Toward Liberty: Henry Bibb
Henry Bibb was an African American abolitionist, activist, and author. He was born on a Kentucky plantation in 1815, the eldest of Mildred Jackson’s seven children. All were held in bondage.
Henry fought for freedom throughout his life. His craving for liberty – coupled with constant beatings, floggings, and separation from family – caused him to escape often. Aged just ten years, he ran away for the first time. By 1837, when Henry successfully escaped to Canada, he had earned a reputation among his enslavers as a compulsive runaway.
Aided by the network of abolitionists, conductors, fugitives, and safe houses more commonly known as the Underground Railroad, Henry’s escape to Canada was bittersweet. Escape fulfilled his lifelong pursuit of liberty, but in doing so, he left behind his wife, Malinda, and daughter, Frances. Determined to be reunited, Henry returned to Kentucky for his family.
Initially reunited with Malinda and Frances, Henry was betrayed as he awaited their arrival in Ohio. Betrayal, capture, and escape followed each new effort to liberate his family, before slavery separated them forever. Henry later remarried and returned to Canada.
In 1849, while living in Michigan, Bibb published an autobiographical account of his life in bondage, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, and created one of Canada’s earliest Black newspapers, The Voice of the Fugitive (1851). He was a founder of the Refugee Home Society, a Black colonization project, which aided fugitives settled in Canada.
Henry died in 1854, aged 39.
