Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe is the book that, more than any other, turned White opinion in the northern US against slavery, tearing the country apart in the American Civil War (1861-65). Stowe did this by packaging the facts about slavery into a tear-jerker Victorian novel aimed squarely at White women, mothers in particular. And this at a time when it was common for even White women to lose a child – not to the auction block, but to an early death.

Stereotypes: The book spawned two stereotypes about Black people:

• Uncle Toms and
• piccaninnies

and reinforced others.

But this seems to be more the work of the many theatrical adaptations that followed than of the book itself. Stowe was racist, about both “negroes” (always lower-case) and “Anglo-Saxons” (always upper), and parts of the book seem like a minstrel show, but to her great credit she humanized Black people for a large White audience better than anyone else at the time.

Uncle Tom: People who have read the book say that Uncle Tom was not an Uncle Tom, that he was the hero of the book! This is true. While he was a pious, obedient slave who never bad-mouthed his masters no matter how cruel they were, he gave his life rather than betray two runaway slaves. Black people in White media are often self-sacrificing for the greater good of White people – Sidney Poitier springs to mind – but this time it was for the good of fellow Black people! What a relief! As it turned out, all along Uncle Tom was serving not White people but Christ. The irony is that he took Ephesians 6:5 seriously, the very verse of the Bible that slaveholders most loved to quote:

“Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.”

Stowe never lets you forget that he was a way better Christian than any of his masters.

Use of dialect: Uncle Tom seems to speak in minstrelese – except when quoting Scripture, singing a hymn or giving a stirring speech. Then he lapses into Standard English. Stowe did have Black servants, but Whites got their picture of Blacks mainly from minstrel shows, just like today they mainly get it from television. The incessant minstrelese made the early parts of the book hard for me to stomach. Even the Quaker English in the book seemed fake, especially when compared to “Moby Dick” (1851). Though, to be fair, at least one (White) linguist, Allison Burkette, says Stowe’s use of dialect was accurate.

Based on true events: Everything that takes place in the book is based on something that took place in real life. Which is why nearly all of it takes place in Kentucky (across the river from Cincinnati where Stowe lived from 1832 to 1850) and Lousiana (where her brother lived). Stowe did not want to be accused of exaggeration. Uncle Tom himself is believed to have been inspired by Josiah Henson, whose autobiography came out in 1849, just before she began writing.

– Abagond, 2022.

See also:

• books – books I read in 2022
• American abolitionists – Harriet Beecher Stowe among them
• stereotype
  • Uncle Tom
    • Sidney Poitier
  • The piccaninny stereotype
• The Slaveholder’s Bible
• minstrel show
• English in 1851
  • Standard English
  • Black English in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
  • Quaker English
• Josiah Henson
• Why do whites hate, demonize, fear and look down on blacks?

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