UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
By Harriet Beecher Stowe
Black & White Publications, 2015, 266 pages
Originally published in 1852, the work depicts the lives of a number of antebellum slaves in the southern U.S. The main protagonist, Uncle Tom, is an older man and submissive to his fate as dictated by a series of three different slave holders. His circumstance grows progressively worse as he battles to maintain his Christian faith. His last ‘master’ tries to push him to act as an overseer of the other slaves because of Tom’s ability to read and manage plantation affairs. When Tom resists he is eventually beaten to death, but only after redeeming his faith. In some ways he is a Messiah-like persona.
A number of other slaves who interact with Tom on the various farms, or in slave auctions, eventually find ways to escape, both desperate and ingenious, to a life in Canada. The book depicts examples of whites, some of whom assist the runaways, others add peril.
In the end one could argue Tom escapes as do the others, though his escape is spiritual and mortally final. Because he is submissive and in the end suffers brutality and death, many people of color refer to others as an ‘Uncle Tom’. They do this to mean people of color who they feel are not supportive enough of black culture, or who seem interested in blending into white culture. Until reading the book I had not understood the reference, and likely still don’t really understand it. In a related thought, there are many who question the book’s authenticity as Stowe was a middle-aged white woman living in New England. Her interactions with Afro-Americans would have been very limited, so it’s not very clear how realistic her writings are. There is urban legend that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe he commented to the effect that she had written the book that inspired the Civil War.
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