[1] Her father, who was described as "a Spanish gentleman of wealth [who] had made many efforts to purchase the freedom of her mother", provided financial support for Webb until age 6 or 7.

[1] Through her mother's efforts, Webb was admitted to a school where her education included poetry and dramatic literature, and developed a talent for performance.

[5][6] One of her performances of Uncle Tom was attended by Longfellow, who wrote, "A striking scene, this Cleopatra with a white wreath in her dark hair, and a sweet, musical voice, reading to a great, unimpassioned, immovable Boston audience.

While moved by Catherine's description of Webb's "modesty" and "consumptive" state of ill health, Dickens reacted unfavorably to the idea of assisting the "poor woman" further on her reading tour, stating to the Earl of Carlisle in a letter of 15 April 1857, "I myself for example am the meekest of men, and in abhorrence of Slavery yield to no human creature—and yet I dont [sic] admit the sequence that I want Uncle Tom (or Aunt Tomasina) to expound King Lear to me.

"[8] Laura Korobkin interprets Dickens's dismissal of Webb, an educated African American woman, as evidence of racial and social anxiety regarding his own status.