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Uncle Tom's Cabin
By
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Have you read the book Uncle Tom's Cabin? Besides being a good read, this influential book is often included in lists of "causes of the Civil War" (1861-65). It has been translated into at least 23 languages, and has been presented on stage and in film. Harriet Beecher Stowe's story first appeared on June 5, 1851, in serial form, a chapter at a time, in a weekly publication called the National Era. It went on to become one of the nation's earliest bestsellers. The play Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared on stage in 1886.
Harriet Beecher Stowe cared deeply about human rights. Her family was active in the Underground Railroad, helping slavesescape to freedom in the North. (The Underground Railroad was a system formed by a group of people who were against slavery. These people helped escaped slaves secretly reach the North.) For 18 years she observed a slave-holding community in Kentucky just across the Ohio River from where she lived in Cincinnati. She didn't like what she saw.
Stowe decided to write a fictional story about slavery and sent it to the editor of an anti-slavery weekly. He paid her $300 for the right to publish her story, and on June 5, 1851, the first chapter appeared in print. Over the next 10 months, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, was published in 40 installments. Even though the paper had not been tremendously popular, people started to discuss Uncle Tom's Cabin and pass around the story. In 1852, a Boston publisher issued Uncle Tom's Cabin as a book. It became an instant bestseller. Three hundred thousand copies were sold the first year, and a half-million copies by 1857. Before long it seemed that everyone had read it, including the president of the United States!
President Lincoln invited Harriet Beecher Stowe to the White House in 1862. According to legend, he is said to have exclaimed, "So this is the little lady who made this big war?" Because the book divided people into those who wished to abolish slavery (abolitionists) and those who wished to maintain slavery (anti-abolitionists), it is often listed as one of the causes of the Civil War. Would you say that the pen is mightier than the sword? Uncle Tom's Cabin was often produced as a play, so that many people who did not read the book saw it as a powerful stage drama. Although, especially at first, white actors usually played the African American parts in blackface, some productions starred African American actors and singers. At least seven silent-film versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin had been made by 1927. The 1970 film version stars African American actress Eartha Kitt.
The book, with its memorable characters, remains powerful today. Pick up a copy and read Uncle Tom's Cabin for yourself.
Excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852
From Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Toms Cabin; Or, Life among the Lowly, 1852 . Reprint, 1892. 376-378.
On the lower part of a small, mean boat, on the Red River, Tom sat,chains on his feet, and a weight heavier than chains lay on his heart. All had faded from his sky,moon and star; all had passed by him, as the trees and banks were now passing, to return no more. Kentucky home, with wife and children, and indulgent owners; St. Clare home, with all its refinements and splendors; the golden head of Eva, with its saint-like eye; the proud, gay, handsome, seemingly careless, yet ever-kind St. Clare; hours of ease and indulgent leisure,all gone! and in place thereof, what remains?
It is one of the bitterest apportionments of a lot of slavery, that the negro, sympathetic and assimilative, after acquiring in a refines family, the tastes and feelings which form the atmosphere of such a place, is not the less liable to become the bondslave of the coarsest and most brutal,just as a chair or table, which once decorated the superb saloon, comes, at last, battered and defaced, to the bar-room of some filthy tavern, or some low haunt of vulgar debauchery. The great difference is, that the table and chair cannot feel, and the man can; for even a legal enactment that he shall be taken, reputed, adjudged in law to be a chattel personal cannot blot out his soul, with its own private little world of memories, hopes, loves, fears, and desires.
Mr. Simon Legree, Toms master, had purchased slaves at one place and another, in New Orleans, to the number of eight, and driven them, handcuffed, in couples of two and two, down to the good steamer Pirate, which lay at the levee, ready for a trip up the Red River.
Having got them fairly on board, and the boat being off, he came round, with that air of efficiency which ever characterized him, to take a review of them. Stopping opposite Tom, who had been attired for sale in his best broadcloth suit, with well-starched linen and shining boots, he briefly expressed himself as follows:
Stand up.
Tom stood up.
Take off that stock! and, as Tom, encumbered by his fetters, proceeded to do it, he assisted him by pulling it, with no gentle hand, from his neck, and putting it in his pocket.
Legree now turned to Toms trunk, which, previous to this, he had been ransacking, and, taking from it a pair of old pantaloons and a dilapidated coat, which Tom had been wont to put on about his stable-work, he said, liberating Toms hands from the handcuffs, and pointing to a recess in among the boxes,
You go there, and put these on.
Tom obeyed, and in a few moments returned.
Take off your boots, said Mr. Legree.
Tom did so.
There, said the former, throwing him a pair of course, stout shoes, such as were common among the slaves, put these on.
In Toms hurried exchange, he had not forgotten to transfer his cherished Bible to his pocket. It was well he did so; for Mr. Legree, having refitted Toms handcuffs, proceeded deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets. He drew out a silk handkerchief, and put it into his own pocket. Several little trifles, which Tom had treasured, chiefly because they had amused Eva, he looked upon with a contemptuous grunt, and tossed them over his shoulder into the river.
Toms Methodist hymn-book, which in his hurry, he had forgotten, he now held up and turned over.
Humph! pious, to be sure. So, whats yer name,you belong to the church, eh?
Yes, Masr, said Tom, firmly.
Well, Ill soon have that out of you. I have none o yer bawling, praying, singing niggers on my place; so remember. Now, mind yourself, he said, with a stamp and a fierce glance of his gray eye, directed at Tom, Im your church now! You understand,youve got to be as I say.
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Page 2
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