Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Harriet Beecher Stowe

Excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin
First published in 1852

A novel about the evils of slavery

"'Lucy,' said the trader, 'your child's gone; you may as well know it first as last. You see, I know'd you couldn't take him down south; and I got a chance to sell him to a first-rate family, that'll raise him better than you can.'"

From Uncle Tom's Cabin

In the years leading up to the Civil War, growing numbers of people wanted to abolish (put an end to) slavery in the United States. People who actively fought to end slavery were known as abolitionists. During the 1830s and 1840s, abolitionists distributed millions of antislavery newsletters and pamphlets in Northern cities. The abolitionist movement gradually gained strength and became more vocal during this time. But slavery remained important to the cotton-growing economy of the South. In addition, many people continued to believe that black people were inferior to white people and did not deserve the same rights. As a result, most Southerners were determined to resist the abolitionists' efforts to interfere with their way of life.

In 1850, Southerners in the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. This measure granted slaveowners sweeping new powers to capture and reclaim escaped slaves. It also required people in the North to assist the slaveowners in retrieving their property. Many Northerners resented the Fugitive Slave Act. They were able to ignore slavery when it was confined to the South, but not when they saw black people being tracked down like animals and carried off in chains within their own cities. Some people simply disobeyed the act. Others became active in helping escaped slaves hide or reach Canada, where slavery was not allowed. The Fugitive Slave Act ended up increasing the antislavery and anti-Southern feelings of many people in the North.

The Fugitive Slave Act had a strong effect on a young writer named Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896). The daughter of prominent religious leader Lyman Beecher (1775–1863), Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut. In 1832, she moved with her family to Cincinnati, a city in the southern part of Ohio just across the Ohio River from the slave-holding state of Kentucky. Stowe occasionally encountered fugitive slaves while living in Cincinnati. She also read American Slavery as It Is by abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld (1803–1895), a collection of articles about slavery and advertisements for slaves from Southern newspapers. Stowe moved to Brunswick, Maine, the same year that the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The new law inspired her to begin a novel that became the single most important piece of antislavery literature in American history.

Stowe's work, Uncle Tom's Cabin, first appeared as a series of short articles in National Era magazine in 1851. It proved to be extremely popular with Northern readers and was published in book form in 1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin follows the lives of several black slaves who work for a cruel man named Simon Legree in the South. Through the experiences of Uncle Tom, Eliza, Eva, and others, the novel painted a powerful picture of the evils of slavery. It also gave readers a more realistic understanding of slaves. It was one of the first books to portray black characters as human beings with the same desires, dreams, and weaknesses as white people. Uncle Tom's Cabin turned out to be a perfect expression of people's guilt, anger, and disgust at seeing slaves being hunted down in the North under the Fugitive Slave Act.

One of the most powerful themes of Stowe's book involves the forced separation of black families under slavery. "Striking to the very heart of the slave's nightmare—and of the white South's guilt—she centered her novel on the helpless instability of the Negro's home life," Kenneth S. Lynn wrote in his introduction to the novel. In one sense, slaves in America were encouraged to form families. The U.S. government had agreed to stop importing new slaves from Africa in 1808. So in order to have a continued source of labor after that time, the South needed existing slaves to reproduce.

But black family life was very fragile. Southern states did not consider the marriages of slaves to be legally binding. Husbands, wives, parents, and children could be sold separately at any time. "Even a master who himself refused to sell family members apart from each other could not always prevent such sales to settle debts after his death," James M. McPherson wrote in Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. "Several studies of slavery have found that from one-fifth to one-third of slave marriages were broken by owners—generally by selling one or both of the partners separately. The percentage of children sold apart from their parents or siblings cannot even be estimated."

The following excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin comes from a chapter called "A Select Incident of Lawful Trade." It deals with the tragic practice of breaking up black families. Haley is a slave trader—a person who makes a living by traveling around and buying slaves to fill the needs of plantations in the South. Haley has already purchased Tom—the main character of Uncle Tom's Cabin—from the Shelby family. The Shelbys had treated their few slaves kindly and had promised not to sell them, but were forced to do so in order to pay off large debts.

Haley takes Tom with him on a boat down the Ohio River, which runs along the northern border of Kentucky and eventually meets the Mississippi River. Along the way, Haley stops at several auctions and buys other slaves. One of these slaves is a young woman named Lucy, who comes aboard with her baby. Lucy's master had told her that she was going to Louisville, Kentucky, to be a cook at a tavern where her husband worked. But once Lucy is on the boat, Haley informs her that he has bought her and plans to take her to a plantation in the South. Lucy is shocked at first, but soon realizes that she has no choice but to go along with Haley. Before long, however, something even more terrible happens. It turns out to be more than she can stand.

Things to remember while reading the excerpt from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin:

• Stowe uses a literary device called irony in her novel—she says the opposite of what she means in order to make a point. A good example of Stowe's use of irony occurs in the following excerpt, when she describes the different reactions of Haley and Tom when Lucy's child is taken from her. When Stowe describes Haley's reaction, she says that "the trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and political perfection . . . in which he had completely overcome every humane weakness and prejudice." Haley feels no sympathy for the young mother—he has lost the basic human tendency to care about someone else. But Stowe makes it seem as if Haley's feelings are normal and right, even perfect, in the eyes of society. On the other hand, when describing the reaction of Tom, she says that the separation of mother and child "looked like something unutterably horrible and cruel, because, poor, ignorant black soul! He had not learned to generalize, and to take enlarged views." Tom feels tremendous sympathy for Lucy. But Stowe makes it seem as if Tom only feels this way because he is ignorant and cannot see the importance of slavery in Southern society. Of course, Stowe was an abolitionist who was trying to convince others that slavery was wrong. She described the two men's reactions in the opposite way that she truly felt about them in order to make a point with readers.
• After Lucy commits suicide by jumping overboard from the boat, Stowe says that she "escaped into a state which never will give up a fugitive,—not even at the demand of the whole glorious Union." This is a reference to the Fugitive Slave Act. Stowe is saying that, under the law, death is the only escape from slavery for some people.
• Toward the end of the excerpt, Stowe relates a conversation between two unnamed people about Haley, the slave trader. The speakers consider him—and all other slave traders—"unfeeling," "dreadful," and "universally despised." But Stowe makes it clear in the next few paragraphs that Haley is just a product of a society that allows slavery. She claims that the wealthy, educated members of society are actually worse than him, because they promote his ugly business even though they should know better.

Excerpt from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin

[Lucy] looked calm, as the boat went on; and a beautiful soft summer breeze passed like a compassionate spirit over her head,—the gentle breeze, that never inquires whether the brow is dusky or fair that it fans. And she saw sunshine sparkling on the water, in golden ripples, and heard gay voices, full of ease and pleasure talking around her everywhere; but her heart lay as if a great stone had fallen on it. Her baby raised himself up against her, and stroked her cheeks with his little hands; and, springing up and down, crowing and chatting, seemed determined to arouse her. She strained him suddenly and tightly in her arms, and slowly one tear after another fell on his wondering, unconscious face; and gradually she seemed, and little by little, to grow calmer, and busied herself with tending and nursing him.

The child, a boy of ten months, was uncommonly large and strong of his age, and very vigorous in his limbs. Never, for a moment, still, he kept his mother constantly busy in holding him, and guarding his springing activity.

"Tha's a fine chap!" said a man, suddenly stopping opposite to him, with his hands in his pockets. "How old is he?"

"Ten months and a half," said the mother.

The man whistled to the boy, and offered him part of a stick of candy, which he eagerly grabbed at, and very soon had it in a baby's general depository, to wit, his mouth.

"Rum fellow!" said the man. "Know's what's what!" and he whistled, and walked on. When he had got to the other side of the boat, he came across Haley, who was smoking on top of a pile of boxes.

The stranger produced a match, lighted a cigar, saying, as he did so, "Decentish kind o' wench you've got round there, stranger."

"Why, I reckon she is tol'able fair," said Haley, blowing the smoke out of his mouth.

"Taking her down south?" said the man.

Haley nodded, and smoked on.

"Plantation hand?" said the man.

"Wal," said Haley, "I'm fillin' out an order for a plantation, and I think I shall put her in. They telled me she was a good cook; and they can use her for that, or set her at the cotton-picking. She's got the right fingers for that, I looked at 'em. Sell well, either way;" and Haley resumed his cigar.

"They won't want the young 'un on the plantation," said the man.

"I shall sell him, first chance I find," said Haley, lighting another cigar.

"S'pose you'd be selling him tol'able cheap," said the stranger, mounting the pile of boxes, and sitting down comfortably.

"Don't know 'bout that," said Haley; "he's a pretty smart young 'un,—straight, fat, strong; flesh as hard as a brick!"

"Very true, but then there's the bother and expense of raisin'."

"Nonsense!" said Haley; "they is raised as easy as any kind of critter there is going; they an't a bit more trouble than pups. This yer chap will be running all around, in a month."

"I've got a good place for raisin', and I thought of takin' in a little more stock, " said the man. "One cook lost a young 'un last week,—got drownded in a wash-tub, while she was a hangin' out clothes,—and I reckon it would be well enough to set her to raisin' this yer."

Haley and the stranger smoked a while in silence. . . . [The two men argue back and forth, and finally settle on a price of $45 for the baby.]

"Done!" said Haley. "Where do you land?"

"At Louisville," said the man.

"Louisville," said Haley. "Very fair, we get there about dusk. Chap will be asleep,—all fair,—get him off quietly, and no screaming,—happens beautiful,—I like to do everything quietly,—I hates all kind of agitation and fluster." And so, after a transfer of certain bills had passed from the man's pocket-book to the trader's, he resumed his cigar.

It was a bright, tranquil evening when the boat stopped at the wharf at Louisville. The woman had been sitting with her baby inher arms, now wrapped in a heavy sleep. When she heard the name of the place called out, she hastily laid the child down in a little cradle formed by the hollow among the boxes, first carefully spreading under it her cloak; and then she sprung to the side of the boat, in hopes that, among the various hotel-waiters who thronged the wharf, she might see her husband. In this hope, she pressed forward to the front rails, and, stretching far over them, strained her eyes intently on the moving heads on the shore, and the crowd pressed in between her and the child.

"Now's your time," said Haley, taking the sleeping child up, and handing him to the stranger. "Don't wake him up, and set him to crying, now; it would make a devil of a fuss with the gal." The man took the bundle carefully, and was soon lost in the crowd that went up the wharf.

When the boat, creaking, and groaning, and puffing, had loosed from the wharf, and was beginning slowly to strain herself along, the woman returned to her old seat. The trader was sitting there,—the child was gone!

"Why, why,—where?" she began, in bewildered surprise.

"Lucy," said the trader, "your child's gone; you may as well know it first as last. You see, I know'd you couldn't take him down south; and I got a chance to sell him to a first-rate family, that'll raise him better than you can."

The trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and political perfection which has been recommended by some preachers and politicians of the north, lately, in which he had completely overcome every human weakness and prejudice. His heart was exactly where yours, sir, and mine could be brought, with proper effort and cultivation . The wild look of anguish and utter despair that the woman cast on him might have disturbed one less practised; but he was used to it. He had seen that same look hundreds of times. You can get used to such things, too, my friend; and it is the great object of recent efforts to make our whole northern community used to them, for the glory of the Union. So the trader only regarded the mortal anguish which he saw working in those dark features, those clenched hands, and suffocating breathings, as necessary incidents of the trade, and merely calculated whether she was going to scream, and get up a commotion on the boat; for like other supporters of our peculiar institution, he decidedly disliked agitation.

But the woman did not scream. The shot had passed too straight and direct through the heart, for cry or tear.

Dizzily she sat down. Her slack hands fell lifeless by her side. Her eyes looked straight forward, but she saw nothing. All the noise and hum of the boat, the groaning of the machinery, mingled dreamily to her bewildered ear; and the poor, dumb-stricken heart had neither cry nor tear to show for its utter misery. She was quite calm.

The trader, who, considering his advantages, was almost as humane as some of our politicians, seemed to feel called on to administer such consolation as the case admitted of. . . . [Haley tries to console Lucy, telling her that she will find a nice place and a new husband down river. She begs him not to talk to her.]

The trader walked up and down for a time, and occasionally stopped and looked at her.

"Takes it hard, rather," he soliloquized, "but quiet, tho';—let her sweat a while; she'll come right, by and by!"

Tom had watched the whole transaction from first to last, and had a perfect understanding of its results. To him, it looked like something unutterably horrible and cruel, because, poor, ignorant black soul! He had not learned to generalize, and to take enlarged views. If he had only been instructed by certain ministers of Christianity, he might have thought better of it, and seen in it an every-day incident of a lawful trade; a trade which is the vital support of an institution which an American divine tells us has "no evils but such as are inseparable from any other relations in social and domestic life." But Tom, as we see, being a poor, ignorant fellow, whose reading had been confined entirely to the New Testament, could not comfort and solace himself with views like these. His very soul bled within him for what seemed to him the wrongs of the poor suffering thing that lay like a crushed reed on the boxes; the feeling, living, bleeding, yet immortal thing, which American state law coolly classes with the bundles, and bales, and boxes, among which she is lying.

Tom drew near, and tried to say something; but she only groaned. Honestly, and with tears running down his own cheeks, he spoke of a heart of love in the skies, of a pitying Jesus, and an eternal home; but the ear was deaf with anguish, and the palsied heart could not feel.

Night came on,—night calm, unmoved, and glorious, shining down with her innumerable and solemn angel eyes, twinkling,beautiful, but silent. There was no speech nor language, no pitying voice or helping hand, from that distant sky. One after another, the voices of business or pleasure died away; all on the boat were sleeping, and the ripples at the prow were plainly heard. Tom stretched himself out on a box, and there, as he lay, he heard, ever and anon, a smothered sob or cry from the prostrate creature,—"O! What shall I do? O Lord! O good Lord, do help me!" and so, ever and anon, until the murmur died away in silence.

At midnight, Tom waked, with a sudden start. Something black passed quickly by him to the side of the boat, and he heard a splash in the water. No one else saw or heard anything. He raised his head,—the woman's place was vacant! He got up, and sought about him in vain. The poor bleeding heart was still, at last, and the river rippled and dimpled just as brightly as if it had not closed above it.

Patience! patience! Ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the oppressed, is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory. In his patient, generous bosom he bears the anguish of a world. Bear thou, like him, in patience, and labor in love; for sure as he is God, "the year of his redeemed shall come."

The trader waked up bright and early, and came out to see to his live stock. It was now his turn to look about in perplexity. "Where alive is that gal?" he said to Tom.

Tom, who had learned the wisdom of keeping counsel, did not feel called upon to state his observations and suspicions, but said he did not know.

"She surely couldn't have got off in the night at any of the landings, for I was awake, and on the look-out, whenever the boat stopped. I never trust these yer things to other folks."

This speech was addressed to Tom quite confidentially, as if it was something that would be specially interesting to him. Tom made no answer.

The trader searched the boat from stem to stern, among boxes, bales, and barrels, around the machinery, by the chimneys, in vain.

"Now, I say, Tom, be fair about this yer," he said, when, after a fruitless search, he came where Tom was standing. "You know something about it, now. Don't tell me,—I know you do. I saw the gal stretched out here about ten o'clock, and ag'in at twelve, andag'in between one and two; and then at four she was gone, and you was a sleeping right there all the time. Now, you know something,—you can't help it."

"Well, Mas'r, " said Tom, "towards morning something brushed by me, and I kinder half woke; and then I hearn a great splash, and then I clare woke up, and the gal was gone. That's all I know on 't."

The trader was not shocked nor amazed; because, as we said before, he was used to a great many things that you are not used to. Even the awful presence of Death struck no solemn chill upon him. He had seen Death many times,—met him in the way of trade, and got acquainted with him,—and he only thought of him as a hard customer, that embarrassed his property operations very unfairly; and so he only swore that the gal was a baggage, and that he was devilishly unlucky, and that, if things went on in this way, he should not make a cent on the trip. In short, he seemed to consider himself an ill-used man, decidedly; but there was no help for it, as the woman had escaped into a state which never will give up a fugitive,—not even at the demand of the whole glorious Union. The trader, therefore, sat discontentedly down, with his little account-book, and put down the missing body and soul under the head of losses!

"He's a shocking creature, isn't he,—this trader? so unfeeling! It's dreadful, really!"

"O, but nobody thinks anything of these traders! They are universally despised,—never received into any decent society."

But who, sir, makes the trader? Who is most to blame? The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent man, who supports the system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or the poor trader himself? You make the public statement that calls for his trade, that debauches and depraves him, till he feels no shame in it; and in what are you better than he?

Are you educated and he ignorant, you high and he low, you refined and he coarse, you talented and he simple?

In the day of a future Judgment, these very considerations may make it more tolerable for him than for you.

What happened next . . .

Readers all across the North were captivated by Uncle Tom's Cabin. The novel sold three hundred thousand copies in the first year following its publication, and went on to sell over two million copies in the next ten years. These sales made Stowe's work the best-selling book ever up to that time.

More importantly, Uncle Tom's Cabin raised people's awareness of the terrible injustice of slavery. It convinced countless Northerners to join the abolitionist movement. Some historians claim that, by making people in the North less willing to compromise on the issue of slavery, it helped cause the Civil War. In fact, President Abraham Lincoln once called Stowe "the little lady who wrote the book that made this big war."

Uncle Tom's Cabin also sold well in Europe and was translated into many foreign languages. Some historians have said that it helped persuade the leaders of England and France to remain neutral during the Civil War, rather than to support Confederate independence.

Of course, reaction in the Southern states was not so positive. Most people in the South were highly critical of the book. They claimed that Stowe distorted the facts of slavery and exaggerated the punishments that blacks received. "There never before was anything so detestable or so monstrous among women as this," wrote a reviewer for the New Orleans Crescent. Many states tried to ban the book, but Southerners still wanted to read it. In fact, copies sold so fast that bookstores in Charleston, South Carolina, could not keep up with demand.

Within the next few years, at least fifteen Southern writers published responses to Uncle Tom's Cabin. These books generally argued that blacks were better off under slavery in the South than they were living in poverty in the North. One Southern book that glorified slavery was called Uncle Robin in His Cabin in Virginia and Tom without One in Boston.

Did you know . . .

• The term "Uncle Tom" is still used today, although its meaning has changed a great deal over the years. The main character in Stowe's book is a gentle, patient, deeply religious man. His faith helps him to accept the hardships of slavery, because he believes that he will find a better life in heaven. During the second half of the 1800s, Uncle Tom's Cabin became the basis for a form of entertainment known as "Tom Shows." In some of these shows, white performers painted their faces and imitated black people while singing songs and doing skits. The Uncle Tom character who appeared in these shows was so docile (meek) and subservient (submissive) that he humiliated himself. Over time, "Uncle Tom" came to be used as a negative term for a black person who is overly eager to gain the acceptance of whites.