Thomas H. Jones

Rev. Thomas H. Jones (born 1806) was born a slave Wilmington, North Carolina and was a prominent African-American abolitionist in antebellum America. Jones escaped slavery, traveled to Canada and subsequently relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts. Following years of working as an itinerant preacher and lecturer, Jones became a prominent figure within the Colored Conventions Movement. He served as a delegate to the 1859 New England Colored Convention. His narrative, Experience and Personal Narrative of Uncle Tom Jones; Who Was for Forty Years a Slave. Also the Surprising Adventures of Wild Tom, of the Island Retreat, a Fugitive Negro from South Carolina, captures his early life as a slave and his subsequent escape from slavery.

Early life Born a slave, Jones grew up on the plantation of John Hawes near Wilmington, North Carolina. At the age of nine, Hawes sold him to Mr. Jones, a storekeeper in Wilmington, North Carolina located about 45 miles from Hawes' plantation. Jones reports in his autobiography that, "Mr. Jones sent his slave driver, a colored man, named Abraham, to conduct me to my new home in Washington. I was at home with my mother when he came. He looked in at the door, and called to me, 'Tom, you must go with me.' His looks were ugly and his voice was savage. I was very much afraid, and began to cry, holding on to my mother's clothes and begging her to protect me, and not let the man take me away." Armistead described how Jones, "a fugitive from the horrors of slavery","furnished me with a few particulars of his history, as [sic] also of the providential escape of his family (a wife and three children), whom he succeeded in aiding away previously."

Legacy Thomas Jones Primary School in London is named in his honour.