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There are some books in our culture that people commonly misinterpret. They claim to know what the books say but have never read them. The Bible is often treated that way. How many times have I heard “God helps those who help themselves” said to be a quote from the Bible, when the Bible actually says no such thing. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is another such book. Characters from this book have entered our language as idioms. An “Uncle Tom” is used, by people who have never read the book, to mean an African-American who acts in a cringing way towards white people, flattering them and simpering to get the favor of the ruling class.
This is a total reversal of the main character, Uncle Tom, and a terrible idiom. He is a profoundly Christian man, kind to his family, loyal to God through Jesus Christ, with great strength of character. He is also a slave who does not fight his enslaved condition but bears up and works hard for different masters, including a final, cruel one. He follows 1 Corinthians Chapter 7: 21-22 “Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. 22 For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise, he who is called while free is Christ’s slave.” Tom encourages several young women slaves to escape because they have been abused by Simon Legree, his final master. Tom dies a martyr, killed by Simon Legree for not revealing where the escaped slaves went and for not abandoning his Christian beliefs. Throughout the novel, Tom’s life and witness have profound eternal effects on many of those around him.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. She wanted to write a story that would make people see the common humanity of the African slave and the cruel injustice of the slave trade, among which was the appalling sin of separating families. She believed that true Christianity and slavery could not continue to co-exist. Her sub-title for her novel was “Life Among the Lowly,” indicating that slaves were human and deserved freedom just like any other human being. Stowe drew on various first-person slave narratives to inform her plot. In fact, in response to harsh criticism from critics in the southern states who said that “she made it all up,” in 1853 she published A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was an annotated biography leading readers through her sources to show that she “didn’t make it all up.”
The cruelties that she depicted in her novel took the United States by storm by tearing back the curtain from the institution of slavery to show what really happened to enslaved people. She tried to tell a truthful story. There were kind masters as well as cruel masters, just as there were enslaved people who acted well and those who didn’t. She even included Northern people who disapproved of slavery but didn’t like people with a non-white color. She treated people and slavery realistically, which is why she drew such harsh criticism from the south. But she wove an exciting plot around her main character, Uncle Tom, and many other secondary characters. Stowe’s novel, above all, is worth reading because it tells a very interesting story with clearly-drawn characters who compel the reader’s emotions. It has a clear Biblical worldview and teaches deeply-rooted lessons about slavery, forcing the reader to directly confront the truth of American slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the bestselling novel and second best-selling book, behind the Bible, in the 19th century. It started out as a magazine serial. Turned into a book, it sold 3000 copies the first day and 300,000 US copies in the first year of publication. Remember, the total population in 1850, including enslaved people, was about 23,000,000 compared to about 330,000,000 today. Therefore, 300,000 copies sold in one year in 1852 would be the equivalent of 4.2 million copies sold in one year today! In England, 1.5 million copies were sold in a few years.
Finally, if for no other reason, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is worth reading because it is simply a great story. It is a book for high school or beyond, and would be a great supplement to a high school study of the American Civil War.