Uncle Tom's Cabin Published -- March 20, 1852
On March 20, 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly, an antislavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was first published as a book. It initially appeared in serial form in National Era, an abolitionist newspaper, from June 1851 to April 1852. The novel focuses on the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery by centering on the horrifying travails of the pious, Christian slave Uncle Tom. A cruel and vicious plantation owner, Simon Legree, buys Tom, and Tom's innate goodness and Christian faith repel Legree who repeatedly mistreats Tom and his other slaves. In the end, Legree orders his overseers to beat Tom severely after he refuses to reveal the hiding place of two runaway slaves. Tom dies just as his former owner arrives to buy him back.
Uncle Tom's Cabin galvanized Northern opposition to slavery in the 1850s, which was Stowe's intention; she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in response to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which mandated the return of runaway slaves to their owners. The book appeared as the nation debated the merits of slavery, and the public's reaction was extraordinary. Its emotional appeal incensed Northerners and rallied many of them against slavery. Southerners, too, read the book, but it often evoked a different reaction. Some believed it was a fabrication, and others sought to ban it. And by inflaming public opinion concerning slavery, the novel made it much more difficult to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. Years later, Abraham Lincoln reflected on the influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin as a cause of the Civil War. According to legend, when Lincoln met Stowe, he remarked, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."
Stowe's portrayals of slavery and African Americans were complicated. Slavery was seen as the source of vice, cruelty, and human depravity, with Legree as its embodiment. In her main character Tom, Stowe created a humane, honorable, and brave person; Tom even forgave Legree in a final act of Christian compassion. But critics have also pointed out that the book largely reinforced 1850s-era stereotypes about African Americans. For example, Stowe portrayed only light-skinned blacks as intelligent, while characterizing dark-skinned blacks as docile and submissive. Still the book sold about 300,000 copies in 1852 alone and was a best seller throughout the 19th century.
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