Uncle Tom's Cabin

I am of two minds on Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.  On the one hand, it did serve to draw Northern attention to the horrors of slavery and the plight of slaves in the South.  On the other hand, it is inconsistent in its' portrayal of slavery, much of this is probably due to Stowe's unfamiliarity with the South's "peculiar institution" (she was a Northern woman who spent no time in the Lower South and little time new the North/South border) and in the nature and character of the slaves.  

On the first point, Stowe did do an excellent job in detailing the common occurrence of family break-ups, due to slavery.  Uncle Tom's last night with his wife and his good-byes with his family this next morning, brought a tear to to this reader's eye.  (Chapter X)  Also, the ease with which the trader Haley sells Lucy's baby, while the poor girl as gone to the side of the boat to try and see her husband, is monstrous.  (Chapter XII)  The desperate straits that Eliza is moved to go to in order to prevent her son being sold is something that a mother should never have to experience.  (Chapter V)  Cassy's life story (one of degradation, abuse and familial separation) in Chapter XXXIV is also harrowing.

In addition, the details dealing with the internal slave trade, the Middle Passage, the abuses heaped on slaves by their masters, and some of the inner-workings of the aid that slaves had in getting to Canada were also well presented.  Though Haley, Marks and Tom Loker are a bit stereotypical, they proceed at their jobs of slave dealing and fugitive slave tracking matter-of-factly and with a certain degree of professionalism, (Chapters VI, VIII) even if they are all rather like scoundrels.  The portrayal of the Quakers, who help Eliza and George Harris on their way to Canada is also interesting, particularly the character Phineas and his willingness to bend the Quaker's rules on pacifism in the pursuit of a greater good, namely preventing the slaves he is hurrying away to freedom from being recaptured.  (Chapter XVII) 

However,  it also seemed as though Stowe was trying to appeal to both the Abolitionists and the Anti-slavery contingents.  Her descriptions of the Africans made it clear that though she was in favor of the total ending of slavery and couched its' wrongness in the religious words of the fervent abolitionist, she was also careful to never state that she was in favor of political and social equality between Blacks and Whites.  While personally, she might have been in favor of this, the book is less absolute on it.

In addition, Uncle Tom's Cabin seems to show Stowe's support for the colonization movement in Africa.  This is most obvious in Chapter XLIII with George Harris' thoughts on the new colony of Liberia:

1. On the shores of Africa I see a republic, - a republic formed of picked men, who, by energy and self-educating force, have, in many cases, individually, raised themselves above a condition of slavery. Having gone through a preparatory stage of feebleness, this republic has, at last, become an acknowledged nation on the face of the earth, - acknowledged by both France and England. There it is my wish to go, and find myself a people.

George Harris no longer considers himself an American and rather sees himself as an African, which is anathema to what abolitionist profess to believe in.  It is rather the Anti-slavery contingent that wish to send the black people back to Africa; out of sight, out of mind, no longer America's problem, thereby ending the problem of what to do with the Blacks once they have been freed.  For if they are considered "free human beings", then it can no longer be argued that they are NOT worthy of the same rights as White men:  "The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", included in this of course, is the right to have a family, own land, businesses and property, earn money however they wish, vote and hold public office.  Both sides, abolitionist and anti-slavery, desire to see the end of slavery, but for different reasons and with different results for the ex-slaves.  


In short, Harriet Beecher Stowe, though obviously outraged over slavery, seems to have written Uncle Tom's Cabin as a novel with appeals to both sides of the anti-slavery argument.  Both Abolitionists and Anti-slavery will find sections of the novel pleasing to their belief structure and thus I believe that either Stowe was masking her true feelings in regards to the nature of Negroes or she was perhaps attempting to provide both sides with a common rallying point, something they could both agree and unite behind.