Uncle Tom's Cabin

Published in 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was a powerful indictment of slavery in America. Describing the many trials and eventual escape to freedom of the long-suffering good-hearted slave Uncle Tom it aimed to show how Christian love can overcome any human cruelty. <i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</i> has remained controversial to this day seen as either a vital milestone in the anti-slavery cause or as a patronising stereotype of African-Americans yet it played a crucial role in the eventual abolition of slavery and remains one of the most important American novels ever written. Published in 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was a powerful indictment of slavery in America. Describing the many trials and eventual escape to freedom of the long-suffering good-hearted slave Uncle Tom it aimed to show how Christian love can overcome any human cruelty. <i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</i> has remained controversial to this day seen as either a vital milestone in the anti-slavery cause or as a patronising stereotype of African-Americans yet it played a crucial role in the eventual abolition of slavery and remains one of the most important American novels ever written. &quot;Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most powerful and enduring work of art ever written about American slavery.&quot;<br>—Alfred Kazin <b>Harriet Beecher Stowe</b> (1811-1896) was born in Litchfield Connecticut daughter of the Reverend Lyman Beecher of the local Congregational Church. In 1832 the family moved to Cincinnati where Harriet married Calvin Ellis Stowe a professor at the seminary in 1836. The border town of Cincinnati was alive with abolitionist conflict and there Mrs. Stowe took an active part in community life. She came into contact with fugitive slaves and learned from friends and from personal visits what life was like for the Negro in the South. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and that same year Harriet’s sister-in-law urged the author to put her feelings about the evils of slavery into words. <i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</i> was first published serially during 1851-52 in The National Era and in book form in 1852. In one year more than 300000 copies of the novel were sold. Mrs. Stowe continued to write publishing eleven other novels and numerous articles before her death at the age of eighty-five in Hartford Connecticut.<br><br><b>Ann Douglas</b> teaches English at Columbia University. Her books include <i>Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s</i> and <i>The Feminization of American Culture</i>. Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February two gentlemen were sitting alone<br> over their wine in a well-furnished dining parlor in the town of P— in Kentucky.<br> There were no servants present and the gentlemen with chairs closely<br> approaching seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness. <br><br> For convenience sake we have said hitherto two gentlemen. One of the parties<br> however when critically examined did not seem strictly speaking to come under<br> the species. He was a short thick-set man with coarse commonplace features and<br> that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his<br> way upward in the world. He was much over-dressed in a gaudy vest of many<br> colors a blue neckerchief bedropped gayly with yellow spots and arranged with a<br> flaunting tie quite in keeping with the general air of the man. His hands large and<br> coarse were plentifully bedecked with rings; and he wore a heavy gold<br> watch-chain with a bundle of seals of portentous size and a great variety of colors<br> attached to it—which in the ardor of conversation he was in the habit of<br> flourishing and jingling with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and<br> easy defiance of Murray's Grammar and was garnished at convenient intervals with<br> various profane expressions which not even the desire to be graphic in our account<br> shall induce us to transcribe. <br><br> His companion Mr. Shelby had the appearance of a gentleman; and the<br> arrangements of the house and the general air of the housekeeping indicated easy<br> and even opulent circumstances. As we before stated the two were in the midst of<br> an earnest conversation. <br><br> 'That is the way I should arrange the matter' said Mr. Shelby. <br><br> 'I can't make trade that way—I positively can't Mr. Shelby' said the other holding<br> up a glass of wine between his eye and the light. <br><br> 'Why the fact is Haley Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly worth that sum<br> anywhere—steady honest capable manages my whole farm like a clock.'<br><br> 'You mean honest as niggers go' said Haley helping himself to a glass of brandy. <br><br> 'No; I mean really Tom is a good steady sensible pious fellow. He got religion at<br> a camp-meeting four years ago; and I believe he really did get it. I've trusted him<br> since then with everything I have—money house horses—and let him come and<br> go round the country; and I always found him true and square in everything.'<br><br> 'Some folks don't believe there is pious niggers Shelby' said Haley with a candid<br> flourish of his hand 'but I do. I had a fellow now in this yer last lot I took to<br> Orleans—'twas as good as a meetin' now really to hear that critter pray; and he was<br> quite gentle and quiet like. He fetched me a good sum too for I bought him cheap<br> of a man that was 'bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes I consider<br> religion a valeyable thing in a nigger when it's the genuine article and no mistake.'<br><br> 'Well Tom's got the real article if ever a fellow had' rejoined the other. 'Why last<br> fall I let him go to Cincinnati alone to do business for me and bring home five<br> hundred dollars. 'Tom' says I to him 'I trust you because I think you're a<br> Christian—'I know you wouldn't cheat.' Tom comes back sure enough; I knew he<br> would. Some low fellows they say said to him—'Tom why don't you make tracks<br> for Canada?' 'Ah master trusted me and I couldn't'—they told me about it. I am sorry<br> to part with Tom I must say. You ought to let him cover the whole balance of the<br> debt; and you would Haley if you had any conscience.'<br><br> 'Well I've got just as much conscience as any man in business can afford to<br> keep—just a little you know to swear by as 'twere' said the trader jocularly; 'and<br> then I'm ready to do anything in reason to 'blige friends; but this yer you see is a<br> leetle too hard on a fellow—a leetle too hard.' The trader sighed contemplatively and<br> poured out some more brandy. <br><br> 'Well then Haley how will you trade?' said Mr. Shelby after an uneasy interval of<br> silence. <br><br> 'Well haven't you a boy or gal that you could throw in with Tom?'<br><br> 'Hum!—none that I could well spare; to tell the truth it's only hard necessity makes<br> me willing to sell at all. I don't like parting with any of my hands that's a fact.'<br><br> Here the door opened and a small quadroon boy between four and five years of<br> age entered the room. There was something in his appearance remarkably beautiful<br> and engaging. His black hair fine as floss silk hung in glossy curls about his<br> round dimpled face while a pair of large dark eyes full of fire and softness looked<br> out from beneath the rich long lashes as he peered curiously into the apartment. A<br> gay robe of scarlet and yellow plaid carefully made and neatly fitted set off to<br> advantage the dark and rich style of his beauty; and a certain comic air of<br> assurance blended with bashfulness showed that he had been not unused to<br> being petted and noticed by his master.