Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe for
the first time, Abraham Lincoln reportedly said, “So this is the
little lady who made this big war.” Stowe was little—under five
feet tall—but what she lacked in height, she made up for in influence
and success. Uncle Tom’s Cabin became one of the
most widely read and deeply penetrating books of its time. It sold
hundreds of thousands of copies and was translated into numerous
languages. Many historians have credited the novel with contributing
to the outbreak of the Civil War.
The daughter of an eminent New England preacher, Stowe
was born into a family of eccentric, intelligent people. As a child,
she learned Latin and wrote a children’s geography book, both before she
was ten years old. Throughout her life, she remained deeply involved
in religious movements, feminist causes, and the most divisive political
and moral issue of her time: the abolition of slavery.
Stowe grew up in the Northeast but lived for a time in
Cincinnati, which enabled her to see both sides of the slavery debate
without losing her abolitionist’s perspective. Cincinnati was evenly
split for and against abolition, and Stowe wrote satirical pieces
on the subject for several local papers there. She often wrote pieces
under pseudonyms and with contrasting styles, and one can see a
similar attention to voice in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
in which dialects and patterns of speech contrast among characters.
Though Stowe absorbed a great deal of information about slavery
during her Cincinnati years, she nonetheless conducted extensive
research before writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She
wrote to Frederick Douglass and others for help in creating a realistic
picture of slavery in the Deep South. Her black cook and household
servants also helped by telling her stories of their slave days.
Stowe’s main goal with Uncle Tom’s Cabin was
to convince her large Northern readership of the necessity of ending
slavery. Most immediately, the novel served as a response to the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,
which made it illegal to give aid or assistance to a runaway slave.
Under this legislation, Southern slaves who escaped to the North
had to flee to Canada in order to find real freedom. With her book,
Stowe created a sort of exposé that revealed the horrors of Southern
slavery to people in the North. Her radical position on race relations,
though, was informed by a deep religiosity. Stowe continually emphasizes
the importance of Christian love in eradicating oppression. She
also works in her feminist beliefs, showing women as equals to men
in intelligence, bravery, and spiritual strength. Indeed, women
dominate the book’s moral code, proving vital advisors to their
husbands, who often need help in seeing through convention and popular
opinion.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in episodes
in the National Era in 1851 and 1852,
then published in its entirety on March 20, 1852.
It sold 10,000 copies in its first week and 300,000 by
the end of the year, astronomical numbers for the mid-nineteenth
century. Today, analysis of both the book’s conception and reception
proves helpful in our understanding of the Civil War era. Within
the text itself, the reader finds insights into the mind
of a Christian, feminist abolitionist. For example, in the arguments
Stowe uses, the reader receives a glimpse into the details of the
slavery debate. Looking beyond the text to its impact on its society,
the reader gains an understanding of the historical forces contributing
to the outbreak of war.
Having run up large debts, a
Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby faces the prospect of losing
everything he owns. Though he and his wife, Emily Shelby, have a
kindhearted and affectionate relationship with their slaves, Shelby
decides to raise money by selling two of his slaves to Mr. Haley,
a coarse slave trader. The slaves in question are Uncle Tom, a middle-aged
man with a wife and children on the farm, and Harry, the young son
of Mrs. Shelby’s maid Eliza. When Shelby tells his wife about his
agreement with Haley, she is appalled because she has promised Eliza
that Shelby would not sell her son.
However, Eliza overhears the conversation between Shelby
and his wife and, after warning Uncle Tom and his wife, Aunt Chloe,
she takes Harry and flees to the North, hoping to find freedom with
her husband George in Canada. Haley pursues her, but two other Shelby
slaves alert Eliza to the danger. She miraculously evades capture
by crossing the half-frozen Ohio River, the boundary separating
Kentucky from the North. Haley hires a slave hunter named Loker
and his gang to bring Eliza and Harry back to Kentucky. Eliza and
Harry make their way to a Quaker settlement, where the Quakers agree
to help transport them to safety. They are joined at the settlement
by George, who reunites joyously with his family for the trip to
Canada.
Meanwhile, Uncle Tom sadly leaves his family and Mas’r George,
Shelby’s young son and Tom’s friend, as Haley takes him to a boat
on the Mississippi to be transported to a slave market. On the boat,
Tom meets an angelic little white girl named Eva, who quickly befriends
him. When Eva falls into the river, Tom dives in to save her,
and her father, Augustine St. Clare, gratefully agrees to buy Tom
from Haley. Tom travels with the St. Clares to their home in New
Orleans, where he grows increasingly invaluable to the St. Clare
household and increasingly close to Eva, with whom he shares a devout
Christianity.
Up North, George and Eliza remain in flight from Loker
and his men. When Loker attempts to capture them, George shoots
him in the side, and the other slave hunters retreat. Eliza convinces
George and the Quakers to bring Loker to the next settlement, where
he can be healed. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, St. Clare discusses
slavery with his cousin Ophelia, who opposes slavery as an institution
but harbors deep prejudices against blacks. St. Clare, by contrast,
feels no hostility against blacks but tolerates slavery because
he feels powerless to change it. To help Ophelia overcome her bigotry,
he buys Topsy, a young black girl who was abused by her past master and
arranges for Ophelia to begin educating her.
After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years,
Eva grows very ill. She slowly weakens, then dies, with a vision
of heaven before her. Her death has a profound effect on everyone
who knew her: Ophelia resolves to love the slaves, Topsy learns
to trust and feel attached to others, and St. Clare decides to set
Tom free. However, before he can act on his decision, St. Clare
is stabbed to death while trying to settle a brawl. As he dies,
he at last finds God and goes to be reunited with his mother in
heaven.
St. Clare’s cruel wife, Marie, sells Tom to a vicious
plantation owner named Simon Legree. Tom is taken to rural Louisiana
with a group of new slaves, including Emmeline, whom the demonic
Legree has purchased to use as a sex slave, replacing his previous
sex slave Cassy. Legree takes a strong dislike to Tom when Tom refuses to
whip a fellow slave as ordered. Tom receives a severe beating, and Legree
resolves to crush his faith in God. Tom meets Cassy, and hears her
story. Separated from her daughter by slavery, she became pregnant
again but killed the child because she could not stand to have another
child taken from her.
Around this time, with the help of Tom Loker—now a changed man
after being healed by the Quakers—George, Eliza, and Harry at last
cross over into Canada from Lake Erie and obtain their freedom.
In Louisiana, Tom’s faith is sorely tested by his hardships, and he
nearly ceases to believe. He has two visions, however—one of Christ
and one of Eva—which renew his spiritual strength and . . .
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