was merely a fight for money. Statesmen of the both sides wanted to obtain more power and, therefore, deluded citizens with pompous speeches to recruit more soldiers and fooled slaves with beautiful promises to stir up racial hatred. Definitely the prerequisite of the war was slavery, but it was not its reason; it was only a justification for shedding citizens’ blood in the name of economic and political issues.

Nothing could quench her thirst for knowledge. One instance her father read to her The Declaration of Independence. Hatty later wrote, “I was ready as any of them to pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor for such a cause.” I always thought that was hypocritical of them to put, “… that all men are created equal,” and then have slaves working on plantations. I can only imagine what affect it had on little Harriet. In 1833 Stowe crossed the Ohio River and saw her first plantation, many think that this provided her with her setting for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By 1840, she was writing romantic stories for Godey’s Lady’s Book. Her fifteen stories and sketches were published into a collection called The Mayflower, about the descendants of the pilgrims. Stowe was now becoming the author she was always destined to be. While in church one day she had a very descriptive vision of a black man being beaten until he was on the edge of death, he forgave his tormentors and passed away. She went home and wrote down what she saw and drew a sketch. When she read it to her children they exclaimed, “Oh mama! Slavery is the most cruel thing in the world.” Her husband also commented, “Hatty this is the climax of that story… begin at the beginning and work up to this and you’ll have your book. From her she started to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It first appeared in weekly installments in the National Era between June 5, 1851 and April 1, 1852. Within two days the entire first edition had sold out, and after one year sales of the novel were estimated at more than 325,000 copies in America alone. World wide there are 3 million copies sold during Stowe’s life. Popular all over the world it was translated into many different languages. Stowe wanted to make her story very believable, to do this she had interviews with former slaves, she witnessed the selling of husbands and wives, and she even wrote to Fredrik Douglas. Abraham Lincoln said during a meeting with her, “So this is the woman who started the book war.” In the history of literature there has never been a more earth shattering story. Northerners and Southerners alike became aware of the wrongs done to so many people. For that reason this book is still read today, and still will be read for centuries to come; Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life, work, and Legacy will live on too.

Works Cited

“Harriet Beecher Stowe.” World Biographies 2003. Biography resource center. EBSCO Hos.

Noblesville Media Center, Noblesville, IN. 20 Nov. 2008. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC>

“Harriet Beecher Stowe.” World Biographies 2003. Biography resource center. EBSCO Hos.

Noblesville Media Center, Noblesville, IN. 21 Nov. 2008. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC>

Coil, Suzanne M. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Connecticut: Franklin Watts, 1995

“So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to the master — so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil — so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.”

          – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom’s Cabin catalyzed debates on the issue of slavery throughout the United States throughout the twenty-first century. Today, it still remains as one of the most historically recognized books in our nation’s history. Harriet Beecher Stowe, arguably became one of the most influential women writer’s of all time, through writing the book. Once a poor and unknown writer, Stowe became rich and famous after the release of her book, selling 300,000 copies in its first year and another million by 1860. She became so well known and controversial, in fact, that Abraham Lincoln, in 1862, himself once referred to Stowe as “the little woman who started this big war”. The war in which Lincoln referred was not any “big war”, but none other than one of the most significant war in United States history, the American Civil War. Of the three million soldiers that fought for the abolition or continuation of slavery in the States, over 600,000 died for what they believed in, whether they agreed or disagreed with the views of Stowe.

Although many events in the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe inspired her to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one key event in Stowe’s life truly marks her initial interest in the issue of slavery in the States. In 1793, the Fugitive Slave Acts were passed, recognizing the right of slaveholders to seize their slaves wherever they might find them and drag them back into bondage. There, thus, was no place in the States that slaves were safe, even if they were to cross into territory initially marked anti-slavery territory, even if they crossed over the Ohio River. Therefore, many people that were against the acts of slavery in the States created the Underground Railroad, a system of protecting runaways in direct defiance of the federal law. Anyone convicted of such an act could be punished with a weighty fine. Despite the risks, many people chose to do what they felt was right to do, and aided runaway slaves.

One of these runaways, by the name of Eliza Harris, from a plantation in Kentucky located several miles just South of the Ohio River, learned that her and her only child were to be sold to another owner due to the fact that her present owners had fallen into debt. In order to protect her and her only surviving child, in March, she chose to run, hoping that the river waters would still be frozen over and an escape would be relatively effortless. Unexpectedly, to Eliza’s dismay, the river waters had thawed and the ice on the river had been broken into moving chunks of ice downstream. With her baby in one hand, a man standing on the opposite side of the river watched the mother leap from block to block across the river. Deeply moved by her heroism, the man aided her in making it to shore. Half paralyzed by the cold, Eliza and her baby were taken to the home of Reverend John Rankin, who generously nursed the two back to heath and sent them to the next “station” along their journey to safety. Stowe became aroused by Eliza’s story of survival, and thus, her interest in slavery began, and grew.

“Slavery was a crime against God and Christians has a duty to take action against it. But how does a woman in a provincial town, burdened with the responsibility of a household and caring for small children, become involved in such a struggle?… “No one can have the system of slavery brought before him without an irrepressible desire to do something, and what is there to be done?”” (Scott 73). From the experience, Stowe came to be introduced to Levi Coffin, later bestowed the title of “president” of the Underground Railroad. Coffin and his wife were later immortalized in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, renamed Rachel and Simeon Halliday.

Runaway slaves “shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

          – U.S. Constitution, Article IV

The Fugitive Slave Act was one of the most important and most hated measures ever passed by the United States Congress. Not only did this act allow intolerable abuses, but it also provided a profitable business out of the kidnapping of free blacks that lived in northern states, of which had never run at all. The North was outraged. It was not uncommon for protesters to go into the fields and streets with guns to stop the federal government from capturing and returning runaway slaves to their owners. Stowe’s immediate purpose when she first began to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was to directly speak out against the Fugitive Slave Act and to teach American’s that it was to be recognized as a symbol for the system of tyranny that existed in the States. It was both the Fugitive Slave Act and the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that is recognized as the two main events in history that truly sparked the conclusion among Northerners that slavery was worth dying for if necessary. On March 20, 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published and released in book form to the world, and later, was translated into forty foreign languages. Few books in the history of modern literature have ever won such immediate and widespread popularity.

Uncle Tom, as created by Stowe, taught that black people should avoid aggression and turn from their oppressors. According to Tom’s character in the novel, slaves should not defy their masters, but rather demonstrate charity towards those which owned them and to pray for their souls. Nonetheless, Tom remains a freedom fighter who will resist evil until his death, and is willing to die before ever raising a hand against fellow people. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom and his wife learn of their master’s plan to sell Tom. Instead of fighting his master’s decision, Tom does as he believes that him, as a black slave, should, and does not object to the decision of his master. In transit to his new plantation, Augustine St. Claire, a New Orleans slave owner, on a trip returning from a visit to his cousin, Ophelia, loses his daughter, Eva, over the boat. Tom saves the child, who returns the favor by convincing her father to purchase Tom. Ophelia develops as an integral character; she is the character who most reacts to the scenes of slavery that surround her.

In one particular instance, Ophelia questions Augustine as to why he does not protect a slave woman from being beaten to death by her owners. Here, Stowe assures the true views of slave owners become evident to her readers through dialogue. Ophelia inquires as to why the killing of slaves is not to be reported to the police. Augustine responds by telling her that, in theory, slave owners are never brutal to their slaves because no one would want to damage such valuable property, but that in reality, slave owners often abuse their power and commit cruel acts against slaves regardless. “’I don’t know what’s to be done… Slaveholders have absolute power… There would be no use in interfering; there is no such law that amounts to anything practically, for such a case. The best we can do is to shut our eyes and ears, and let it alone’” (Scott 115). Stowe did not wish to create some characters to be seen in a positive light because she felt that that there were equally as many kind-hearted slave owners as non-kind-hearted, but rather Stowe sought to expose the vices of slavery, even in its best possible scenario.

As the book comes to an end, the character of George Shelby, frees his slaves. This is where the title of Stowe’s novel becomes most apparent and is most brilliantly explained. Shelby tells his slaves as they leave for freedom to remember the freedom that was granted to them and to dedicate it to and themselves to Tom and his Christian-way of life. The cabin is meant to represent the suffering that Tom endured during his life as a slave, as well as a metaphor for Tom’s readiness to be beaten or even killed in order to protect fellow slaves. This outlines Tom’s compliance to do what is desired of him in order to in no way betray his Christian love and loyalty. Therefore, the cabin is symbolic of the destructive power of slavery and shows that Christians have the capability to overcome anything.

In essence, Stowe’s novel attempts to express that American’s must begin to stop denying the occurrence of slavery, treating slavery with indifference, or even apologizing for the fact that slavery exists. Instead, American’s needed to be taught to use their hearts, convey pity and compassion for victims, and think of the wrong doings done as wrongs done unto themselves. Her message: “You must feel in your hearts the horror and evil of slavery, and you must abolish it; if not, you will face a day of reckoning compared with which a thousand cholera epidemics will be as nothing” (Scott 119). And this message came a crucial time in United States history. The war with Mexico and the Fugitive Act of 1850 had just begun to awaken the fact that abolitionists were right, that slavery had taken the place of the United State’s major enemy in place of Britain, of their democratic institutions, and the free-labor economy constructed. Not only was Uncle Tom’s Cabin an adequate response to the new changes in public opinion, but also a major contribution to the antislavery cause. The American mood had been reflected in the words of one woman, creating a change at lightening speed, the change in which slaveholders had seen coming and feared.

“The Cabin was a call to all American’s to place themselves in harmony with their own Declaration of Independence, and to face the fact that the holding of human being in bondage was wrong. The Cabin was a trumpet blast announcing the day of judgment and the end of the world – the world of slavery. In writing this book Harriet saw herself as a messenger of God, bearing tiding both of doom and joy. She announced, and she demanded, a revolution in American public opinion” (Scott 123).

Uncle Tom’s Cabin also served another major role in society in the United States. Although written before women’s rights movements in the late 1800’s, it is still regarded as an early example of feminism. Women as portrayed as more morally conscientious than men and as having a strong bearing on the persuasion of the decisions men make. The oppression of blacks and the oppression, thus, are paralleled. Stowe shows obvious hope that the strength one oppressed group, women, might aid in alleviating the oppression of another group. She hoped that women would rise to sway their husbands, the people in which are responsible for voting, to see that slavery was un-Christian and immoral, thus mounting above to effect decisions made against acts of slavery. Stowe reflects women as not necessarily having insight far beyond that of others as to what is good and what is malevolent, but rather an inherent sense of moral wisdom, eager to persuade the use of this quality to induce a social change in their time. Women who read Uncle Tom’s Cabinwere given optimism and great expectation. Although women were not able to fight a war for what they believed as right for society, Stowe attempted to convince women that they could get their voices, as a whole, heard.

As Daniel Webster and others had seen coming a quarter of a century earlier, the deep and miserable pain of a nation plunged it into war to fight on its own soil. As Stowe said, “It was God’s will that this nation – The North as well as the South – should deeply and terribly suffer for the sin of consenting to and encouraging the great oppressions of the South; that the ill-gotten wealth, which has arisen from striking hands with oppression and robbery, should be paid back in the taxes of war; that the blood of the poor slave, that had cried so many years from the ground in vain, should be answered by the blood of the sons from the best hearthstones through all the free States; that the slave mothers whose tears nobody regarded should have with them a great company of weepers, North and South” (Fields 259).

“In a life that spanned all but fifteen years of the nineteenth century, Stowe spoke to a nation divided by race, sex, region, and class. Speaking to the masses meant negotiating diverse and even contradictory cultures. How successfully she accomplished this, and with what cost to various subcultures, continues to be a subject of fierce debate. In her time southern readers objected to her portrayal of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In our time, African Americans have objected to Stowe’s racial stereotypes. To engage her life is to engage the plurality and contradiction of American culture” (Hedrick).

It is fair to say that one person, even a woman, is capable of changing a nation. Although Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not the reason for the Civil War, it was one of the main contributors to what the nation saw as inevitable. So, in response to Lincoln’s statement to Stowe, yes, she was the “little woman who started this big war”.