Lynn Crain
McFall
Eng 201
July 15, 2011
Slavery and Racism
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the mid-1800s. Stowe was well educated and was raised in strong Christian and Calvinist beliefs (Weinstein). Her writing of this novel reflects things she was witness to as well as things she was told. Stowe opposed slavery and racism (Novels). These became major themes in her novel.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Stowe has two main plots going through the novel. The first plot Uncle Tom’s story. He is an old slave, very reliable and trustworthy. His master is a kind man and treats his slaves well. Hard times fall on the master, and he must sell two of his slaves to pay the bills. Tom is one of the two chosen to be sold. Tom must leave his family and travel to New Orleans with a trader. Tom becomes friends with a young girl on the ship that is carrying them to New Orleans. The girl’s father buys Tom at her request. Tom once again has a good master. He is treated well and doesn’t want for anything material. He does miss his family and hopes that someday he can return to his home in Kentucky. Tom’s young mistress falls sick and soon dies. The master had told Tom that he was going to set him free and that he had begun the paper work. It was his daughter’s wish that Tom be set free and could return to his family. As fate would have it, the master is involved in a brawl. He is trying to stop it, but is injured in the process. Unfortunately, not much later, he also dies. The papers are not finished, so Tom is not a free man. The mistress sells everything and moves back to her father’s plantation. Tom is bought by a mean and cruel man this time. He is persecuted for his religion and his dignity. When Tom refuses to whip another slave, he is beaten. Tom dies as the son of his former master has come to buy him and return him to Kentucky.
The second plot is Eliza. Eliza is a house slave to the mistress of the house. She is treated well and has been educated by her mistress. Eliza learns that her son is to be sold. Eliza speaks with her mistress about this and is assured it is not true. Eliza hides and listens as her mistress learns that Eliza’s son is to be sold. Learning this, Eliza plans her escape. She informs Uncle Tom of the sale as she and her son leave the plantation. The mistress delays the slave trader chasing Eliza. She is able to miraculously jump across a frozen river with the child in her arms. After crossing the river, Eliza finds help to hide from the slave trackers. Eliza and her son are taken to stay with Quakers, who hide her and her son. The Quakers tell her they are helping her because it is the right thing to do according to the Bible’s teachings. She is helped along the way by kind families who have a network of people to help runaway slaves reach Canada. She and her son are reunited with her husband. They safely get to Canada and travel to Africa. Slavery is a large part of Stowe’s novel. She shows that slavery is wrong for both the slave and the owner. The detriment of slavery is a theme in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “Stowe uses her white characters not so much as vessels of racism but more as mouth pieces of racist attitudes” (Novel). Stowe uses conversations by Augustine St. Clare to present debates concerning slavery. St. Clare had discussions about slavery with his wife, his cousin from the North, his brother and his daughter. These conversations illustrate problems with racism and slavery.
St. Clare’s wife, Marie, saw blacks as only good to serve others. She felt they lacked intelligence and feeling. St. Clare differed with her. He was much kinder to the slaves. Marie thought he was too kind and that his easy going with them was detrimental.
The discussions St. Claire had with his cousin, Miss Ophelia, showed that Miss Ophelia was against slavery. Being from the North, it was expected that Miss Ophelia would oppose slavery. The odd thing was she didn’t want anything to do with black people. She expressed her displeasure to St. Clare upon arriving at his home and seeing Eva hugging and kissing the slaves (Stowe 2517). Miss Ophelia came around to accepting black people as true human beings by the love of Eva. Miss Ophelia received a slave, Topsy, from St. Clare as a gift. The slave was unruly and tried Miss Ophelia’s patience greatly. Miss Ophelia developed an appreciation for different races by dealing with Topsy and watching Eva’s Christian love (Weinstein).
St. Clare and his brother didn’t agree on how to treat slaves. St. Clare’s brother, Alfred, ruled his slaves with an iron fist. Alfred felt that blacks were an inferior race. Alfred told St. Clare in one of their discussions “Because, we can see plainly enough that all men are not born free, nor born equal; they are born anything else” (Stowe 4074-78). St. Clare sees that they are not an inferior race and that they will be educated. Their education is just a choice of what kind of education: “Our system is educating them in barbarism and brutality. We are making them brute beasts;” (Stowe 4078-83).
When St. Clare discusses the slaves with his daughter, Eva, she pleads for her father to set them free. Eva is loved by all and loves all. In Eva and her father’s discussion before Eva dies, she begs her father to free the slaves. He tells her their slaves are living well. Eva talks to him more about the issue of slavery. Eva wants all slaves to be free. St. Clare concedes that slavery is wrong and says that he wishes there were no slaves. He doesn’t know what can be done about it (Stowe 4214-18). It was Eva’s wish that Tom be set free. Her father began the paperwork. Stowe uses conversations with St. Clare agreeing that slavery is wrong, but not knowing how to end it in a realistic view. The slaves couldn’t be suddenly free. They had to be educated. They would need a home, clothing and food. Stowe shows that slavery is wrong, but that it has also become a complicated issue. It needs to be abolished, but in doing so, the newly freed people will need to be cared for: “Stowe illustrates that although slavery debases everyone involved, simply freeing the slaves would not solve the problem of race in America” (Hacht).
Stowe used the voice of Mrs. Shelby to express her opinion of slavery (Hacht).
Mrs. Shelby was very good to her slaves. She educated them as well as cared for them. Eliza was Mrs. Shelby’s personal slave. Eliza was beautiful and educated. Mrs. Shelby learned that her husband was to sell Eliza’s son, Harry, and Uncle Tom to meet the bills. Mrs. Shelby had thought that her slaves were better off with her than if they were free. Upon learning of the sale of the two slaves, Mrs. Shelby pled with her husband to change his mind. He explains there is no other way. Through this Mrs. Shelby realizes how wrong she was to think that owning human beings was in itself a sin (Hacht). Mrs. Shelby says, “This is God’s curse on slavery!--a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!-- a curse to the master and a curse to the slave!” (Stowe 495-501). Stowe used Mrs. Shelby to show that slavery is wrong, even in the best of circumstances. When Tom was sold to Legree he was abused. All the slaves of the plantation were mistreated. The slaves here were truly treated like low life animals. Soon after buying Tom, Legree finds Tom’s hymn book. Legree tells Tom, “I’m your church now! You understand,--you’ve got to be as I say” (Stowe 5105-10). The slaves were not allowed to worship, they were kept uneducated, and all they knew was to work. The slaves did learn to be cold and brutal. This they learned from their master, Legree, and from slaves who had been on that plantation longer. Quimbo and Sambo were two slaves on Legree’s plantation. They were used to punish other slaves. Upon Legree’s orders, they would whip or beat another person. Stowe used these two characters to show how slavery brutalizes people. When a person only lives in harsh circumstances that is what they learn to be: “Stowe uses Legree’s plantation to dramatize the level of brutality to which both master and slave are reduced” (Hacht). Legree loves his power over his slaves. Legree’s love of power contributes to his brutality and meanness. This trait his learned by his slaves. Stowe uses this as a plea to end slavery because of the damage it does to the slaves and to the owners. Racism is another strong theme in Stowe’s novel. It was thought that black people did not have feelings like other people did. Opinion varied to whether they had any feeling or a small amount. In the eyes of slave owners, it was okay to separate mothers from their children and wives from husbands. When Haley was talking to Mr. Shelby about buying Harry and how Eliza would take it, Haley said, “These critters ain’t like white folks, you know; they get over things, only manage right” (Stowe 68-73). Haley was trying to get Mr. Shelby to send Eliza away for a day to a week in order to take Harry while she was gone. It was his opinion that when she returned, the boy would be gone and all would be fine. He suggested giving Eliza a new pair of earrings to smooth things over. Stowe uses the pain of having a child taken from its mother to appeal to white mothers (Hacht). She does this to draw attention to the fact that slavery is wrong and that these slave mothers feel the pain just as would a white woman upon having her child taken from her. Stowe also shows this by putting Eliza with white women in the free world. She shows that the free women can love and enjoy their children without fear, but Eliza is running to keep her son with her (Novels).
Slaves were also thought to not have souls, not be able to learn, and certainly not be able to be Christian. Eva showed that by loving everyone, even an unruly person like Topsy, that the slaves could also become a Christian (Weinstein). Topsy was keen at causing disruption and saying that she was not loved and she had no mother or friends. Eva desperately wanted to help Topsy. She told Topsy that she loved her. Eva asked her to be good for her, emphasizing that she would not live much longer. Topsy tried to do better and live a Christian life (Stowe 4286-91).
Throughout Stowe’s novel, a kind young white person teaches Tom how to write. This shows the ability to learn. The Bible is read to Tom as well. On Tom’s death bed, he forgave Sambo and Quimbo for the treatment they gave him. Sambo asked who Jesus was. Tom told them both. The men both cried and said they believed and prayed that Jesus have mercy on them. Stowe used this scene to say not only can black people be Christians, but many are. It only takes sharing knowledge to convert someone from the torment of brutality to a life of love. Stowe also shows that the slave is a better person than his owner (Novels).
Stowe’s novel depicts the problems with slavery and racism. Stowe creatively has slaves interact with good slave owners and the terrible owners. She shows in each case the problems with slavery and racism such as families being torn apart, slaves not receiving an education, the lack of opportunity for spiritual growth and brutality. Stowe’s novel caused an awakening about slavery. President Lincoln commented to Harriet Beecher Stowe, “So you’re the little woman that wrote the book that made this great war” (Weinstein).
Stowe showed through her different families how it is wrong for a person to own other human beings. In each of Uncle Tom’s circumstances, he was done wrong. In the Shelby home, he was sold away from his family. Later in his life with Eva, St. Clare declares he will set Tom free, but St. Clare dies before it is finalized. Lastly, under Legree’s rule Tom is beaten, stripped of his possessions and made fun of. It may seem that all was good before Legree owned Tom. This is not so. Perhaps the worst incident in Tom’s life was being sold away from his family.
These examples of different masters had to be an eye opener in the days of slavery. The lack of freedom of humans is clearly shown to be wrong.

Works Cited
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin." Literary Themes for Students: Race and Prejudice. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 484-498. Literary Themes for Students. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 July 2011.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 1999. 297-317. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 July 2011.
Weinstein, Cindy. "Uncle Tom's Cabin." American History Through Literature 1820-1870. Ed. Janet Gabler-Hover and Robert Sattelmeyer. Vol. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1199-1205. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 July 2011.